What was the worst case of military career suicide you ever witnessed (non-criminal)?

2017-10-19T15:28:27-04:00

Stories of criminal activity killing a career are a dime a dozen; hence the reason I asked the question as I did.

For me, the most spectacular career suicide I saw occurred one day when, immediately after getting promoted to Staff Sergeant during a Friday battalion formation, this guy was given the opportunity to address the assembled. Not too unusual right? Well, once he was given the floor, he used it to his advantage in a very "go big or go home" kind of way.

So, as hundreds of us were gathered under the desert shade that afternoon listened, this guy proceeded to “thank” the unit. He thanked it for never letting him go home; for ruining his life; for ending his marriage; for…basically every bad thing out there under the sun! I’ll grant you, that unit was a bit self-serving and dysfunctional, but damn son!

Needless to say, the SGM and Commander ran right out there, grabbed him up--bodily, I might add--and took him away. One of the guys in my company said they saw him a week or so later in the S-Shops, and that he was no longer an E6, but that was the only report on that guy we ever got. He wasn't in our company.

That was probably the shortest lived promotion in Army history!

Response by CPT Lawrence Cable made Oct 19 at 2017 3:40 PM

2017-10-19T15:40:33-04:00

Career Suicide? I had a Commander that was fraternizing with a female medic assigned to the unit while we were at NTC (OPFOR augmentees). Apparently she thought that part of the deal was being excused from going to the field, so when she was picked up for other infractions, she dropped a dime on him. Didn't save her career, and it shouldn't have, but it did cost the Captain's his and a marriage to boot.
I can't for the life of me feel a bit of sympathy for him. You don't shit where you eat.

Response by Lt Col Jim Coe made Oct 19 at 2017 5:52 PM

2017-10-19T17:52:20-04:00

Army major who worked for me had to explain why a EUCOM subordinate unit failed to deploy for an exercise on time to the J3. His response, “Trying to get those guys to put their requirements data in for verification is like beating a hog with a stick. It just wears out the stick and pisses off the hog.” He signed the message on the ancient equivalent of a “reply all” email, Do-da Dave, MAJ, US Army. He retired a major

Response by SGT Christopher Hayden made Oct 19 at 2017 6:38 PM

2017-10-19T18:38:57-04:00

A Company Commander left his M9 on the hood of a HMMWV in Iraq while looking at a map, the thing fell off when they drove away, and then the entire company spent a few days trying to find it (yeah, like that was going to happen.) Guy got a LOR, and got out as a Captain after being stashed away at some school.

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 19 at 2017 9:41 PM

2017-10-19T21:41:59-04:00

Hearing a cherry 2LT telling the Regimental CSM to stand at attention while talking to the 2LT

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 19 at 2017 10:01 PM

2017-10-19T22:01:53-04:00

Hilarious lol

Response by SFC Jeffrey Port made Oct 19 at 2017 10:52 PM

2017-10-19T22:52:01-04:00

I had a LTC group commander, who conducted a surprise site inspection at a SW site in Germany. This was a time when terrorism and cold war was extremely high tensions. The site where we worked, two person rule and deadly force was in effect. At the end of my visitors briefing, I asked if the LTC had any questions, he pointed to our weapons rack and asked if those were our only weapons. I said yes, he then asked if they were loaded. I told him yes, the magazines were loaded and inserted in M16, but not locked and loaded. He shoved me aside, grabbed a weapon, locked and loaded a round and yelled out, "I am taking over this site!" I immediately punched him in the face and knocked the M16 away from him and me and another soldier piled on and restrained him. We then had the security team arrest him. Even though this was a criminal act, I am including this here because I thought it was not very well thought out plan to apparently test our response to a takeover.

Response by CSM Richard StCyr made Oct 20 at 2017 3:58 PM

2017-10-20T15:58:58-04:00

Officer after having been given a composite risk management worksheet noting that changes he had made to a mission raised the risk and probability of catastrophic injury to extremely high and recommendation to delay until an engineered safeguard could be manufactured (few hours, non combat) to reduce the risk and probability. Dude snatched it out of the NCOs hand, signed it, told NCO to quit whining and drive on without the engineered safeguard; 45 minutes later -one dead, one crippled for life, multi million dollar mission delayed for months, farther out -one suicide and others with PTSD. Yup that was by far the worst example of preventable career suicide I ever saw.

Response by SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth made Oct 20 at 2017 5:29 PM

2017-10-20T17:29:42-04:00

A 2nd LT getting a 1/4 ton stuck in a swamp, and a CWO3 coming out with the wrecker to tow him out. The LT coward on the hood like a scared pup.

Response by PFC Eric Parrish made Oct 21 at 2017 2:53 PM

2017-10-21T14:53:26-04:00

Come to think of it, the anti officer running cadence I sang on a battalion level run was right before my battalion level office hours with demotion....aaahh but it was worth it...lol

Response by PFC Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 21 at 2017 3:12 PM

2017-10-21T15:12:50-04:00

This Carl can never seem to do anything right LOL

Response by CW5 Ranger Dave made Oct 21 at 2017 8:09 PM

2017-10-21T20:09:57-04:00

As a Blackhat at the Airborne Department in 1977, one of our SFCs was in the sawdust pit teaching a class on PLFs with a Captain as the student/demonstrator. The SFC was showing the left side PFL and used his foot to show and get the demonstrator to bend his knees. Out of nowhere the Captain gets irate a calls the Blackhat Instructor to attention. That didn't work out very well for him. The last we saw of the Captain was our Major escorting him to the White House for elimination.

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 7 at 2019 12:26 PM

2019-06-07T12:26:58-04:00

There was a company CO (CPT) my last deployment that was a real piece of work. Never did anything and made his XO do all the work. Fast forward to the weekly BN CUB and this guy is giving his brief. The old man asks him a simple question about something obvious and this joker in all seriousness says, "I don't know, Sir. I'm just briefing what's on the slides". Turns out his XO always did the CUB slides and he never even bothered to read them beforehand. Relief for cause....

Response by LTC Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 7 at 2019 12:32 PM

2019-06-07T12:32:33-04:00

SFC who got a one way ticket to Leavenworth because his PL (married 2LT female), whom he had a crush on, "lost" a radio from one of her vehicles and he thought it would be a good idea to steal one from another Platoon to replace it so she wouldn't have to pay for it. So he steals a radio, pops off the data plate and tries to scratch the SN of the missing radio on it. Here's the kicker: The radio wasn't even lost. It had broken and was sitting on a shelf in supply and they just hadn't gotten around to replacing it yet.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 7 at 2019 1:43 PM

2019-06-07T13:43:15-04:00

This couldn’t have been good for his career

https://jalopnik.com/this-insane-video-of-an-apache-helicopter-crash-in-afgh-5895212

This Insane Video Of An Apache Helicopter Crash In Afghanistan Is Real

This video purportedly from Sharana, Afghanistan shows a pilot in an Apache AH-64 helicopter flying close enough to the ground to cause soldiers witnessing the incident to scream "Oh my God" before the helicopter hits the surface, nearly cutting into numerous soldiers before it spins wildly out of control. Supposedly, everyone survived. UPDATE.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Jun 7 at 2019 4:14 PM

2019-06-07T16:14:57-04:00

No kidding there I was. New 2LT, and a new unit. I get an appointment memo from the S1 that I am the IO of an investigation into a SSG who is accused of using racial slurs to refer to Soldiers in his squad. Easy, cut and dry investigation. Interview a few folks and that’s it. So I meet with the SSG the first time to do the legal stuff and get this thing rolling. I sit down with him, read him his rights waiver which he signs and says he wants to talk. About two seconds after that, he says “before we start I think you should know there are some seriously bad things going on with the officers that run my section.” Then he hands me his cell phone and presses play in a video showing the last 20 minutes of a strip “truth or dare” game between a Warrant Officer and two female Specialists from that section. The video catches the last articles of clothing being removed and ends with the Specialists both taking good care of the good warrant officer. Oh, and this was not all of the dirt the SSG had. He also had stuff on the section OIC who was a 1LT and a watch officer who was a captain.
The subsequent conversation I had with JAG after that first interview was awkward and took quite a long time. Needless to say, we figured out we were going to need more IO appointment memos.

Response by SFC Michael Palmer made Jul 3 at 2021 4:03 PM

2021-07-03T16:03:25-04:00

I worked with a Captain, the Battalion S-9/Civil Military Operations Officer, in 2nd ID early in my Iraq tour in 2008. Being Civil Affairs, part of our job was paying local contractors for projects they did for us. Said captain rotated out with his unit and, after he left, we were confronted by angry Iraqi contractors demanding to get paid. We produced signed payment receipts so we thought that they were messing with the "new guys" trying to scam money already paid (hmmm, why would I think that of Iraqis?).
Months later, after I am home, I hear that said captain, back at Fort Lewis, opened numerous bank accounts (11, I think) in the Seattle-Tacoma area and was putting in deposits under $10,000 into each account on a regular basis, thinking it would stay off of the IRS' radar. Well, several of the banks reported it, and it turns out our hero was suddenly driving a Hummer H3 and a luxury car, on captain's pay, among other lavish luxuries. They searched his home and found hundreds of thousands in cash in addition to what was in the accounts.
Packages mailed from Iraq were searched by Customs, but mail wasn't, so he was sending home numerous greeting cards each week with bills in them to his home address. $690,000(!) to be exact!
He had forged the contractors' signatures. He could have gotten soldiers killed over that by angry local nationals.
Needless to say, the Department of Defense threw the book at him. He did a few years doing menial labor at Fort Leavenworth...the military does NOT screw around when it comes to embezzlement!

Response by SFC Michael Palmer made Jul 3 at 2021 5:28 PM

2021-07-03T17:28:19-04:00

A battalion I once worked with "downrange" was a "super battalion" consisting of seven companies. One of the company commanders was female, married to one of the male commanders. Well, her husband was at a remote FOB and she was at the BN FOB. She and ANOTHER one of the male commanders started an affair. The husband found out, and things got...interesting.
The poor battalion commander had three of his seven company commanders involved in a "love triangle". Needless to say, there were some reassignments. I'll bet THOSE end-of-deployment OERs were...interesting. I'd love to know what the BC's comments were under "Integrity".
A soldier in my unit was attached to the battalion that replaced the one I worked with and he said that this story was STILL legendary a year-and-a-half later!

Response by SSG Brian Carpenter made Aug 3 at 2021 11:52 AM

2021-08-03T11:52:36-04:00

Early in my career I was stationed at Ft Sill a Lt gave the wrong grid coordinates and fire fell among Basic Trainiees in formation very bad scene not sure how it played out for Lt but I imagine it was a career ender

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 3 at 2021 12:21 PM

2021-08-03T12:21:29-04:00

A super hooah reserve BC had a in person field exercise in the fall of 2020.

Mind you, everyone else is doing virtual battle assemblies and to include virtual annual training.

Heard he was removed from command for one reason and I’m sure that in person exercise didn’t help his cause when world wide and DOD level lock down is being directed,

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 3 at 2021 1:03 PM

2021-08-03T13:03:00-04:00

Back in my enlisted intel days, an officer came into country via the typical travel means with the highly classified mission set printed on his persons.

He realized his security violation when he was exiting country and placed said documents in the amnesty box at the airport.

I imagine it was some jr enlisted MP that found it expecting to find the usual flesh lights, ordinance, knives, brass knuckles etc and is wondering what TS/SCI/ABC/XYZ means

Ended up being a big investigation

Fast forward, when exiting country at end of my mission the brief at the airport now includes instructions to hand classified documents directly to the briefer and not the amnesty box

I’m thinking, hey I know the guy that caused that change of the exit brief.

Response by Sgt Dennis Doty made Aug 28 at 2021 2:59 PM

2021-08-28T14:59:31-04:00

Participated in a Battalion landing exercise in 1976 on Montague Island, Alaska. The planners (including myself) failed to account for when the 80-100 inches of rainfall occurred. Delta Co was assigned to act as aggressor force and were landed by helicopter on the glacier. The remainder of the Battalion landed mid-morning just as the annual rains began. We also failed to note that all of the terrain between the stone beach and the glacier was peat moss which acted like a giant sponge.
By 0800 on D+1, we had lost two jeeps, several radios, most of our rations to flash floods and had a growing list of actual casualties from hypothermia, frostbite, brown bear attack, falls into crevasses, etc. Delta Co seemed to be having the worst of it. The D Co, CO repeatedly requested medevacs for his casualties and evacuation for his command.
Finally, in frustration, around 1600 he came up on the Battalion net in the clear. "Sir, again request immediate evacuation of my troops off this f&*(king glacier."
"Denied. Carry on."
"Sir, I resign my commission. You come up here and carry on."