What was the worst CQ/Staff Duty/EOC you have ever been on?

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 08:45:23 -0400

I have been on some rough ones...I had CQ last time my Green Bay Packers were in the Super Bowl, I had CQ another time when Daylight Savings Time changed (two o'clock in the morning came twice in that shift) and tomorrow I am going to be on EOC when Green Bay destroys New England! I am not complaining, the job is worth it, but I'd love to hear from you! What was the worst possible time you could have had duty?

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 8:50 AM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 08:50:06 -0400

I think the Christmas Eve to Christmas Day EOC a few years ago was the worst. We were mandated to wear ASUs during the duration of our shift because it was a "holiday duty'. I wore my Santa hat when visiting different CQs in an attempt to increase some morale.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 9:30 AM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 09:30:15 -0400

Memorial Day and Independence Day in the same year. My marriage anniversary is on July 5, so I got to sleep through it. Luckily though, I had some great soldiers then that bbq'ed and brought me some food.

Response by SPC Joseph Jones made Aug 12 at 2015 9:41 AM

SPC Joseph Jones — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 09:41:33 -0400

Had coffee while deployed and it was 2 beer night. ... I got no beer

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 9:55 AM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 09:55:45 -0400

My Company was doing a trench live fire, but for some reason I got stuck in the rear on staff duty. When the radios started going off it was mayhem. I'll never forget that night. After the wire was breached, two Soldiers laid in the prone, feet touching. One pulled security on the trench, the other prepped a grenade. We're trained to cook the grenade in combat, but for training purposes we wouldn't be doing that. All should have gone as planned, but the grenade had a faulty fuse. It detonated immediately after the spoon was released, killing one and seriously wounding the other.

That night and the following day were absolute chaos. Due to all the information flowing through us, we opted not to get relieved, but to wait until it quieted down to facilitate a proper shift change brief. Our 24 hour shift turned in to almost 36 hours.

Response by SGT Christopher Churilla made Aug 12 at 2015 9:55 AM

SGT Christopher Churilla — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 09:55:47 -0400

When the ball was dropped on the schedule and I didn't get relieved until FOUR HOURS after the end of my shift.

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 9:58 AM

MSG Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 09:58:49 -0400

I am not sure if it was one of the worst, but it was certainly one of the most interesting. I was sitting on Squadron Staff Duty (and luckily with one of the SSG from my platoon). It is somewhere around 0200, and for whatever reason, my SQDN CSM decides to pop his head into the HQ office where we sat. He is in civilian attire. Again it it 0200. I have my feet kicked up, Im watching a movie. When he walked in, I looked at him thinking it was someone either signing out for leave or signing in from leave. He looks right at me and asks "SPC, dont you stand at parade rest when you see your CSM?" And in my young dumb SPC mentality, I responded with "I didnt recognize you, CSM." All the while I never sat up or stood up and went back to watching the movie. To this day, I still wonder why I was not killed on sight.

Response by SGT(P) Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 9:59 AM

SGT(P) Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 09:59:46 -0400

SFC Private RallyPoint Member well, I think SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" would remember and "agree" that this has been the worst CQ duty on RP https://www.rallypoint.com/answers/married-e5-being-cq-runner-the-day-before-valentine-s-day hahaha!

Married E5 being CQ runner the day before Valentine's Day. | RallyPoint

Im a married E5. In my unit we have E6s pull CQ. My squad leader has CQ on February 13. He chose me, another E5 in the squad who is single, and a single E4 in our squad to be his runners for that day. There are 2 other E4s in our squad that are single. I had made plans with my new wife to go out of town for that weekend. And even after telling my squad leader that and informing him there are 2 single joes that he could choose instead of me he...

Response by SSG Trevor S. made Aug 12 at 2015 10:04 AM

SSG Trevor S. — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 10:04:27 -0400

I took my own Red Cross message on staff duty once.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 10:30 AM

CPT Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 10:30:22 -0400

Just so you all know have never had Staff Duty ever. The infantry God takes care of their prophets. But I have had Battle Captain. Really wasn't that bad. Did a lot of reading.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 10:39 AM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 10:39:37 -0400

Don't know about the destroying part, but it should be an easy game with Tom Brady out..:)

Response by PO3 Steven Sherrill made Aug 12 at 2015 10:49 AM

PO3 Steven Sherrill — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 10:49:15 -0400

Boot Camp, I shipped out on December 17th. Missed the whole Holiday Season, New Years, Super Bowl, and my Birthday all while in Boot Camp.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 12:29 PM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 12:29:52 -0400

New Years Eve on Staff Duty....received several calls about soldiers being drunk and disorderly.... Here's the kicker, went home to have a quick dinner with my family, get a hard knock at the door. By the time I got to the door whoever it was, was gone. But I heard a lot of screaming and yelling, I though nothing of it; thought it was kids being kids. About 15 minutes later here comes the MP's asking have I seen two naked individuals running around this area. I looked puzzled trying not to laugh and responded "no I haven't, naked? what happened?." They explained Apparently the wife came home from her shift early and found her husband in bed with another woman. She pulled out her tazer & pepper spray and starting shocking/pepper spraying them both, they got away naked. Imagine if I had answered the door a minute or two faster...I would have been staring two naked people in the face with a mouth full of food.

Response by MSG (Ret.) John Centuolo made Aug 12 at 2015 12:50 PM

MSG (Ret.) John Centuolo — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 12:50:00 -0400

I was just about to get off Brigade Rear Detatchment Staff Duty runner when CID showed up and started asking questions about a car across the parking lot. The agent was asking us all kinds of questions and looking at our log and even looked through our tiny, tree covered window to see if we could even see the car. The Staff Duty NCOIC and I just looked at her and were like, what car, what happened. Well, the agent told us...someone had broken out all of the windows with a broom, even stabbed the broom handle through the front and rear windows a few times (since it is safety glass it is harder to actually shatter). Oh my that was an intense two hours or so of questions. We answered them the best we could, and she went from 'why didn't you see it happening or why didn't you stop it' to 'oh, I can see that you can barely see the car from here, or maybe even hear glass breaking from here, and your checks don't cover that area but the Battalion is supposed to be checking there'. It was a mess. My guess is it was a jealous/upset girl that did it to the guy's windows. Sure would hate to have been that guy. Seems to me, maybe he brought it on himself.

Response by CPT Pedro Meza made Aug 12 at 2015 1:20 PM

CPT Pedro Meza — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 13:20:51 -0400

My worst was my most humiliating, 1975 my self and two male MP got beat up by a Lesbian WAC when we broke up her fight with her girlfriend, the WAC jumped us because we broke up the fight. The three of us tackled her and held her down as more help came.

Response by Sgt Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 2:59 PM

Sgt Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 14:59:39 -0400

The worst one I can think of is one time I was on barracks duty with another Cpl. For those of you who don't know, Marines wear their chucks aka service charlies during duty. Well, when a typhoon hits the duty is supposed to change to cammies. Also most of the time when your on shift and a typhoon hits you station shift until the end. It was about 2200 when it started getting bad and we went into TCCOR 1C normally the time to switch to cammies. Well we were waiting for official word from battalion and they couldn't seem to make up their mind about it so for the next 45 mins we changed uniforms 4 times. Eventually that got sorted but come 0800 when we should've been relieved, nobody came to relieve us. By this time we were in TCCOR 1E so the CDO and everyone else in/at battalion couldn't come to the barracks. But we stayed on for another 2 hours when we got the call from battalion that we were in fact supposed to be relieved so we had to make the Marines relieving us get dressed and of course they were hungover from a small typhoon party they had and weren't enthusiastic. While we waited, we got a call from battalion again and they wanted us to police call around the barracks in our flak and Kevlar before getting relieved. So we had to get drenched right before getting relieved and of course when I finally get off and lay down to get some sleep, we went into TCCOR 1R so we had to get accountability. I laid down for 17 mins then had to get up for me to basically say "yes I'm here in the barracks safe and sound"......was an interesting night though. I will say that much

Response by LCDR Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 3:57 PM

LCDR Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 15:57:56 -0400

I routinely volunteered for duty on Christmas and Thanksgiving back when I was single, assuming that was the right thing to do. Since I've been married I've duty again on one of those two holidays every year.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 7:17 PM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 19:17:54 -0400

Well, I was on CQ for the CHANGE OF THE MILLENNIUM while on Camp Casey Korea. Beat that.

Response by PO1 John Miller made Aug 13 at 2015 7:05 AM

PO1 John Miller — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 07:05:30 -0400

I feel kind of bad. My experiences haven't been nearly as bad as most everyone else here!

I would have to say that my worst experience was having duty the day after I got back from deployment. I barely had time to go home, eat, shower, sleep (spend a little time with the wife) before I had to turn around and drive the 75 mile one-way trip from my house to my ship.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 13 at 2015 9:52 AM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 09:52:38 -0400

I was CQ when a brother (I would call him a friend, but this guy was an idiot - but he was in my squad, so he was our idiot) was suppose to report for extra duty. Instead he went AWOL for the second or third time. I can't remember how many times he did it, but I do know this was the last thing. He managed to leave the State and gave himself up to the VA.

Might I add that the 1SG was very angry with us at CQ. I mean clearly we were to blame for not knowing where the PFC were at all times.

Response by PO2 Kevin Peine made Aug 13 at 2015 12:16 PM

PO2 Kevin Peine — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 12:16:09 -0400

I spent my 21st birthday on the balls to 8 duty driver watch

Response by LTC Jason Mackay made Jun 17 at 2017 12:11 PM

LTC Jason Mackay — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 12:11:18 -0400

Staff Duty officer on 9-11. Was also the BN S3. Had to supervise execution of portions of the plan to get Fort Carson to FPCON D. Lots frantic taskings and calls asking "....we there yet....we there yet...we there yet...". Many Young soldiers asking me what I thought would happen next. I told them to get themselves ready because when we figure out who did this, we would be getting payback at a time and place of our choosing.