What Was Your Best Experience With a Superior While Serving? Share and Be Entered to Win!

DEATH OF COMMANDER:
http://thewall-usa.com/info.asp?recid=38710
LESTER EUGENE OONK
LTC - O5 - Air Force - Regular
His tour began on Aug 31, 1969
Casualty was on Aug 13, 1970
In BIEN HOA, SOUTH VIETNAM
NON-HOSTILE, GROUND CASUALTY
HEART ATTACK
Body was recovered
Panel 08W - Line 108
NOTE: ONLY EIGHTEEN DAYS LEFT ON HIS TOUR:
MY LAST SIX MONTHS OF MY SECOND ONE YEAR TOUR IN VIETNAM WERE SERVED UNDER LT. COL. OONK (AUGUST 69 TO FEBRUARY 1970). I HAVE PHOTOS OF HIM AWARDING CERTIFICATES TO SOUTH VIETNAMESE WORKER, OBSERVING BRIEFING BOARD WITH FIRST SERGEANT AND SOME OTHER PHOTOS I HAVE IN MY FILES. LATER, AFTER HIS DEATH AND I WAS NOTIFIED, I CONTACTED HIS WIFE AND RELATIVES AND SENT CERTAIN ITEMS TO THEM. IT WAS VERY STRESSFUL TO HEAR OF HIS DEATH, BUT HE AND I AND MANY OTHERS WERE UNDER CONSTANT STRESS DURING OUR TIME THERE AND I'M SURE THIS CONTRIBUTED GREATLY TO HIS HEART ATTACK. DURING MY TIME SERVING UNDER HIS COMMAND, I EXPERIENCED A SNIPER ATTACK ON THE BASE WIDE SHUTTLE BUS. THIS ATTACK WAS ONE OF SEVERAL SIMILIAR THAT OCCURRED OVER THE YEAR I WAS AT BIEN HOA AB, RVN. AGAIN, A BUS RIDE WAS KNOWN TO BE SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT. I HAVE THOUGHT LONG AND HARD TO DETERMINE A TIME/DATE FRAME AND MY BEST REMEMBRANCE WOULD BE BETWEEN 1 SEPTEMBER AND 20 DECEMBER 1969. I DO REMEMBER I CAUGHT THE BUS NEAR THE OLD PASSENGER TERMINAL AND TENT AREA, ALONG WITH OTHER PASSENGERS AND DRIVER. MULTIPLE STOPS WERE MADE, PASSENGERS GOT OFF AND ON, AND WE CONTINUED THE ROUTE. IT SEEMS TO ME THAT WE HAD PASSED A BASE SECURITY POLICE OR U.S. ARMY PERIMETER DEFENSE HOWITZER LOCATION AND WERE NEAR THE BASE STEAM BATH AND MASSAGE THERAPY BUILDING, BUT I AM NOT SURE. I WAS NODDING OFF AND SLEEPING MOST OF THE TIME UNTIL THE WINDOW SHATTERED! I UNCONTROLLABLY DEFECATED ON MYSELF AND HAD TO FORCE MYSELF TO RESPOND TO THE CIRCUMSTANCES, WHICH I WAS ILL-PREPARED FOR. MEMORIES OF THE IMMEDIATE AND FOLLOWING CIRCUMSTANCES ARE FADED, JUMBLED AND FEW. IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE WINDOW SHATTERED, AND THE OFFICER FELL INTO THE AISLE, I GOT UP AND LEANED OVER HIM AND PLACED MY OPEN HAND OVER HIS NECK/HEAD AND EAR AREA AND PRESSED ON THE SITE HOPING TO STOP THE BLEEDING. THE OFFICER GURGLED A FEW TIMES AS IF TRYING TO SPEAK, BUT IT WAS NOT UNDERSTANDABLE. WITHIN SECONDS OF THE SHATTERED WINDOW, SEVERAL ARMY SOLDIERS CAME FORWARD FROM THE REAR OF THE BUS AND TOOK OVER WITH MORE SPECIFIC AND HELPFUL KNOWLEDGE AND TRAINING. OTHER TIME, DATE AND/OR REVELANT EVENTS ARE OBSCURED BY TIME PASSED. THE AMBULANCE ARRIVED AND TOOK THE OFFICER AWAY, THE BUS PASSENGERS AND DRIVER WERE INTERVIEWED, BUT NONE COULD TELL ANYTHING OTHER THAN "THE WINDOW SHATTERED, THE OFFICER FELL IN TO THE AISLE, AND WE TRIED TO HELP." SHORTLY AFTER THE SNIPER INCIDENT, I WAS CALLED TO LT. COL0NEL OONK'S OFFICE AND WAS ASKED TO RELATE TO HIM WHAT HAPPENED. I TOLD HIM PRETTY MUCH WHAT I WROTE ABOVE. HE ASKED ME HOW I WAS DOING, AND AT THE TIME I NONCHALANTLY RESPONDED THAT I WAS OKAY. COLONEL OONK REQUESTED I COME BACK TO SEE HIM AT ANYTIME FOR COUNSELLING SHOULD I NEED HELP. i DID AVAIL MYSELF OF HIS COUNSELLING OFFER THROUGH DAILY CONTACT AND MOST NOTABLY AFTER A BASE WIDE ATTACK ON JANUARY 5, 1970, WHICH INCLUDED THE AIR TERMINAL COMPLEX. NEW BARRACKS, PASSENGER TERMINAL, CARGO TERMINAL, HAZARDOUS CARGO AREA. AND UNIT VEHICLES, WERE ALL DAMAGED CONSIDERABLY. NOTE: THESE ADMISSIONS OF INADVERTENT BOWEL RELEASES IN TIMES OF STRESS ARE NOT INDICATIVE OF MY ABILITIES TO PERFORM DUTIES, LEAD TROOPS, OR RESPOND TO SITUATIONS. MY PERFORMANCE REPORTS ARE ALL FULLY EARNED AND DOCUMENT MY SERVICE. THEY ARE HOWEVER, INDICATIVE OF MY DEEP CONCERNS FOR LIVES AND INJURIES OF ALL AROUND ME AND MYSELF AS WELL! "MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS, AS SUNG BY DEAN MARTIN," COMES TO MIND, BUT THE LYRICS ARE OF BETTER CIRCUMSTANCES THAN I RELATE HERE.

Literally drove up to DIVISION he, ( saw a flag with a star, thought. What the hell, someone here knows something, ha ha) SAT ON THE STEPS, and the CSM walk out, " can I help you?" Yes sir, where the hell do I go? I was a shake and bake, I didn't have AIT...he ended up taking me in his humble to the field, my company was there, he chewed out my NCOIC, because he was supposed to be my sponsor. Lol.

I had gotten in trouble for something silly, don't even remember what, but my acting plt. sgt decided to send me and another guy, both of us were drivers, on field duty with Base headquarters. Turned out that all we had to to was shuttle half of their group back to their barracks twice a day, while they were doing their thing we were allowed to go to our barracks and just had to be back to make return trips on time. Well my acting Plt. Sgt. found out what was going on and tried to have both of us changed out for some of his "pet" soldiers, but the Fst. Sgt. that we were assigned to stuck up for us and basically told our sgt. to f-off , and that we were his for the two weeks, was like a paid vacation really.

Also, I was never tasked to do special duty again, lol .

During a long day with a crappy senior officer nagging all day. My direct supervisor, someone that I liked and respected sat down with me and said something that stuck with me the rest of my career in the military. He said, "You will work with some good and some bad people. Learn from them all. From the good, learn what you can and emulate them. From the bad, make sure that you never repeat what they do".

First off I want to point out that people of higher rank are not a superior. The term superior means that a person (in this context) is gifted in ways that others are not, etc. The post title is better served as "Senior Leaders", "Supervisors", "Ranking officers", etc. Sticking point over.....

For me:

While stationed at Kirtland AFB, I got the benefit of working in a small office assisting service member families. Times started getting rough for me on the family front (so many of us know that pain) and I ended up staying in the transient room of the dorms. One night ended up being particularly bad and I hit several bottles, to the point that I don't remember getting to my room (fortunately this was my lowest point). The next morning I was jolted awake by the dorm manager pounding on my door saying, "Stew (me), MsGT Rog (my supervisor) called and is looking for you, wondering why you are not at work."

"Oh S--T." crosses my mind and basic training pushes me out of bed, through 5 minute prep and I am out to the office. When I get there, luckily no one in the front and I go directly to MsGT Rog's office; still mostly asleep and evidently still smelling heavily of alcohol. I greet Rog with "Sir, I am sorry I am late..." and between my appearance, alcohol odor and the things going on in my life, MsGT Rog just waives it off and takes me to our conference/training room and tells me to sleep it off and we can talk later.

A few months later, I come to find out that MsGT Rog and his supervisor decided to put me in for an out of cycle promotion, even with the missteps I had during my time working for him. He is a man I will truly never forget.

While serving overseas as an O-3, I spent 6 months trying to convince PERSCOM that I should be assigned to a specific billet for my next CONUS duty station and received a "hard no." My boss at the time found a way to get me in front of an O-9 who was in the stratosphere of my chain of command to make the case for why it was in the best interest of the Army to make an exception to policy and place me in that assignment. Within a week of that meeting, I received orders for the job I tried to get but failed on my own. In that experience, my boss, and my boss' boss' boss' boss' taught me how one's rank should be used whenever possible to support the people you lead.

I had been out on commitment in the field serving as medic & ambulance driver for 200 OTC training in the woods in FT Benning. The Sgt. Major called me from the ambulance and had me stand in front of all the trainees. He asked the men what size bra cup I had. Then in front of all the men he grabbed my right breast & said he thought they were double D's. My instinct was to punch the MF; however, you can't hit a superior officer. So I reported the incident to my Captain when I returned to base. Nothing was done; so I found the culprits home address on base knocked on the door & told his wife to tell her husband to never touch my breast again. My punishment for interfering in a marriage was to pick the grass out of cracks in sidewalks. The general of post witnessed my endeavor and had is driver stop so he could speak with me. He asked me, "Weren't you soldier of post last month; and if so why are you doing this demeaning task?" I explained what had happened. He became irate & said I new sexual abuse was happening but no women ever report it. I told him we report it and are punished for it. He was immediately on the phone with our Cpt. He told him I was to be given 1 week off. And if another incident of sexual harassment happened to me and he wasn't informed, He would court-martial him. I had a guardian angel for the rest of my time at Fort Benning.

In 1965 orders came in to NAS Corpus Christi Hospital for a Hospital Corpsman E4 for going to the Marines deploying to Viet Nam. There were only two of us there so as senior to the other man I was picked. My wife and I were good friends with the Hospital Commander and his family a Lt. Col. USN MSC mustang, they knew my wife was 7 months pregnant so a couple weeks later I was told there had been a mistake because I had only 12 months and two weeks left on my enlistent and the orders were for 13 months. I would have gone then but today I thank God that I did not. My Buddy that went is now suffering from many diseases caused by Agent Orange. Very sorry about him. I think but do not know, that he help back just because she was with child and he was not married. By the way, he had been a Corpsman with the Marines in Korea then became an officer.
That is what is called a mustang.

I was the Officer of the Deck - Underway on USS Lexington (CVT) during the annual Family Day. The bridge was fairly crowded with our senior officers, their family, and special guests. Flight Ops were underway. Everything was fine until I heard a quiet voice on the bridge intercom say "I've lost steering control." With low voices, myself and the helmsman went through the steps to regain control and shift the steering to the other motor and ship's cable. Certainly didn't want to cause panic on the bridge. Flight ops continued for another 20 minutes. Then the skipper announced it''s time for lunch and invited the officers and guests to proceed to the wardroom. He was the last to leave the bridge, but first he said, "Mike, your professionalism during the steering emergency was outstanding and the bridge team responded excellently to your guidance. I've heard many good things about your ship handling and now I've seen it in duress. Good job." When he was gone, I extended these sentiments to the bridge team.
It's one thing to be put in a leadership position but never forget that it is the team's effort that turns a good piece of work into an excellent one.

I served onboard a ballistic missile submarine. Surfacing and diving was a complicated affair and because it had to be done right it often took a long time. My job was to rig the bridge (on the top of the sail) after surfacing and also before diving. The CO was usually on the bridge -- especially before staying underwater for a long time (months). He and I would be the last of the crew topside, and it became a 10 minute tradition, after I broke down the rig, to smoke a cigar, enjoy the uninterrupted time, and savor the view and the fresh air.