Tales From The Dorm - You Did WHAT?

 

And in today's tale from the dorm I'm gonna tell on myself.  I mean, you have to be able to laugh at yourself, right?  And trust me, you're gonna laugh at this one!

I graduated from the Military Training Instructor School (MTIS) on December 17, 1982, which just also happened to be the night of my squadron Christmas party.  As I was at home that afternoon I got a phone call from the squadron telling me that I had been assigned to Dorm B-3 under a firebrand of an MTI by the name of SSgt Patricia D. Barrett (now Barrett-Kennedy).  Pat was a short little black woman who was without a doubt the finest MTI it was ever my pleasure to meet, let alone work with.  She had a level of professionalism that was second to none, and she taught me things about training and supervision that I used for the rest of my military career and again into my civilian career as well.  I admire the hell out of her, and I'm not afraid to say it.

I was also told that we had been 'alerted,' which means that we would be picking up a brand new flight of recruits that night - or rather, very early the next morning.  I was told that SSgt Barrett had already set up the dorm, and that I should be available when the phone call came letting me know that my new flight was on the way to the squadron.  So my wife and I went to the Christmas party, had a good time, and were back at the house by ten PM.  An hour later the phone call came, so it was into uniform and off to the squadron for me.  

I must admit that I was both proud and nervous as hell as I got out of my car in the squadron parking lot, putting on my brand-new campaign hat and adjusting it 'just so.'  I just hoped that I didn't foul things up too badly on my first night picking up my first flight, and I was really nervous about letting SSgt Barrett down.

I had no idea what was coming.

SSgt Barrett was there as well; I had graduated from MTIS, sure, but I still wasn't allowed to train the troops by myself.  I had to have a certified MTI with me, so that's why SSgt Barrett was there.  We met the recruits as they ran off of the bus, called roll, went through the mandatory stuff that happens when a new flight gets there (more on that later), and then it was up to the dorm.  Once we got them into the dorm, all 55 of them, we assigned each of them to a wall locker and a bunk.  The dorm was divided into two bays, 'A' Bay and 'B' Bay, with half of the flight in each bay.  I was working 'A' Bay while SSgt Barrett was working 'B' Bay.  All we had to do was get them to lock up their valuables, then go take care of the "Triple S" - shit, shower, and shave.  So as I walked up and down in the center aisle that ran down the center of the dorm with the beds and wall lockers on each side, I told the new recruits what they had to do.  I told them that they had 30 minutes to shit, shower and shave, then be back at their beds so we could inspect them.  I distinctly remember saying, "and when I say shave, I mean remove all facial hair!"

Can you see what's coming?

30 minutes later the new troops are in their underwear standing at attention in front of their wall lockers at their beds while we walked up and down the aisle looking them over to make sure no one was bleeding to death.  For a lot of the recruits this was the first time they'd ever shaved, so we had to make sure they weren't cut up and bleeding all over everywhere.

I got to this one trainee, and something about this kid just didn't look right.  I looked at him again, shook my head and rubbed my eyes, then looked once more.  Nope, something's definitely not right, but I can't figure out what it is.  So I walked up to the head of the bay and called out to SSgt Barrett, asking her to come here for a minute.  When she got there I leaned over and said very quietly, "There's something wrong with one of these trainees, but I can't put my finger on what it is.  Something just isn't right!" She asked me which one I was talking about, so I took her over to where the trainee was standing.

"This one," I said, nodding towards the airman.  SSgt Barrett walked up to the trainee, got really close, looked up at him, and in a loud, clear voice, shouted out, "BOY, WHY DID YOU SHAVE YOUR EYEBROWS OFF?"

The trainee immediately replied in a voice just as loud, "MA'AM, BECAUSE SERGEANT CRAIG TOLD ME TO!"

"I did not!" I shouted, quickly walking over and standing less than a foot away from the new airman, with SSgt Barrett moving out of the way as I did.

"SIR, YOU SAID THAT WHEN WE SHAVED WE WERE TO REMOVE ALL FACIAL HAIR, AND SINCE MY EYEBROWS WERE ON MY FACE I SHAVED THEM OFF LIKE YOU TOLD ME TO!" the airman replied, still shouting.  

The reason SSgt Barrett moved out of the way was not to get out of my way, but to keep from laughing at the trainee's initial reply.  But when he said that second part, she lost it.  She choked and struggled to keep from busting out laughing, heading for the door to get out of the dorm before she completely lost it.  I could hear some of the trainees snickering as well, so I knew I was cooked.

"Well, shit!" was all I could say.  I could hear SSgt Barrett laughing her ass off as she went down the stairs out of the dorm, and I can't say as I blame her.  Looking back on it now, 40+ years later, I laugh at it too.

Eight hours later when we got the flight out of bed to take them to processing, SSgt Barrett called the airman into the flight office and gave him specific instructions as to what he was to say whenever anyone asked him about his eyebrows - and they most certainly would.  His reply for the next six weeks was, "Sir/Ma'am, I misunderstood the instructions given to me by my Military Training Instructor!"  

For the next 6 weeks this trainee must have given that response a hundred times, if not more.  I kinda felt sorry for him, but not too much. 

But I can guarantee you that I never used that phrase again for the next 4 years and 21 flights!

Deo Vindice

IHC

 

  

Tales From The Dorm - Blue Movies in the Dayroom

 

Gonna take things down a different road for a while, I think.  There's so much negative crap going on in the world right now that I think I'm gonna take a break from all that shit and look at the lighter side of life in general and, in this case, life in BMTS in particular as seen from the MTI's perspective.

First, a few definitions for all you non-Air Force types out there.

When I was stationed at Lackland AFB TX in the early 1980s as an MTI, BMTS stood for either Basic Military Training School or Basic Military Training Squadron.  Which one it was referring to depended on the number in front of it.  If the number was 3700, then the term was referring to the school itself that administered Air Force Basic Training, or BMT for short.  If it was any other number (all of which began with 37) then it was referring to an individual training squadron.  And MTI stands for Military Training Instructor, which the other services call a Drill Sergeant.

I was assigned to the 3711th BMTS from 1982 - 1986, and I'll tell you hands down that this was the best 4 years of my 23 year career.  It was also the most frustrating 4 years as well, as any past or present MTI can attest to.  But it had its lighter moments as well, and those lighter moments are the subjects for the next few posts.  And scattered among them will be things that I saw that were not so smart; actually, they were stupid as hell, especially when an MTI did it, and today's tale is one of those.

MTIs are supposed to be the best of the best NCOs in the entire Air Force, and the selection process is long and rigorous.  (At least it was back then, anyway.)  These are the men and women who are responsible for taking civilians and turning them into Airmen, and it's a very tough, very stressful job.  Every moment you walk around in uniform and on duty, you are literally walking around holding your career in your hands.  ONE mistake, if it was serious enough, would get you kicked out of the MTI career field, and that would nuke your career for at least the next 7 years.  I say 7 years because that's how long the "Overall UNSATISFACTORY APR" (Airman Performance Report) counted against the points you needed for promotion.  Most UNSAT APRs were 2s or 3s, with the highest rating being a 5.   Get an overall 2 or 3 APR and you're dead in the water for promotion for the next 7 years.

But even knowing all of this, sometimes an MTI would have a lapse in judgement or stray from the expected and required course of conduct and do something that would end his career as an MTI and nuke his chances for promotion or, in some cases, end his career entirely and land his dumb ass in Fort Leavenworth with no stripes on his sleeve and a Dishonorable Discharge.  (Can you say "good bye, military benefits?")

Such was the case in the spring of 1984.  For reasons I'm still not sure of, the MTI of a male flight in its 4th week out of 6 weeks of training thought it would be a good idea to put his flight in the dayroom one Saturday afternoon when there was no training going on and show them porno flicks using a projector he brought from home.  (This was pre-cell phones, remember.)  After all, they'd been sequestered from all outside contact with females for 4 weeks, so they had to be feeling it by now, right?  So this not-too-bright MTI thought it would be a good idea to show them pornos in the dayroom.  

He also thought it would be a good idea to charge them a buck a head.  With a flight of 50+ airmen, that's some pretty good pocket change.  It went so well and he made such good money that he decided to do it again the following Saturday, only this time after he showed HIS flight the porno flick, he went across the hall to the sister flight (BMT flights always trained in pairs and were called 'sister flights') and showed it to them as well.

And he would have gotten away with it, too, if he hadn't decided to charge the sister flight TWO bucks a head instead of just one. 

As it so happened, the next day during Squadron Liberty the members of the two flights got together on the squadron patio to talk about what a great guy their MTI was, and of course it came out that he was charging one flight more than the other.  This pissed off at least one trainee in the sister flight, and on his way out of the Dining Hall after the evening meal he picked up a Critique form out of the box next to the exit hallway, filled it out with his complaint about being charged twice as much as his sister flight to see porno flicks in the dorm, and dropped it in the box in the Dining Hall. There was an NCO in BMTS who would go around to each of the Dining Halls every day and unlock the box where the completed critiques were, and take them back to the school for review.  The individual squadrons did NOT have access to the completed forms for obvious reasons.

At this point I need to explain what a Critique Form was and why it was so hated by MTIs. 

As the name implies, it's a form that allows ANY basic trainee to complain about ANYTHING he encounters while in BMT, and as you can imagine that form was one of the most misused forms the Air Force ever put out.  If a trainee didn't like how much his MTI was yelling, for example, all he had to do was drop a critique form and the MTI would be investigated.  99% of the time the investigation consisted of a simple phone call back to the squadron asking if the incident cited in the critique had happened, and when they were told 'no' the matter was dropped.  If the trainee had signed his name to it (which he didn't have to do), the trainee was contacted by the First Sergeant and informed that his critique had been reviewed, investigated, and that no further action was necessary or required.  But every now and then a trainee would drop a critique on an MTI about something that really DID happen, and this was one of those times. 

Two days later the Training Superintendent of the 3700th BMTS - that's the SCHOOL, mind you - showed up in that MTI's squadron with the OSI in tow.  An hour later they all walked out of the squadron with the MTI in handcuffs headed for the OSI's office for further interrogation.  The OSI took statements from every single airmen in both flights, all of whom verified that the incident had really happened and the prices charged, and when the NCO's courts martial took place he wisely pled guilty.

Last I heard he was working as a skycap out at the airport. 

While it's funny to hear this and to laugh at the whole thing, it's only funny because it didn't happen to you.  (And it IS funny, you have to admit!) But sometimes you just gotta sit back and as yourself, "WTF was that guy thinking?" 

This was one of those times.

More Tales form the Dorm later.

Deo Vindice

IHC