'A tank crew pulling comm wire from the undercarriage': Lieutenant's dumb command gets maliciously complied with to disastrous results

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    Self-propelled artillery - اور ان 0
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    Font - Posted by u/PapaBjorn58 9 hours ago PRE Want it your way? Fine, but this ain't Burger King L OC When I was in the Marines (1983-1987), my primary MOS (military job for those who don't speak Marine) was Field Wireman. My job was to set up telephone and communication systems, primarily when out in the field. This included setting up switchboards, telephone networks, wiring into other communication systems, and the like. Most of the equipment I worked on dated back to the Korean War era, but
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    Font - One piece of equipment was a digital/programable switchboard that could be used with every other piece of comm equipment we had -- all the way from hand cranked telephones to multichannel radios. It was a cool piece of gear for it's time, but expensive as hell (right around $36,000 in the 80's). There were three different switching cards, and if you didn't connect gear right, you could blow the card out. Because of this, we did quite a bit of training before setting one of these bad boys
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    Font - To connect things in, we used comm wire -- copper strands for signals, steel strands for tensile strength. Wiremen would do their best to string it out of the way when it went to phones and such because it can be a trip hazard, get wrapped up in tank tracks, all kinds of stuff. We don't want our work undone.
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    Font - With that simple background, we get into our story... The Cast: Me -- the OP CC -- the Comm Chief Baby Huey -- the know nothing 2nd Lt. BAT -- the big a** tracked vehicle Big Man -- The Commanding Officer of the unit The Man -- The Commanding General of the operation
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    Font - In the spring of 1987, my unit was involved in one of the largest field training operations held on the East Coast. As part of this, the unit was responsible for setting up the backbone of the communications for the entire operation, and for this, we were using a bunch of those big boy switchboards. My crew (10 Marines in all) were setting up a system for one of the subordinate units, and after talking with the Comm Chief (the senior enlisted communications Marine in the unit), I knew how
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    Font - I'm there no more than five minutes when a 2nd Lieutenant comes in and looks at the switchboard. "You can't place this here, Marine." "Sir, it's where the CC told me to put it." "I don't care what he told you, I'm telling you it goes in the next tent over." Since the CC is off doing his thing, I do what Baby Huey the 2nd Louie says I need to do. I tell my team to break things down and move it to the next tent and restart the process. I take a look around and see we're right next to one of
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    Font - I go back to setting up the switchboard, and Baby Huey is back yelling at my crew about how long it's taking to set things up. I head out and say "Sir, what's the problem?", and he starts screaming about how long it's taking my crew to set things up. "Okay, Sir, two things -- it's important we take a bit of time on this because it needs to work, and I'm the senior Marine in this group. Come see me about the issues and I'll take care of it."
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    Font - Baby Huey did not like this and tells me we are to be on comms in ten minutes. "Is that a direct order, Sir?" Once he acknowledged it was, I said "Aye Aye, Sir." Cue Malicious Compliance I turn to my crew and tell them to run the comm wire on the ground. "Just get it done. I'll take the heat." One of my Marines grinned because he, like me, knew what was coming. I went back in, finished up the programming, and started to plug in the wires, connected the power and ground, and did a few test
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    Font - "Yup, I know. But, Baby Huey the 2nd Louie said that was wrong." CC gets a pained look, then shakes his head and walks outside and sees the comm wire lying on the ground going across the trail. "What the fu** is this???" "BH told us to be up in 10 minutes, and over- heading like we're supposed to would take longer than that. I tried to explain it to him, but he said he didn't care."
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    Font - The CC asked if I knew BH's last name (there were a lot of second lieutenants running around and this was before we wore name tapes on our uniforms), and I didn't. "Huh. We don't have a single one of 'em in our unit...let me do some checking around." With that, CC heads off.
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    Font - I tell my team to head back to our command post and I'd button things up. I did some check throughs, and waited for the CC to come back. Before he did, BH was back. After I told him that everything was connected, he said "Good job, Marine, that'll be all."
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    Font - About an hour later, my Gunny (Gunnery Sergeant) ambles up to me. "OP, did Marine's your team set up switchboard?" "Aye, Gunny."
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    Font - "Tell me about it." So, I did, and his eyebrow went up. I would say 'eye brows,' but my Gunny only had one. He laughs and says, "alright, get your team and come with me. Oh, and have them grab another switchboard and power supply." I look at him and he holds up his hand to stop me. "You'll see."
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    Font - We toss the gear into a humvee and head over to Marines, and CC, the Big Man, and The Man are standing outside the tent where we set up the switchboard. About 20 yards past on the trail is a tank crew pulling comm wire from the undercarriage, along with the mangled mass of what had been the switchboard. Gunny and I walk up and report in, and the CC has a rather stoic look. Big Man looks at me and asks "is this your fu** up, Marine?"
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    Font - "No, Sir, my team and I were following orders." "Is this what your ordered, CC?" "No Sir, it's not. My orders were to set up in a different tent and make things safe." "Well, then, who were the orders from?"
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    Font - At that point, I see Baby Huey yelling at another group of Marines some 50 yards away and point him out. "That lieutenant, Colonel." This makes The Man suddenly look like he's pissing a peach pit, and after taking a moment to calm himself, he says "Got this in hand, CC?"
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    Font - "Yes, General." After a few nods, BM and TM start off, but before TM steps off, he looks at me. "Son, I know you were doing as you were ordered, but, I figured a corporal of Marines could set a boot lieutenant straight." "Aye, Sir, that's true. If the boot lewey doesn't believe he knows everything."
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    Font - I found out later that Baby Huey had been on TM's radar for a bit. I also found out that he didn't have any responsibility for comms at all -- he was in logistics and felt his job was to make sure the site was set up to HIS specs. I'm just happy I didn't have to write up the damage report. (as a note if we had set up where we were supposed to originally, it would have made it easier to overhead the comm wire -- there were base telephone poles there. Granted, we could have still used them
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    Font - CStogdill 6 hr. ago I was rather...fortunate in that most of the officers I worked with were deliberately NOT in my chain of command. More than once I had to tell a Major "No" and didn't give a FF what he thought of me or the situation. Hell, once I had my Airman telling me "some guy" was banging on the back hatch of my M113 (Armored Personnel Carrier) demanding to be let in. I was head's-down working on something with my map and I asked if the Airman recognized the guy. "Nope"......and m
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    Font - Oh that Battalion S3 was PISSED! .....but not my problem. Yes, technically the M113 was Army property...well technically once it had my radio pallet in it, it was designated as an Air Force Weapon System. Anything that Army Major could think of to deprive me of my M113 (he wanted me to serve as his combat taxi when his tank died) would quickly have a couple Air Force Generals inquiring WTF. Vote Reply Share
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    Font - Listo4486 7 hr. ago I got to Panama in late 89 and saw one... said, "Wth is that!?!?" and commenced taking pictures. That was at Fort Clayton for in processing. Ended up at Fort Kobbe. I just assumed it was some weird Navy or Marine equipment... until I got to our motor pool. Vote Reply Share ●●●
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    Font - PercussiveTuneup 8 hr. ago And shit like this is why I knew I'd never last in the military. I made the mistake of taking the ASVAB test at 18 and had the Army pestering me for months to join because I scored pretty well. I just knew with my sense of sarcasm and don't-take-bullshit attitude that it would only be a short time before I was seriously disciplined for something. Reply Share Vote
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    Rectangle - kmarrocco 8 hr. ago Huh. This is basically the job my grandfather had in WWII as they headed across the Pacific. Vote ↓ Reply Share
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    Font - MarsupialLucky4785 7 hr. ago It's always logistics fu sho up Vote ryanlc Reply Share +12 hr. ago Or lieutenants. In this case, a double whammy. ↑ Vote Reply Share
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    Font - Hosidax 2 hr. ago I ran wire (MOS: 36K) in an Army Infantry company (82nd Airborne) during the same period. Can confirm, most of our equipment was Korean/Vietnam era tech. It's kinda wild to think about now. It was fun to read this story. Reply Share Vote PapaBjorn58 OP 2 hr. ago I got to play with some of the communicators from the 82nd. We got to do some training with y'all on the early man-pack sat com radios. ●●●
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    Font - And some of that old wire gear worked a hell of a lot better than the newer stuff we were getting at the time. And the TA-1 is still the best way to wake up the switchboard watch who fell asleep at 0300. heh ✩ Vote Reply Share
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    Font - GSOR1008 5 hr. ago I would have said"sure sir no problem, if you sign for it" Vote Reply Share
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    Font - EdBurgers 2 hr. ago I love bootenant stories Vote Reply Share

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