Oh the pay was definitely better as a 2nd Lt. We just didnt get paid until we were on active duty. But to come on active duty we had to buy our own uniforms. But to buy the uniforms we had to get paid…wait, didn’t somebody make a movie about something like this?been a long time since I had to point out a base pay table to an officer
You made a comeback with the "canned pickle" reference.
Bingo.I assume it was a arms room issue?
Ah memories.No dependapotamus is fitting in that tube...
I get it!Rag MOPP du du de ood oo.
Now I am really showing my age!
It's Super Bowl Sunday so bumping this one seems appropriate.30 Super Bowls ago!!! 1993: young USAF SSgt KellyinAvon is at K-2 Air Base, Taegu RoK.
Super Bowl Sunday is on Monday morning in the RoK since it's Eastern +14. We we're going to work Saturday and have Monday off. Or so we thought...
Low and behold an inspection team for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement with the norks was showing up Super Bowl Monday with 72 hours notice. This wasn't the norks, it was a bunch of our own Intel pukes. A couple months before these clowns showed up at Kunsan Air Base (one of the two main USAF bases in Korea) and starting cutting the locks on the munitions storage buildings out in the bomb dump because the keys were 5 minutes away. Caused a theater-wide shortage of these locks when they cut 60 of them.
More in a while.
Edit: I'm back.
So K-2 had (at that time) only 24 Blue-Suiters at the time. War Reserve Materiel Base, had a lot of WRM and a few troops on a ROKAF base.
Also had a HUGE bomb dump. Called a MAGNUM (awesome acronym) the munitions were maintained by the ROKAF with three USAF Ammo troops as the quality assurance evaluators. The MAGNUM was easy, open all the storage units and have a ROKAF Airman standing in the door at parade rest. They had orders to speak to no one from the inspection team. They spoke to nobody.
Then, there was the smaller bomb dump known as the USAF area. Good news: nothing out there that went BOOM!! Bad news: still 27 buildings, each with 3-4 doors. That's a lot of keys, had them on a chow hall tray. One of our Ammo troops and I went around and unlocked all the buildings, then sat in a truck at the gate and waited, and waited. The truck had a radio, AFKN (Armed Forces Korea Network) was the only channel. Chicken Man came on at 0900. Turned it off when the news was on so we wouldn't know the score.
We sat there, all day. You could not know anything about the Military, look at this place with a fence and building that look like these did and you'd say, "BOMB DUMP!" They never showed up.
Now from we were sitting we could see the gym, the BX, a couple other buildings including the AFOSI Detachment (Air Force Office of Special Investigations, NCIS with active duty not all civvies.)
So while me and Tim (from Buffalo, was about to see his Bills lose for the third time) sat there in the truck avoiding the news/Super Bowl score we watched the "Intel" types go in the BX, the gym, the OSI building, like there would be nuclear weapons in the gym, BX, or OSI building. Two dudes in an OD green truck in front of a compound that screams BOMB DUMP didn't cause any light bulbs to come on.
Everyone who had a VCR recorded the game. Two months later would be the last Team Spirit exercise. The norks left the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement over Team Spirit, the norks never came to K-2.
Edit: for those of you who remember, that was the Super Bowl Don Beebe ran down the show-boating Leon Lett.
I was a Logistics Planner deployed to CENTCOM after 9/11. Our team and the PERSCO (Personnel Accountability) team had to meet daily and crunch the numbers on the DRMD, to balance how many U.S. personnel were in country. It was a big deal if our numbers exceeded the local Status of Forces agreement. Sometimes, the Emir would get fussy with our embassy over it.2005: Young USAF MSgt (SMSgt my last 15 days there) was at CENTAF-Forward, Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. This is where I learned more about National Guard and Reserve forces than I ever wanted to.
We referred to both as ARC (Air Reserve Command) since for what we did there were very similar issues, mainly dealing with the dates these units and troops were on active duty. Active duty troops? Your active duty, that's easy. ARC? On a specific date they were no longer active duty and were for the purposes of Geneva Conventions a civilian (NOT a Civil Service civilian, NOT a contractor, a plain old civilian) in the CENTCOM AOR. I figured out real quick this was bad, very bad.
Keep in mind, Me, Jill and Rob (the CENTAF-FWD A1M, AKA the Manpower and Organization team for Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom, JTF-Horn of Africa, and the Coalition Air and Space Operations Center or CAOC) could not actually make changes (read this as fix the mistakes made by CENTAF Rear AKA 9th Air Force at Shaw AFB, SC) to the DRMD (Deployed Requirements Manpower Document) we could only send emails in hopes it would get fixed.
So the next rotation had all the F-16 units from ANG and Reserves. These units were there for 40 days, then replaced by another ANG/Reserve F-16 Squadron.
Active duty? They were stuck there until replacement arrived. ARC? They turn into pumpkins the day after the end date orders.
"The Rear" (what we not so affectionately called 9th Air Force) had 75 positions turning into pumpkins on the first rotation. I had an ARC liaison Colonel come to see me about it, he wasn't happy. I'd already had the problem identified and was drafting up the corrections when he came by, so he was unhappy with "the rear" and not me.
Well, they fixed those 75, and broke another 208 in the process.
More to follow on "the rear"
SOFAs don't always involve watching TV.I was a Logistics Planner deployed to CENTCOM after 9/11. Our team and the PERSCO (Personnel Accountability) team had to meet daily and crunch the numbers on the DRMD, to balance how many U.S. personnel were in country. It was a big deal if our numbers exceeded the local Status of Forces agreement. Sometimes, the Emir would get fussy with our embassy over it.
I always thought A SOFA card helped get ya out of trouble with the Korean national police after a drunken incidentSOFAs don't always involve watching TV.