Infinite Wisdom of the Military

Before I got half way thru my hitch, I knew the military wasn't for me. A couple of examples of the military intelligence that led me to that conclusion are as follows. They sent us a guy who was a painter. We needed an aircraft painter and they sent us a house painter. This guy had about a dozen years of working in Civil Engineers as a painter, painting buildings, houses and other things around the base. When he arrived and was told he would be painting aircraft, he said OK give me a brush and a roller and I'll get at it. Aircraft painting is almost all done with a spray gun. After trying it for a few months and deciding that that type of painting was not for him, he got another job. They put him temporarily in Training. After some months in Training, he got orders that would cross-train him and he would be permanently in Training. When he got those orders he decided to get out of the military even tho he was more than half way to getting in the 20 years needed for retirement.

Another example was the guy that helped me learn what I needed to pass the SKT test for the next skill level in my job. He was what they called a squared away troop. He would spend half the night working on a plane that needed to be fixed immediately and go home for a few hours sleep and put on fresh fatigues and shine his boots and be back first thing in the morning. He really knew his stuff when it came to doing sheelmetal work on aircraft. That's why the Coonass sent us over to the SAC (SAC Sucks) sheetmetal shop for him to teach us more about aircraft sheetmetal than the basics we had learned in Tech School. It's about the only smart thing my supervisor did. One day out of the blue, he got orders saying he would be cross-trained into missiles. He was smart enough that he would have done a very good job at whatever he did, but the guy loved the job he was doing and no way did he want to change jobs. He decided to get out even tho he only needed a hitch or two to get his 20 in. These are a couple of examples of the infinite wisdom of the military.