Quote Originally Posted by Mad Pino Rage View Post
In the last three months, an E5 with about 8 years in the military smuggled over 20 pounds of marijuana from New York to here in Virginia, only to be pulled over just a few miles from his destination because he was speeding. Because he license was expired, they impounded the car and found the pot. Another girl, who was stripping as a side job but quit to birth and raise her child, went on vacation to overdose on heroin while her acid tripping friend drove her to the hospital and is now facing civilian prison time. Her husband is conflicted. The E-8 in charge of security and enforcing rules and regulations, a man with 18+ years, who struggled from being a lowly kitchen cleaner to cross-rating to a far more reputable Master-at-Arms position, was busted down to an E-4 and sentenced to some time in military prison for multiple counts of failure to follow orders by stepping out of his jurisdiction (ie spying on people when they were off-duty, following them, and arresting them and bringing them back to the ship), not taking of his people's paperwork leaving them on his desk for months at a time ignoring their awards and qualifications with their leave chits and orders, and assaulting his junior people with chokeholds and staplers and pepperspray.

Then there are other incidents that come to mind in my last three years at my command. The E6 who painted all the beautiful murals all over the ship inside the hangarbay and on various doors ended up getting drunk and shooting his best friend and another person on our ship six times and killing him. The officer who was to be in charge of our ship's damage control efforts speeding at 110 mph while drunk as a skunk. The E6 who sexually harrassed girls by showing them photos of his penis. Various rapes, gay rapes, fraternization cases, stealing, assault and batteries, and friends who have been mugged.

I think about this and it is only a minor inflection on why I want to get out, but I can only imagine the future candidates who get in only to cause a mess and end up not wanting to be there. A lot of people don't ever think the military through. I didn't, but I turned out for the better and am getting my benefits.
Damn, those are some problems... I've had very few discipline issues in my companies in the past; acted as the prisoner escort for a couple kids who went AWOL and tasted the rainbow of drugs (the judge at the court martial read a list of at least six different drugs) and seen a few other chapters and courts martial.

The only senior person I've served under who got busted was my first battalion Command Sergeant Major (CSM, E-9). He supposedly had child porn on his government computer, got busted to E-7, served a few months in the stockade, and was allowed to retire with most of his pay and full benefits. The most problematic "soldier" I've had under me had a history of misconduct before coming to my squad--including setting his parrot on fire, not maintaining hygiene standards, and being a perpetual fitness test failure. He finally got chaptered after over five years for lying to a commissioned officer. Honestly, even that was the third in a series of events that pretty much forced our leadership to play their hand. He came to me (his squad leader) asking to be reassigned to a deployable unit and blaming The Old Guard for his lackluster soldiering skills (to be honest he was decent in the field, but in a ceremonial unit field proficiency comes second). I stepped out of my role as squad leader (requiring me to go through platoon leadership) and into my role as company Retention NCO and took his 4187 straight to our First Sergeant (1SG). In turn the 1SG took it straight to the CSM, who started the process to get the kid placed on assignment. Not even a week later Jackass went to the Inspector General to file a complaint against the CSM and noticed the Sergeant Major of the Army (SMA) was there. He picked up his voice to ensure the SMA heard him, the SMA personally called our CSM wondering why he was not releasing Soldiers to combat units, and my 1SG got his ass chewed right after. Needless to say, the kid's assignment was expedited.

About a week after he was placed on assignment the dumb ass kid was arrested for shooting a .22 out the window of his home. He had also fabricated a "silencer" out of a Coke bottle and was charged with that as well. His assignment was hanging on by a thread, but the kid somehow got the charges reduced due to a "pending deployment" (me, another squad leader, and his team leader went to one court appearance but were unfortunately unable to correct the defense attorney). Two strikes (not to mention earlier ones) but PVT Jackass was still about to move to another unit. About a month after the arrest, with court proceedings still going on, Jackass loaned a vehicle to another Soldier. DC Police stopped the guy and arrested him for driving a vehicle with tags that did not belong to it and no insurance. PVT Jackass had taken the tags off of another vehicle he owned and put them onto that one but the big problem occurred when he tried to prove he had paid his insurance (he knew that insurance was the biggest issue because he had been caught driving without it once or twice before). He showed up with a printout of his online bank statement showing a withdrawal for the full amount he owed. The numbers were different and not aligned with the rest of the statement, though, and the balances did not add up. Also, the insurance company insisted that they had cancelled his policy for non-payment. Our Platoon Leader talked with the Company Commander and, with the full support of me and the other leaders in the company, ended up getting Jackass a nice discharge with little to no chance of getting back in. Fitting end to 5.5 years of other-than-honorable service, especially given Jackass' claim that he would be "back in the Army six months later".