Forum: Air Force Life

Well, I am tired of it. The pilots always traditions that are upheld over the years. They play Crud, f-ball, and have the Mustache March. "First Fridays" happen every month, Commander's Call is not a torture and berate speech. While we wrench's have nothing, notta, zot. If we have fun they take it away. In fact we have no traditions. I have been to 2 combat dining ins and they where only when we where part of the Fighter Squadron. Lost, I say we have lost our souls, where did the fun of being part of the unit go? Mad

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I understand totally. Pilot's aren't the only ones who need to maintain a certain "esprit de corps". I can only suggest goin' to your first shirt with a "troop morale" suggestion and outlining what you have in mind. He/she can then bounce it off whatever officer is appropriate for approval, even if it means goin' to the wing CC.

Good luck! Thumb

Active Member Joined: Apr 08, 2004 - 10:40 PM Posts: 201

EriktheF-16462 wrote:

Well, I am tired of it. The pilots always traditions that are upheld over the years. They play Crud, f-ball, and have the Mustache March. "First Fridays" happen every month, Commander's Call is not a torture and berate speech. While we wrench's have nothing, notta, zot. If we have fun they take it away. In fact we have no traditions. I have been to 2 combat dining ins and they where only when we where part of the Fighter Squadron. Lost, I say we have lost our souls, where did the fun of being part of the unit go? Mad

Well, sounds like a unit problem to me, You should throw up some suggestions to your boss, then maybe to the shirt

The only tradition I can think of a Crew Chief having is soaking someone with water eggs milk petrolatum.... when they leave; however lots of differnt fields have this "tradition". Crew Chiefs drink alot, but not all of them so that wouldn't be a good tradition, neither would a dinning in, as you wouldn't get the kind of participation your looking for. Almost anything your going to suggest is going to be off duty when your not puting jets in the air. If you do that your never going to get all your people there like you intend.

A tradition is something done that has always been done, and has roots in history of the unit.

I concur with all of you, thats one of the reasons I got out.

Tankrat, I am talking about AF wide. No unit can invent a tradition overnight and expect folks to want to do it. It takes years. That is my point, there had to be something years ago, but now they are all gone. I remember the standard when ops rolled a keg down to the wrenches on FF now that is gone because of underage drinking and DUIs. There is too much us/them in the AF now.

Active Member Joined: Apr 08, 2004 - 10:40 PM Posts: 201

I see what you are saying now Erik, There so many tradidtions here that its hard to keep up with them, lol

It seems like everyone is way to uptight to relax and have a good time. Even on "No Fly Days", we are basically sitting around doing nothing, when we could be doing something constructive. Every once in a while the Pilots will bring us a keg, but its usually the smallest keg they could find and we float it in no time. Everyone over 21 gets like 1 cup. I know that nowadays none of the new guys have any pride in themselves or in their unit. I've only been in for a little over three years, and I had to go outside of the unit to find the type of Esprit de Corp that I like. If you want to know how to solve this problem. Do exactly what my instructor in Tech School said they use to do. Have a no notice recall. Make it seem like they are going to war. Do it on a Saturday, so that everyone can be there. When everyone has signed in, have the Commander walk in and give a speech on keeping morale up while away from your families, and then suprize everyone with a good meal, stuff to drink, and things to do, Raffles, Unit Challenges, etc. Show everyone that the hard work they do is appreciated.

As for this DUI problem, Units don't cause people do be stupid, they do it themselves. Most of the time guys drink because there depressed because they feel screwed over all the time. Sgt. need to listen to their Airmen and find out how they feel. Show them you care and they will show you that they can work. Hard!!

Blue Fox Out

Great Idea, bring the moral up by calling in everyone on their day off! Sheesh you musta been a chief!

First of all, it would still be a day off, because it wouldn't last all day, it would last 4 hours tops, call everyone in at like 8, there gone by noon. People would still have the rest of the day, and it wouldn't be mandatory to stay. Come on, thats the reason why we don't have any traditions because everyone has to bitch and moan like they have something better to do, why dont you just have fun and run with it.

I do have fun, I have great fun. I love being in maintenance, I love what comes with it. IMO a tradition can't be forced, it's something that just happens, over and over. Traditions sometimes can't happen like they used to because of the way society and the way we operate has changed. Want to start a tradition, how about trying something and see how it's recieved, then if it was a good time, do it again.

When I was on active duty, I had access to an Army Huey and asked everyone for permission to go to 3,000' and do a 10 second freefall onto the flightline, (I'm an experienced skydiver), I thought this might spark alittle moral, (I'll admit, I'm sort of a ham), but anyway, it was denied.

Incentive rides for everyone!!! Applause

Erik,
Are you a crew chief? Playing CRUD and calling DEAD BUG are maintenance traditions. So it getting you pilot drunk or LAID for extra points. Ever hand out Code One Candy? Ever play "Pilot's Head..Left. Pilot's head Right" when they give you controls on an incentive ride. We all know that pilots get drunk and sing songs (I'm a AARB and fly the F-16" for one). Don't you know that crew chiefs sing songs too. Click this and learn the words
http://www.angelfire.com/hi/luckypuppy2840/sounds/wavs/wildwalt.wav

Does your airplane have a name? Crew Chiefs name them NOT the pilots (unless they have OUR permission).

Have you zapped another units? Do you know what that means??

In the 313th AMU we did Puppy Piles. Usually at the TDY squadron picnic we'd all be standing around and someone would start singing.

"Here's to brother (or sister) Sam (insert name here)."
"Brother Sam. Brother Sam"
"He's Happy, He's Jolly"
"He's f***ed up, By Golly"
Here's to brother Sam, who's with us tonight"
"So drink MF, (victim starts chungging their beverage at this point, knowing their about to lose it) DRINK MF, DRINK MF. DRINK!"

On the last "DRINK!" All present then tackle the person to the ground and the Puppy Pile starts with a tradition dog pile. We have had as many as 10 of 15 people on aboard. We usually puppy pile the guy whose morale is somewhat low or the PILOT that tends to break jets for no reason. Yes we've Puppy Piles Pilots, Flight Chiefs and the occasional person from other squadrons who've wandered to close to our festivities.

Puppy Pile in progress (that's our Flight Chief on the bottom, Msgt Fredericks)

So pilots get wetted down on their last flight? See what crew chiefs get on the their last duty day.

There are maintenance traditions. We just don't talk about alot of them. You learn them and pass them on. Hell, YOU make them up.

Oh yeah...one more thing go to <a href="http://luckypuppy.org/" rel="nofollow" target=_blank">http://luckypuppy.org/</a> and see what the best damn AMU in the history of the Air Force was like!

Forum: Air Force Life

Maint. traditions, what traditions?