Forum: Air Force Life

Just got this in an email from Dad and thought I'd share it with the crewdawgs Thumb

. This one's for you Cheers

!

From the Black Hills Bandit, the Ellsworth AFB paper...

Quote:

Commander's Action Line

Uniform Presentation

Question: Colonel Smith, I was in the shoppette last week at about 4 p.m. and was standing behind a senior airman from 28th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron with an aircraft maintenance unit patch.

His uniform was filthy, his ball cap looked like he'd drove over it, he smelled and was generally unpresentable. Don't we enforce standards on this base? He wasn't a very good representative of our Air Force.

Colonel Smith: Let me get this straight...you saw an Airman, maintainer, who was filthy dirty, stunk and had an oily hat?

Great! I wish you gave me his name so I could push away from this computer right now, drive out to the flightline and give him my wing commander's coin.

Why?

I suspect that Airman was probably on his tenth hour of work, had no lunch break, likely missed a single smoke break, was freezing to death, was pushed by the flightline "super" to fix and launch jets, was yelled at for one thing or another - all in an effort to keep this wing's mission moving - flying, fighting and fixing jets to fight again.

I wouldn't have it any other way. I'll take that hit.

F-16.net Sponsor

Gotta love that guy, not the guy in line but the Colonel.

Forum Veteran Joined: Dec 25, 2003 - 10:03 PM Posts: 679

Hell yeah!

Forests and trees....I keep telling my people....forests and trees.

Had an EXTREMELY unfortunate Charge nurse from the local ER call me a few weeks ago to complain about one of my shifts medics who was in her ER....after having worked a SIDS call.....at 4:45 AM....after being awake all night running calls, who had his shirt not tucked in. When being reasonable didn't work, I became unreasonable...which got the message through.

If the .008% of total managers in the US workforce who understand how to manage people, and what exactly it is that is important in their mission would expand to....oh I don't know, 3%....imagine how much more productive we'd be as a nation.

It must be a pleasure to work for that guy.

Its the difference between operators and shoe clerks.

cheers!

if i had a nickel everytime my uniform got critiqued by someone a sits in an office for 8 hours with lunch, as i get off a 13 hour shift in -10 degree weather.........id be a rather rich airman.

I'd have to agree with the Col. He knows where the mission lies and how it gets done. I had a 2nd LT yell at me for the way my uniform looked and that I smelled like in his words a$$. I proudly saluted him after my a$$ chewing after my 14 hours of fixing his AMU's jets and proceeded to tell him he could have my job if he wanted and left for home. The next afternoon the OIC and the Squdn CC had me in thier offices and they understood why I said what I said and both turned to the LT who had apparently complianed about being direguarded by a TSgt and proceeded to chew his rear and had him out on the line, with me educating him about what goes on on the flight line maintenance wise. Good thing I had 2 engine pulls that night and had him pull the strainer While my airmen watched in amusement as he got douced. Needless to say he left my crew chiefs and me alone the rest of the time I was there.

I love hearing things like this! I have nothing but the utmost respect for that Colonel, understanding and standing up for those under his command. I just wish I knew who it was. And this goes for anyone in a leadership position.

F16and117DCC, good story too. Thumb

to your OIC and CC.

have a hard time believing that was actually printed in a base paper. Maybe its just my jaded crew chief mind but i'm having trouble believing it. Would love to work for that guy though in a heartbeat if true. Couldnt find it on their base paper site.

Well, I'm glad y'all enjoyed this Very Happy

!

akruse21, I'd have trouble believing it too if I didn't see it on their web site Wink

. Here's a link to the article on the Black Hills Bandit's own website Thumb

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http://www.blackhillsbandit.com/article ... news02.txt

While you're there, check out the next article down...

If someone ever b#tches about the way your BDUs look at the end of a work day on the flightline, just tell them, "Well I guess that means I was actually doing my job."

Watch how quickly they shut the foxtrot up after that. Wink

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

Yeah, we had the same problem in the desert, my nice tan/suede Bates steel-toes werent very tan after about 2 days on the flightline, and we had some nonner officers trying to chew us out in the chow hall for dirty uniforms, until our Chief spoke up for us and proceded to embarrass them a lil bit for our sakes.

My new flight chief claimed to have read that story sometime last month, and told us about it. I just wish I worked for leadership like that.

parrothead wrote:

Well, I'm glad y'all enjoyed this Very Happy

!

akruse21, I'd have trouble believing it too if I didn't see it on their web site Wink

. Here's a link to the article on the Black Hills Bandit's own website Thumb

-

http://www.blackhillsbandit.com/article ... news02.txt

While you're there, check out the next article down...

damn i seriously googled for this for 20 minutes because i didnt want to be "that guy" who came and said BULLSHIT Smile

Their paper search engine sucks a$$. That is one bad a$$ commander. Glad to see there are still some around. THanks

Don't even worry about it Smile

. It took me about a half an hour on the paper's advanced search, and I knew the published date. Have fun Very Happy

!

Forum: Air Force Life

Letter That Backfired - Support from Command for Crewdawgs!