h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just received my discharge papers from the National Guard today. They missed several of my awards and there were several misspellings. They put the wrong name on my Honorable Discharge Certificate. On my NGB 22 (the NG from of the DD-214), they consistently spelled ordnance (military hardware) as ordinance (a minor law created by a local government). That will look real good when I send that in with my applications to future jobs as a civilian Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician.

I'm not perfect. I'm a horrible speller, but these are two of the most important documents that a soldier receives throughout his career.

These are the same people who are going to activate and deploy in time of war. I fear for the republic.

I hope you sent it back and told them to do it properly.
I know what you mean, when people who are ment to be running things can't, or in positions of command, weather in the armed services, or in industry, can't speak the language, or spell it, or just seem so completely incompetant, it makes you wonder how the heck they are going to cope in a real "situeation".

I'm going to go up to state headquarters one of these days. I don't have the time right now.

You know, it really baffles me how people who work normal jobs keep up with life. I have Sunday through Tuesday off. If I didn't have two week days off, I'd never be able to accomplish anything.

You are not kidding; the thing that gets me in the UK at least, is the way banks close at 4.30-5 PM Monday to Friday, and often don't open at the weekend, or if they do its for a half day on Saturday. How are you supposed to go to the bank if you work a 9-5 during the week? Well you can do some stuff with cash-machines obviously, but not everything..
Oh; make sure you find time to take it back and make them change it, this sounds like a pretty important document to me, so I guess you want it to be 100% fine.

That's outrageous!

Yes. Take it back, and have them fix the thing. It IS terrifying when you realise all your hard work, dedication, pride, intentions, courage, labour, and personal threats to life and limb can be biffed up by a low-paid data-entry clerk.

When I was in combat (as I said in the Miranda thread, Classified, covert, don't ask), some twerp in an office miles away from anywhere who had issued the medical supplies, had been given, by some other twerp in some other office, expected injuries and casualties numbers. Based upon those numbers, the quantity of morphia we had for a two-week stint, ran out in three days. Because the mission was covert, etc, I couldn't just ring up and say, Get me that Medical Supply Officer's head on a plate, and your 'expected casualties' list is off by ten times the number, and send summore morphia because these kids are dying, in pain, because of you twerps!

I never did get to say it. No one died there, because it Never Happened. That's war in the Ozone. Instead, the medics, and everybody who could help, did what they had to do using *safe* and *reliable* anaesthetics, like punching a kid unconscious before trying to take most of the mine out of his leg, or was that his leg, out of the mine...?

They can't get Discharge Papers right. We trust these people to run a war? No, sir, not I. Never again.

Get your papers fixed. You earnt them.

Arpeggio, for LeKZ

My active duty discahrge was fine. Of course, I was sitting right there when they were printed. I had to read and sign them. They just sent me these int he mail.

Hopefully later in the month I'll be able to get to it.

Right,

You have to be sitting right there. Make's a person nervous: in the Military, of all places, to think 'I have to be sitting right there or it will not be done properly'.

Makes me downright twitchy, it does.

Arpeggio for LeKZ

I don't think I was making anybody nervous. I was so excited about liberation day. I just wanted to go catch my flight and hook up with my fiance.

I was also hoping that no one noticed that my excutive officer's signature was forged. He didn't show up to sign my clearance paperwork, so my team leader signed it.

My DD-214 was a pretty good example of a charlie foxtrot. The personnelmen on the ship put short-timers on the very bottom of their priorities list, it seems. Not only were half my awards missing, but they left off one of my military schools... which I can cash in for some university credits. I had to send it back to them twice. In the end, I still ended up with missing awards... but then, I thought awards in the military were bulls**t, anyway (hard not to think that, when my peers and I work 72 hour stints to repair casualties to mission-critical equipment, and the Navy Achievement Medals go to the guy who fills the soda machine... I told my division officer not to bother when he tried to recommend me for one at the end of my tour... "it won't get me a better rate on a house loan"), and at least I got recognition for my school.

I think they are important. Even though I've may have been shorted a few times, the ones I was awarded have meaning to me.

Of course, now they just hang in a shawdow box in my hallway.

Here's a breakdown of my medals, which may explain why I thought they were silly:

After graduation from boot camp, I was given the National Defense ribbon. This was because I was now on active duty during wartime (although Persian Gulf has recently ended, it was still being treated as a hostile fire zone, people were still deploying there, and so the ribbon was still being handed out). I hadn't done anything special to merit the ting, but just went through boot camp, just like everyone else. I dubbed it the "boot camp survival ribbon."

Then I went to my first tech school, in Illinois. Apparently, the command was cited for excellence while I was there. As a result, everyone, student and teacher alike, was awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation. All I did was go to school. I therefore called it the "A-school survival ribbon." I was beginning to collect these things without any conscious effort on my part, so I treated them like Boy Scouts merit badges.

I went to the ship, and they started throwing the things at me. It seemed like I couldn't put on my dress uniform without going the the uniform shop to buy new ribbons. For completing my first deployment to the Gulf, I got Southwest Asia Service (with bronze star, because it was part of an operation which followed Desert Storm... Desert Watch), Sea Service, and a Battle Efficiency, which the ship had apparently already won before I got there. So there were still some I hadn't done anything to actually earn.

I got some more during my tour, but I suppose it was too late for my attitude. Seeing the supply guys being showered by medals didn't help. I wasn't kidding about the soda guy... he received a NAM for contributions to ship's morale during a deployment, or some such crap. The guy who cut hair got one, too. And when the comm tech who singlehandedly kept the comm suite running on deployment was given a NAM for fixing the verticle launch system (which he'd never touched), it made the whole process seem beyond ludicrous. I was proud to hear that he stood up before the captain and refused it, and his chain of command had to write his reward up properly before he would accept it. I love to see incompetence get its due reward.

I worked pretty hard for my two Army Achievement Medals. One was my end of tour award for serving at Fort Stewart, which included Desert Storm. The other was for an impact award for an annual training we did in Alabama. I wound up with several campaign medals from Desert Shield and Storm from the US, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. That kind of amused me. It took a while for them to award all the medals. It was like every year after the war they gave us a new one for it.

Some things are kind of small. The Army as well as the Air Force has a ribbon for completion of basic training. I'm not quite sure what the point of it is. We also have a ribbon for overseas service. I have one for Korea, which wasn't much for the hardship of a tour in the far east.

I was always more poud of my badges. I recieved the Comabt Infantryman's Badge for Desert Storm. I also have the Explosive Ordnance Disposal badge.

WHEN I LEFT THE TERRITORIAL ARMY IN Y2K
EASY HERE SIGN THIS AND I,LL BE WANTING YOUR KIT.....
THEY GOT EVERYTHING BAR MY BOOTS N BERET
SO WHAT YOU DOING WITH YOURSELF NOW M8.?
I MET A COUPLE OF M8S IN RIYAHD IN THE "91"
ASS KICKIN CONTEST FROM ATLANTA.