“GENTLEMEN! Fill me full of barbeque sauce because I’m dumb as hell!” - Steve (posing as Dr. Weird), Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Last night I was watching “We Were Soldiers” with my roommate, when all of a sudden I look over and notice her crying. Immediately I busted up laughing… I always get a kick out of people that have this belief that people in the armed forces are valiant and inhumanly selfless. People are people, and just because you join the military and become a leader, doesn’t make you Captain Fucking America, or to quote Dana Carvey, “Folks, it don’t work that way, you cannot pee into a Mr. Coffee and get tasters choice.” Every once in a while, you’ll come across a leader that really will be a mentor, but they are as common as tastefully done scat films.

There is a higher chance you’ll run into 10 antisemitic officers
before you run into one a fraction as good as Hollywood makes them out to be.

Here is are cliff-notes on the US Air Force and it’s enlisted leadership…

Being in the military has exposed me to many things. Some of which are:

• That it is possible to make a living through being as lazy as possible, just as long as you keep quiet and don’t stand out.
• It doesn’t matter how smart you are, there will always be someone much more dumb than you that will take credit for your work.
• If you have extra knowledge on a certain subject and happen to show interest in it, you have now just become the person they will call into work at 3am when something goes wrong in that area. You will also not get a single bit of recognition for it.
• You will only get a medal or award if they absolutely have to give one to you. Nobody will go out of their way to write up a package for a decoration unless you are about to leave your current base or unless you were shot.
• It doesn’t matter how good you are at your job if you do a lot of volunteer work and kiss ass.

The above are all great examples of military apathy/idiocy, but my favorite HAS to be the fact that they don’t really watch who they promote.

In the Air Force, you have to take a written test over Air Force history and customs (a totally worthless test) and then a test covering the tasks of our job (a test that is normally out of date and most of the stuff on it doesn’t apply to you) to be promoted. This system HAS to be one of the absolute worst ways to do this. If I was looking for people to fill potential leadership positions, I would not look for someone who knows how to properly display a flag on a casket or knows how to clean out of date computer equipment that was phased out years ago. But then again, if I was running the show, you wouldn’t even be wearing those uniforms unless you were in combat (seriously, you think we really need to be in camouflage if I’m just sitting here in a peaceful office adding user accounts to active directory).

Yearly, the promotion list comes out for the whole Air Force. This listing shows who will move up in rank in the near (or not so near if you scored low on the test but still passed) future. Before this list gets published for the whole military to see, each individual unit is usually told who passed and has some form of lame ceremony for them.

During my last ceremony in the USAF, I was called into work to attend because I “could have passed”, even though I failed on purpose, as I was parting ways with the Air Force and wouldn’t have received the promotion anyway. Needless to say, I was not pleased with having to come into work on my day off. So there I was, standing with shit-face on, watching the folks who are to be promoted get their names called off. One by one I watched folks, and gave the mandatory fake clap for them. The whole time this is going on, the only thing going on in my mind was “Please do NOT let Sweet or Chuck get promoted!!!!” Moments later, both of their names were called as individuals being promoted to the rank of Staff Sergeant.

Lemme give a little background on these folks. Sweet was around 24-26, married, kid, the prototypical Air Force candidate for the rank of Staff Sergeant. She, like the rest of the fucks in her situation, had A LOT to lose if she doesn’t render the proper ass kissing or learn all the dumb Air Force rules/trivia needed to impress higher ranked folks during water cooler conversations. She also had the WORST communication skills on the planet and has problems with talking to you for far too long about something you don’t care about and not taking the hint that she should shut the fuck up. She also had the computer knowledge of your grandma.

Chuck was an overweight male of around 26-27 with no attempt at educating himself past what he learned in high school. He had fully mastered the dumb clichés and lame jokes that broadcast “I’M A MORON” when told. He had spent his whole time in the Air Force working in combat communications, which means that the only thing he is proficient in is stacking pallets or digging foxholes.

Honestly, if this system was different, and YOU were in charge of who got promoted, would you promote either of these folks to a supervisory role in an information technology office? Would you want these folks responsible for helping mold young impressionable troops fresh out of basic training and technical school? Fuck no! You’d tell Sweet she was fucking annoying and you’d tell Chuck he was a moron. Sadly, someone with a fucking brain doesn’t call the shots, and last time I checked, Sweet is still a Staff Sergeant and Chuck has grown to the rank of Technical Sergeant. This is your United States Air Force.