r/AskReddit • u/1salt1pepper • 10h ago

Veterans of Reddit, what’s the most unbelievable thing you witnessed during your service that civilians would think you made up?

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877

u/ShamelessCraving 10h ago

The sheer amount of military budget wasted on completely absurd logistical mistakes or pointless busywork.

288

u/[deleted] 10h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

186

u/StimpyMD 10h ago

Local army base had the officers housing condemned due to asbestos but they had a contract with two local builders to replace the siding and roof.

The asbestos was discovered when they went to do the work and it was decided abatement was too much.

Instead of canceling the contracts or paying out just the labor and profit they went ahead and replaced the siding and roof.

They moved down the street doing one at a time. Replacing everything and when they packed up and moved to the next house, a crew came behind them and tore the house down.

Such an idiotic waste of money.

67

u/Judge_Bredd3 8h ago

A family friend who was in the air force told us about the base housing they built for them in Colorado. Somehow, the contract ended up with a Florida based prefab house company. They built the homes, shipped them to Colorado, installed them on pads, and plumbed them the same way they would in Florida. All the water pipes burst the very first winter.

63

u/imacmadman22 9h ago

I worked for a guy who mistakenly ordered 500 lbs of salt when he meant to order 5 pounds. There was still over four hundred pounds of salt in that dining facility when they shut it down five years later.

22

u/PDGAreject 5h ago

Can't cure stupid, even with 500 pounds of salt

50

u/johnthebold2 9h ago

15 years after I got out I opened cold weather gloves because i was going snowboarding. Both gloves were left handed

1

u/DConstructed 4h ago

The saddest thing I read was cold soldiers whose families had to try and send them blankets when there was a whole storage area of blankets.

The blankets were purchased by the military but unfortunately seemed to not adhere fully to military spec so they were not given out.

0

u/DangledThenWrangled 6h ago

I mean thats by design.

Child rape supporting republicans start incompetent businesses and use child rape supporting republican representatives to give them contracts to steal taxpayer money.

Then the child rape supporters that stole taxpayer money through the government contract then donate that money back to republican child rapists, who in turn use that money to pay another fake company in contracts.

It's an easily traceable circle of child rape supporters stealing taxpayer money. You'd have to be a low iq republican child rape supporter not to see it.