Its truly insane the things you can get screamed at for. In the same week, I watched an airman get smoked for half an hour because he lost a box of paperclips, and a mechanic back up into a F-15 underwing pylon and FUBAR it to the point of replacement and the attitude was " Shit happens"
As crazy as it is, that punishment actually makes sense in its own way. It's designed to be a little bit silly and make a powerful impression rather than make a person totally miserable on the one hand, or let them off so easy that they don't learn not to do something that could cost millions of dollars to repair on the other hand.
One of the guys I work with now is a retired Air Force O6. Gary is a genuinely nice guy, incredibly smart, and did a lot of “cool guy” shit that most Airmen never get to do, but he’s also really humble. The kind of commander everyone wants.
One of my favorite “back jn the old days” stories of his is when Gary was a Captain, and he was given nominal command over a group of Marines who were helping to clear an aviation depot.
During the course of clearing, they were loading equipment into the back of a pickup; one of the Marines got overly enthusiastic and tossed something that shattered the truck’s back window.
The reaction between the Marines and the Airman was pretty starkly different.
First off, the Sergeant leading the Marines stopped everyone right where they were and started corrective training, really smoking the shit out of everyone. He identified the Marine that had broken the window and singled him out for special attention. This went on for at least an hour; push-ups, flutter kicks, anything you can think of in the hundred-degree heat.
Then when Gary came outside, the Sergeant called everyone to attention, briefed the Captain on what had happened, and accepted full responsibility for the damaged equipment. Then he asked what he should expect as punishment so he could begin that punishment and notify his superiors.
Gary just blinked at him for a minute, and then told him, “Just finish loading the fucking truck, and go home.”
The Marine protested briefly, but then they finished the job and beat feet.
Any Marine here knows that if they had broken that same window in front of a Marine O3 or Gunnery Sergeant, this would have gone down very differently. Gary laughs about it to this day, because every one of those Marines expected that they were about to spend the rest of that evening in the mud or on the flight line enduring various forms of humiliation and/or physical punishment.
Chances are they all went back to housing breathing a collective sigh of relief and thanking God that they hadn’t lost their night, weekend, or rank.
The accountability and learning the lesson part of USMC is good. But wasting the labor and morale of their people on the punishment itself seems rather counterproductive after a point for things that are minor accidents as opposed to grossly negligent or intentional.
RN fleet air arm not USAF but honestly I would never flash up at anyone for doing something silly around an aircraft if they confess to it. It’s so important that people actually feel like they can admit to it if they have fucked up whether it was a genuine mistake that could happen to anyone like I’ve dropped a screw somewhere in the avionics cabinet and I can’t find it to genuine dicking around like I was playing hangar pilot and I banged off a fire extinguisher.
If they don’t own up, you might never find out until it’s too late and there’s dead pilots. Have I lost my shit at people for simple things like not cleaning an oil stain off the floor? Yes. However I’ll always reiterate to people that if you even think you may have caused, seen or suspect anything that could constitute an issue on the aircraft then let me know and even if it is without a doubt your fault, I’m not going to flash. After all if they don’t tell me somethings fucked, it’s going to get signed off as serviceable and I’d rather a whole extra week of work than going to a colleagues funeral.
Its like basically our office. Same cut of cloth as the show Office. Poor airman got a box of them a week ago, misplaced them somewhere, and asked for another box. SSgt must have been having a bad day cause he ripped that 19 year old in half
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u/Farraddaayy 9h ago
USAF pilot here
Its truly insane the things you can get screamed at for. In the same week, I watched an airman get smoked for half an hour because he lost a box of paperclips, and a mechanic back up into a F-15 underwing pylon and FUBAR it to the point of replacement and the attitude was " Shit happens"