The Air Force is reenlisting hand puppets now?

I don’t think there is anything wrong with Navy Divers doing a re-enlistment in their subsurface work environment. They are in uniform sans any hand puppets or other silliness. I’ve done re-enlistments on aircraft before parachuting. We had a bunch of admin Marines do a re-enlistment at the beach in swim trunks and bikinis. Obviously they got in trouble for that. It’s okay to do something different as long as it is professional.
 
Play stupid games...win stupid prizes!

I feel no sympathy for them whatsoever.

I seriously hope they got the attention they wanted....
 
Teufel said:
I don’t think there is anything wrong with Navy Divers doing a re-enlistment in their subsurface work environment. They are in uniform sans any hand puppets or other silliness. I’ve done re-enlistments on aircraft before parachuting. We had a bunch of admin Marines do a re-enlistment at the beach in swim trunks and bikinis. Obviously they got in trouble for that. It’s okay to do something different as long as it is professional.
Click to expand...

I've re-written this post numerous times, hopefully this one does a better job explaining my thoughts.

I agree with the quoted post, and have seen it done on the plane by passengers, parachutists and crew. The "doing it where I work isn't "a bad thing". Bringing buffoonery into it is "a bad thing". For example, The ceremony with the guy getting re-enlisted by a Storm Trooper didn't seem professional to me. The guy with the pstol pointed at his head may have said that's the only way I'd re-enlist, so the Team made a joke out of it buy pointing a gun at his head during the event (which is why I wish that photo hadn't been shared).
The lack of professionalism in this one was noted at the 3 and 4 star level.
As a former Guard Guy this was really fast and incredibly hard. State level Col's and MSgt's have State Level connections, so those three just didn't happen to be in those positions.
Likewise Military Flag Officers have staffs which monitor Social Media (FB,IG,TW, etc) so this got near-instant recognition. Politics also plays a part at the 4-star level. CSAF has a FB account and has a running gag bet with the MAJCOM/CC's over who has more followers/friends. Which means he had visibility pretty fucking fast.
I imagine the call from him to the ANG Director was pretty pointed (and he isn't a grumpy old man).
Anyone familiar with the Guard knows that Hq generally avoids getting into State Business, so so the Director of ANG Readiness Center (aka Hq ANG) putting a public statement out was huge (or yuge if your a Trump fan). Again, I am not privy to 2-3 star politics, but the TN AG may be politicking for something and this jeopardized it (which would explain why such a public flogging occurred).
The Col has a track record of not raising his hand when administering oaths, and for all I know the cover story was quickly proven to be just that. Lying gets you canned quickly.
I don't feel sorry for any of them. They used politics to get full-time jobs at the state, and politics can be a two-edged knife into your back one afternoon.
Derka, derka.
 
I know the TN state Command Chief. His son is a JTAC I have worked with. This happened like 3 days after he took the job. Lol. He found out when the NGB Command Chief called him about it.
 
CDG said:
I know the TN state Command Chief. His son is a JTAC I have worked with. This happened like 3 days after he took the job. Lol. He found out when the NGB Command Chief called him about it.
Click to expand...

That must have been a fun phone call.
Is the ANG Command Chief still the CCT dude?
 
Early in my career, I got asked to do a lot of re-enlistments. I was an XO at the schoolhouse, and when they need an officer to make a re-up official, I often got the call. After about the second time doing it, I got embarrassed about having to read it off of a cheat sheet and I memorized it. I'll never forget the first time an NCO I didn't even know thanked me for caring enough to memorize the Oath of Enlistment.

I make all of my students memorize the Officer Oath and Oath of Enlistment. I pick two students at random every lesson and they have to recite one or the other in front of their classmates. By now, all of them can do it pretty well. That's good, because we never change the way we do class just because we have guests, and no one wants to get embarrassed in front of a flag officer or ambassador or member of congress or just a group of random college students. I think it's part of the base-level professionalism that can be reasonably required of young officers to memorize these two and the NCO Creed... but I tell them that memorizing the NCO Creed can wait until their basic course. I take our Army's oaths seriously. I've been in 23 years and commissioned, promoted, or re-enlisted more people than I can count.

All of that notwithstanding, I think what happened in this case is a gross over-reaction, unless there is a whole lot more to this story.

That re-enlistment was silly and unprofessional, but I don't think it should be career-ending. I think an appropriate reaction from the two-star would have been retraining. "I'm coming down there on Friday and you clowns better be able to do this re-enlistment right." Then follow it up with some type of project that includes research on the oaths and a training video, and finally a case study on the situation, written by the people involved. MAYBE a GOMOR. But this "off with their heads" business is too much. I"m thinking about all of the silly stuff I've seen--and done--in uniform and while I wouldn't want to be in a unit where an officer has to read the Oath verbatim like he's never seen it before and doesn't even know to raise his right hand while he does it, I don't think I'd want to be in a unit where the punishment for this IMO minor level of jackassery is the professional equivalent of the death penalty.
 
There are some things that should still be considered honored tradition and and worthy of ceremony. I've said before that living in Okinawa in the 90's was like simultaneously living thru the movies Animal House and Porky's. That said, when someone called, "Ten-hut!" and it was time to play Marine, we did.

I cannot even conceive of a scenario where what happened in that video would be "good to go"; especially by an O6 and a First Sgt. In the video above, Nick Palmisciano says that the punishment these 3 received is the type of thing that keeps folks from wanting to re-enlist, or even bother enlisting in the first place. In my circle of friend and the buddies from the Corps I still keep in contact with, it is the idea that that "reenlistment ceremony" happened in the first place that keeps us shaking our heads about what is going on within the ranks today.

Personally I'm glad that a Lt. Gen got pissed off and embarrassed and rained shit down the trail. This has nothing with Vets shitting over other vets and costing 3 people their jobs, this is about Military Discipline and Bearing; as well as honoring the traditions of service.

I see very little of any of those words in that video.
 
I agree, @Marauder06. I read this, and didn't have much of a reaction. Stupid? Yes. Unprofessional? Yes. Worthy of demotion and being fired? Hardly. The Guard is rife with people who shouldn't be AGRs, for a variety of reasons. But we're firing people over this? I just don't see it.
 
If you put stupid shit on video and don't intend for it to be uploaded on the internet, be advised, somebody will upload it on the internet.
 
I haven’t been in nearly as long as @Marauder06 but I’ve never read the oath of enlistment off a card. It’s not exactly the Gettysburg address. 100% spot on Mara. How can a colonel not know the oath cold?

I get what everyone is saying but I would really question an O6’s judgment if he or she thought this was a good idea. Like it or not that commander was toast once this hit social media. No one is going to respect sock puppet six in any kind of officIal capacity. It’s hard to NJP someone after you were caught muppeting it up in uniform Jim Henson style.
 
My re-enlistment was post Bco jumping out of the 141's we (Aco) were going to infil our RSOV's with, airlando commando.

The boys literally went out the door, white lights came on in the bird, we're green mean and ready to blank fire the shit out of the opfor. BOOM goes our platoon flag, and it's time to reaffirm my diminished mental capacity.

I guess I just don't understand how someone could even remotely think reupping in that manner would be something they would want to remember for the rest of their life, like losing your virginity, your first jump, first actual contact, etc. Let alone a goddamn field grade officer being cool with that.
 
When the LTG doesn't fire someone.... every one bitches that there is no discipline left in the military. I cannot count how many people bitched that part of the problem with the military is forgotten tradition- while I was still in the service. The same people that bitch when their new private wont stand at parade-rest are the same ones that get mad when the First Sergeant yells at them for saying "Top." If not getting to wear a sock puppet when they re-up is the reason troops are getting out, then so be it and the unhappy troops are welcomed to leave. If posting our individuality to social media is more important than the tradition that NCO's have sworn to uphold, then lets celebrate it. Enough of this fake pomp and circumstance over stupid ceremonies.
The same folks that will call one issue a stupid ceremony are the same ones that will bitch that they didn't get the right PCS award - so lets just shit can the whole charade.

I'm guilty - I once told a friend not to call me "dude" in public" - my first name was Sergeant Major when we were in a professional setting - he could call me mother fucker in private - but not in front of our troops.
Why? Because stupid ceremony.
...and I had pretty good success with reenlistment in my unit.

Stupid ceremony.

I'm all in - lets stop this fascination with pomp and circumstance and get rid of mindless military tradition that demand we take things seriously.
...no more bitching when the military wants to save money by getting rid of buglers and playing a tape
...no more bitching when we disband the Old Guard because they represent an overkill of resources just to put a dead guy in the ground
...no more bitching when we stop saluting the O6 because its all just stupid ceremony
...no more bitching when our troops just refer to their leaders as 'bruh - because, well - stupid ceremony
...most importantly, no more listening to angry veterans complaining about tradition


Was firing a few career troops over sophomoric behavior overkill?
ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY - the LTG shot a fox in the hen house with a recoilless rifle. WAAAAY overkill.
Maybe some ink and paper professional development would have been MUCH more appropriate.

...but, if you play stupid games you will win stupid prizes.
 
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I had the easiest of all commissions, a direct commission officer. I was in the reserve by then, was a corpsman with the Marine Reserve unit. I went to drill on a Sunday morning enlisted, walked out at lunchtime an officer. I wanted a small little 'ceremony' with just my direct report (a Navy MSC PA) reading the oath (she was also prior enlisted); she did swear me in, but the Marine I&I boss decided it was "company worthy" and did it in from of the whole company. I hate, hate, drawing attention to myself, but the I&I said it wasn't about me, it was about tradition. Looking back on it, it was very meaningful.
 

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