I had been given my first command at Fort Lewis a few months back and now I was facing my first real challenge. The commander of the area support group had sent me a memorandum announcing that my unit would receive an annual Command Maintenance Inspection. That was such wonderful news. I was ecstatic. Can you tell? You can’t? What’s wrong with you people? You should be able to instantly discern how overjoyed I was to hear the news that I was going to be inspected by my higher headquarters. Cuz everybody in the military loves to be inspected by their higher headquarters. Being inspected in the military is an opportunity to run the gauntlet. Sometimes you win, but most of the time you lose. I think the only greater joy in the military is to be inspected by the Inspector General (IG). Whenever soldiers received word of an impending IG inspection, the first thing that happened was that units would go through and start cleaning house. All of the excess parts and inventory would get loaded into trucks, and it would magically disappear. Where would it disappear to? Who knew? It was magic, after all. It just vanished into thin air. Poof, and it was gone. And you gotta love the IG’s famous introductory line, “We’re from the office of the Inspector General, and we’re here to help.” Let’s get something straight right now. Inspectors and help do not go together in the same sentence. In fact, help is a foreign concept to an inspector. They don’t know the meaning of the word. So, when you hear some bullshit like that, expect the worst. Cuz all hell is about to break loose. It is just a matter of time before you are going to have a major shit storm on your hands. So how does a Command Maintenance Inspection differ from an IG inspection? Well, a Command Maintenance Inspection (CMI) looks at the overall maintenance posture of the unit. It starts with preventive maintenance. Is there a record of preventive maintenance being performed on all organizational equipment? Organizational equipment includes vehicles, generators, individual and crew served weapons, Table of Organization & Equipment (TO&E) allowances equipment, TA-50 (what I like to call individual pioneer gear), and Table of Distribution and Allowances (TDA) equipment. The TO&E equipment and the TDA equipment is like pioneer gear except that it is pioneer gear for a unit. TDA and TO&E are for example, tents, camouflage, tent stoves, immersion heaters, lights, and other equipment that are used by a unit in the field. A command maintenance inspection won’t look at every single piece of equipment. Rather, it will take a snapshot or sampling of the equipment to inspect to get an idea of how well the preventive maintenance program is being executed. Then, it will look at organizational level maintenance on all of the equipment to ensure that all of the equipment is serviceable, and no equipment requires second or third level maintenance. Here again, not every single piece of equipment is examined. However, records for all pieces of equipment are examined. The idea is that if the records are not being maintained properly, chances are the maintenance isn’t getting done properly. The inspection usually lasts about a week, and it consists of a team of inspectors inspecting various different areas of the unit maintenance program in concert with other team members. The IG inspection looks at all areas of an organization, not just maintenance. It looks at maintenance, supply, personnel, personnel readiness, the barracks, the company mess operations, the company administrative operations, unit discipline, unit morale, training, organizational mission, and command and leadership. When the CMI inspection team comes rolling into town, how can you be sure your vehicles and organizational equipment are going to pass muster? Cuz we all know how well the military supply system really works. You can’t get shit when you order it. The military supply system promises to deliver everything by Christmas. And nothing ever shows up. That’s pretty much how the military supply system works. In other words, it doesn’t. So, you got vehicles, and those vehicles need parts. You know it, your soldiers know it, the unit next door knows it, and the inspectors coming to inspect you know it. What are you going to do? Well, you can take your chances and run the gauntlet, or you can solve the problem. How do you solve the problem? I simply told my guys to get the shit fixed. They would ask me, “How do we do that, Sir?” I would simply reply, “Figure it out. That’s what the Army pays you for.” I know what I did when my commander told me to “figure it out,” back when I was enlisted. I borrowed the parts. That’s what I did. I may not have ever returned the borrowed parts, but I borrowed the parts. When my vehicles miraculously passed the inspection, I looked toward the Operations Sergeant for an explanation. She simply said, “Don’t ask, Sir.” So, I didn’t. I let sleeping dogs lie. The following week, I received a letter from the area support group commander commending me on my outstanding unit maintenance program and on passing the Command Maintenance Inspection. The following Friday, during happy hour at the officers club, I overheard the commander of a unit not too far from mine complaining about missing a bunch of parts from his vehicles. As I listened to him whine, I thought to myself, “Gee, I wonder how that happened? Huh? There must be thieves operating in the area. I better alert my Operations Sergeant and First Sergeant to put a guard on our motor pool.” Damn thieves. You just can’t trust anybody anymore. Then, I walked down to rub it in a little. I asked my fellow Captain, “Tony, would you like some cheese to go with all that wine?” He looked at me morosely and asked, “Wright, has some stupid shit like that happened to you yet?” “Some stupid shit like what?” “My vehicles came up missing a bunch of shit.” “Hey man. Check it out. The worst signal Battalion just got alerted for a flyaway. They are the ones probably stealing all of your shit.” “Do you really think so?” “I don’t know. But it makes sense. Look, Army parts all look the same. You ain’t going to be able to prove shit, even if they did take them. But they do need a lot of parts for their raggedy-ass junk. Just order some parts.” “I can’t. I gotta CMI next week.” “Oh shit. Okay. Here is what you got to do. But I didn’t tell you this. You don’t like Don Parsons do you?” “No. That guy is a class A shithead.” “Exactly. His guys are always stealing shit from me. I had to start guarding my stuff. I heard he’s got the parts you need.” “Thanks a lot. Let me buy you a beer.” So, a couple of commanders drowned their sorrows in beer and discussed the good old times that they hadn’t been having. I had averted an exercise in futility by passing it on to a fellow commander. Now, it was his turn to run the gauntlet and avert an exercise in futility.
by 
by 