The drawdown of the 508th Maintenance Detachment at Fort Lewis, Washington, in preparation for inactivation was well underway. My First Sergeant and I had formed our dream team of ten (10) personnel that we considered to be our core team throughout the inactivation. We had already laterally transferred our MTOE (Modification Table of Organization and Equipment) equipment to a newly formed maintenance company. The group headquarters issued a new order for me to laterally transfer all weapons by serial number to that same maintenance company. The commander, a Lieutenant, a supply Sergeant, and the unit armorer came over to my detachment headquarters to inventory the weapons and to sign for them. After the serial number inventory was completed and witnessed by a member of the staff from the Directorate of Matériel at the area support group, the gaining unit personnel took ownership of the weapons and departed from my detachment area. After we had transferred the weapons to the maintenance company, all we had left was small equipment and property to turn in. The deputy group commander instructed me to turn over my maintenance facilities to the support group and move my detachment into a small office building. It basically took us a week to vacate our facilities and prepare them to be turned over to the support group staff. First, they take away your equipment, then they take away your people, then they take away your facilities. I was waiting for the final hammer to fall. What is the final hammer you ask? Excellent question. Well, in the Army, they can’t take away your uniform, your three squares, and a cot. Those things they cannot take. The Army is required to provide those things. The uniform you have to wear. The three squares are the three meals you eat per day. Granted, those three meals could be C rations or meals-ready-to-eat (MRE’s). They ain’t always the greatest tasting meals in the world. But hey. The Army never promised you gourmet cooking. They just promised you three squares. They didn’t exactly say what those squares would consist of. Basically, the final hammer was when they took away your dignity and turned you into a glorified private. Sure. You would be well paid. You would be high ranking. But you would be a private. I had seen it happen before. Senior noncommissioned officers, lieutenants, and captains that nobody wanted to have anything to do with were turned into glorified privates. Those glorified privates were given flunky jobs that a private could handle and they were effectively put out to pasture until the command could get rid of them. Why? Cuz nobody wanted to deal with them. When the Army takes something away from you like a unit and they don’t give you a good reason why, it makes you think it’s because you are going to be put out to pasture. Nobody wants to have that feeling. Well, my core group of soldiers moved to our new office space, but we noticed that it couldn’t be properly secured. I filed a physical security problem report with the group headquarters. We were all starting to get that feeling of being put out to pasture. We were all getting that feeling that we were no longer wanted by anyone. If you’ve ever had that feeling, you know exactly what I am talking about. Three days after we moved into that office space, we were burglarized. It looked like our office space had been cracked and jacked. Four toolboxes full of tools, one welding kit, and two electric guitars were stolen from the office space. Other small stuff was taken as well. We reported the burglary to group headquarters, to the MPs (military police), and to the Criminal Investigation Division (CID). During the investigation of the burglary, both the military police and the CID pointed out the lack of physical security of the office space. They noted that the door to the office space could not be secured properly. They also noted that the Windows to the office opened to a secluded area outside the building and could easily be opened from the outside. They asked me why we had been storing valuable equipment in this office space. I showed them the order from group headquarters instructing us to move into this office space. I also showed them the report that I had filed with group headquarters mentioning the physical security issues, when we had moved into this office space. After determining that I had taken the proper steps to inform my higher headquarters that the facilities that they had assigned to me were unacceptable from a physical security standpoint, but that my higher headquarters had done nothing to alleviate the problem, they found that my higher headquarters was at least in part responsible for the loss of the property. The property officer at the support group headquarters tried to say that I was just trying to cover unit property losses by reporting the burglary and theft of property. However, the CID report clearly indicated that the door to the office space had been forcibly opened to allow entry. Thus, I was able to write off the toolboxes and the tools that were stolen as well as the welding equipment. And the soldiers who owned the guitars that were stolen were allowed to submit claims for reimbursement. It seemed that the whole experience ended well, but nobody really wanted to go through the whole crack and jack experience to start with. I can honestly say that nobody likes to have their stuff jacked. Even though the soldiers got reimbursed for their guitars, one soldier was positively heartbroken about his guitar being jacked. He spent countless hours searching pawnshops in all the nearby towns looking for his beloved guitar. I told him, “Look. Whoever took your guitar probably pawned it down in Oregon someplace. They sure as hell didn’t pawn it around here. Just forget about it and buy a new one.” He gave me the old, ‘he didn’t want a new one speech’. But in the end, that’s what he had to settle for. When shit gets stolen in a crack and jack, you can never make it right. You can only attempt to fix it and hope to move on from that painful exercise in futility.
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