I had been reassigned to the 227th Maintenance Battalion at Yongsan, Seoul, Korea, to take command of the 305th Supply and Services Company. With the Battalion Commander’s permission, I took a few days to G2 the company incognito before he introduced me to the company formally and the change of command inventory process started. After I had ended my G2 investigation and started to inventory the property of the 305th Supply and Services Company, I ran into significant roadblocks on my very first day of property inventories. Well, roadblocks may be a rather harsh overstatement of the facts. In reality, what I encountered were obtuse individuals with attitudinal issues that needed an adjustment right quick and in a hurry. My philosophy has always been to launch preemptive strikes and to hit the enemy with tactical nukes, because what the hell, chances are the word will get around. The power brokers that be, in the company see this guy coming in swinging a sledgehammer and kicking ass. Sooner or later, the word is going to get around that this guy ain’t going to take no shit from nobody. Okay. It didn’t exactly work that way the first time I tried it. That’s okay. The shitheads in that company had been getting away with murder for too long because the guy in charge was a pushover. The lights were on, but nobody was home. The NCOs in that company thought that they could do whatever the hell they pleased. Well, there was a new sheriff in town. And that shit wasn’t gonna fly anymore. After I jacked up one NCO and got the Class IV Supply warehouse accountable property inventoried, I thought that would take care of things. It turns out that I was wrong. I went to the motor pool next, and the NCO in charge there was just as big a jackass. So, I pulled him aside and said, “Listen here Sergeant First Class Jackson, you may be the Motor Sergeant now. But I’m putting you on notice. Do you see that gate down there?” Sergeant First Class Jackson replied, “Yes sir.” “Good. You had better get used to walking out of that gate and never coming back. Cuz that’s exactly what the hell is going to happen on the day that I take command. Do I make myself clear?” “You can’t do that Sir. Colonel Gross himself appointed me to this job.” “Sergeant First Class (SFC) Jackson, you better listen, and you better listen good. I don’t give a good goddamn if God appointed you to this job. On the day that I take command, you are going to be relieved for cause. Now, disobey another goddamn direct order and see what happens. Dismissed.” I went and found the incumbent Company Commander and told him that he needed to get his Motor Sergeant squared away and his Motor Sergeant’s accountable property prepared for inventory by 0800 hours on the following morning. Then I went to the supply room to see the Supply Sergeant. The supply Sergeant was a pretty diligent guy by the name of Sergeant Aguirre. I asked Sergeant Aguirre how soon he could be ready to inventory his property. He indicated that he could be ready by 1330 hours that afternoon. I penciled in that appointment and said okay. I headed down to the mess hall to eat lunch and check on what kind of progress. SFC Ward had made. When I walked in, the soldier checking headcount immediately called the mess hall to attention. So, I yelled, “At ease.” Then I asked the soldier if any other officer in the rank of captain or above, had come in before me? He promptly replied, “No, Sir.” Good. They were making progress. When I got to the food service line, I also noted that they were not out of food. After I ate my meal, I decided to check the ice cream machine. What a pleasant surprise. The ice cream machine had ice cream. I walked back up to the front of the mess hall and asked one of the cooks to find SFC Ward. When SFC Ward came out to see me, I said, “I really like the progress you’ve made. Keep up the good work.” SFC Ward replied, “Thank you sir. I’ll try.” “Don’t just try, just do it.” And then I left. As I was walking away from the mess hall, a Lieutenant from Battalion caught up to me. He said, “Hey, Sir, the Battalion Commander and the Group Commander would like to speak with you.” I looked at him and asked, “When?” “Right now. They said it was urgent.” I thought to myself, nothing was that urgent. The Group Commander’s crybaby Motor Sergeant, SFC Jackson, had probably gone crying to his master protector, the Group Commander. Well, if the Group Commander thought that I was going to back down, he had another thing coming. When I reported to the Battalion Commander and the Group Commander, the Group Commander immediately started in about my idle threats to relieve NCOs in the 305th Supply and Services Company. I informed him, “I do not make idle threats. I meant every word that I said to SFC Jackson. Let’s be clear. It was SFC Jackson who came crying to you. He had so much as threatened me with the Group Commander appointment threat. If you want me to fix this company, I will not allow you to tie my hands behind my back. If every crybaby NCO can come running to you when they don’t like what I do, then we can stop right now. Cuz that is not why I am here. We can just stop, and I can walk away. You can find somebody else to take this job.” The Group Commander replied, “Now hold on Captain.” “No, Sir. You hold on. These NCOs think they are in charge. They are insubordinate. They do not obey direct orders. Everywhere else in this United States Army, those are court-martial offenses. I will not let you tie my hands and tell me what I can and cannot do. If you want a jellyfish to command this unit, keep the guy you have. I do not need this shit. I will retire at 20 years of service with or without this command. And do you want to know something funny. There isn’t a goddamn thing either one of you can do about it unless I commit a court-martial offense. And that sure as hell ain’t going to happen. So, what is it going to be?” “Well, God dammit! You can’t just fire everybody.” “For once, we agree, Sir. My philosophy is if you jack up one or two sorry assed individuals, they’ll all fall in line. Let that scenario play out and see if it works. But do not attempt to shackle me and subordinate my attempts to instill discipline where it is sorely lacking. By the way, Sir, my definition of discipline mirrors Schofield’s definition of discipline.” After the Battalion Commander and the Group Commander dismissed me, I went up to see the supply Sergeant. We had a date to inventory his accountable property. Within two hours, we were able to finish all of his hand receipts except for one. On that one hand receipt, there was only one line item of property. The line item of property was folding chairs. Sergeant Aguirre had signed for 225 folding chairs. We searched for two hours that day and found exactly zero chairs. Finally, I asked Sergeant Aguirre if he had sub-hand receipt-ed those chairs to anyone. After searching through all of his files, we could not find a record of a sub-hand receipt for those chairs. All of the chairs were missing and not accounted for. Those chairs had just vanished from the face of the earth. My next question was to ask whether the incumbent commander had signed for those chairs during his change of command inventory. It turned out that he had. I was baffled. Nobody had ever seen those chairs. It seemed as if those chairs had just vanished into thin air. Poof! Nobody had ever physically put hands on those chairs. There was no record of the chairs ever being inventoried. Yet, the chairs were signed for and accounted for by signature. That’s like buying a car and taking out a loan for the car and making payments on the car without ever having seen the car. Basically, you are buying an invisible car. That’s great if you can drive an invisible car. Of course, I suppose you would have to be invisible to drive the goddamn invisible car. And you would have to have some way to detect exactly where in the hell this invisible car was located. Yeah. I could just see all kinds of problems with that idea. Cuz, even if you could find the invisible car, other ordinary people in ordinary cars wouldn’t be able to find the invisible car. Within a couple of weeks, your great invisible car would be all smashed to hell because people would collide with this so-called invisible car that they cannot see. That is just too much bullshit to deal with. Basically, you got hoodwinked. You are paying for a car that you never got. The loan company is getting rich by collecting your money. You continuously pay month after month for five or six or even seven years for a car that you have never seen, you have never driven, and you don’t even know exists. Who in the hell in their right mind would ever do some dumb shit like that? I sure as hell wouldn’t. Cars cost too goddamn much money for me to pay a bunch of money every month to own one and not have it. Well, that’s exactly what in the hell Sergeant Aguirre and the incumbent Company Commander were doing with those 225 vanishing chairs. Except in this case, their asses were going to have to cash a check to pay for the dumbass shit that their trigger-happy ink pens had written. Sergeant Aguirre tried to talk me into allowing him to just sign for the vanishing chairs. I told him, “Oh hell no. If I do that, I guaran-damn-tee you that it will come back to bite me in the ass. It is better to let this go to a report of survey now and let the shit fall where it may.” Sergeant Aguirre was understandably worried that he would be found liable for the vanishing chairs because he had signed for them. I told him that it wasn’t likely because the incumbent Company Commander had signed for them during his incoming change of command inventory, and he had never inventoried them on a subsequent ten percent inventory. He had therefore lost accountability. In all likelihood, the incumbent Company Commander would be held accountable. I was making progress with my change of command inventories in the 305th Supply and Services Company, but I was stumbling into exercises in futility almost every day along the way.
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