The time had finally come for me to relinquish my role as the chief of the Matériel Readiness Branch in the office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Matériel, 19th Support Command, Camp Henry, Korea. I was, officially, being reassigned to the 227th Maintenance Battalion at Yongsan, Seoul, Korea, so that I could take command of the 305th Supply and Services Company. At the monthly 19th Support Command hail and farewell, I was one of the official guests of honor. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Lesser-known officers within the command were generally recognized and given a token of the command’s appreciation for basically keeping their noses clean and not screwing up while they were there. However, in the case of well-known officers, especially those on a well-known first name basis to the Commanding General and the Chief of Staff, things generally went a little off track. In my case, I expected them to go way off track because I had quite a reputation with the Chief of Staff for a number of reasons. Some of which I am not proud to admit. I’m not saying said incidents did not occur. I’m just saying I always had a reasonable defense. The Chief of Staff may not have seen it that way. Plus, I wasn’t exactly sure what his position was on my money making scheme with the staff duty officer racket. I was pulling in a nice tidy chunk of change with that racket. When it was my turn to be roasted (acknowledged) as a person soon to leave the command, they cranked up the intensity of the heat pretty high. I know that I was sweating pretty profusely. I was also kind of nervous. And it seemed like everybody got in on the act. It seemed like everybody had a bone to pick with me. The General started first. He went on and on and on about how I thought his helicopter was my personal taxi. He even said that I had called him a seonsaeng (a Korean word for mister). Essentially, everybody hailed a taxi in Korea by yelling for a seonsaeng. Of course, all of what he said was pure bullshit. I had never disrespected him by calling him a seonsaeng, and he had offered me those rides in his helicopter. I had never solicited a ride. Not even one. But did I get a chance to defend myself? Hell no! In the eyes of that captive audience, I was guilty as charged. But the General wasn’t finished with his sorry ass whining. Oh hell no. The lies just went downhill from there. Next he said that I got on his helicopter with muddy boots and made a complete mess all over his pristine helicopter. Now the shit was starting to pile up high and deep. It was getting so damn deep that you could smell it and flies were starting to gather. Well, the flies may have been gathering to get their fair share of any remnants of the meal that may have been left over. But I doubt it. It didn’t stop there. The General insisted that I got drunk off my ass one time when I served as an escort officer for a visiting General that came into the command from Washington, D.C. First of all, I was never even invited to any of the functions that involved consumption of mass quantities of alcohol. But did I get a chance to defend myself on that score? Hell no! After the general finished his roast, it was time for the Chief of Staff to have a go. Right on cue, the Chief of Staff started in about my illegal money making operations. I believe the words he used to describe it were illegal staff duty extortion operations. The thing is that my customers came to me and solicited my services. I didn’t demand that they sell their duty to me. And I certainly didn’t extort any money from them. I admit that my prices, especially my holiday prices, could be rather on the pricey side. But I looked at that as a normal cost of business. And my customers did as well. Then, the Chief of Staff laid into me about pretending to get lost while out hiking so that I could avoid coming to one of these functions. Where was their evidence? I would never deliberately miss an event that I had already paid cash money for. Anyone who knew me could attest to that. Cuz people who knew me knew that I was basically cheap. Although cheap seems like a rather harsh word. I would describe myself as frugal. My enemies, on the other hand, would describe me as Ebenezer Scrooge. But once again, I was found guilty in the court of popular opinion without ever having a trial. When the local president of the AUSA (Association of the United States Army) got up, I thought, what in the hell did I do to piss this guy off? I wasn’t even a member of AUSA, and I certainly didn’t know this guy from Adam. When he asked me to come up to the podium, I was more than just a little bit worried. After I got up to the podium, he rattled off a short list of some of the accomplishments I had achieved while assigned to the 19th Support Command. Then he read an inscription on a plaque stating, “Captain Masters is hereby named the Association of the United States Army Outstanding Officer of the Year for the 19th Support Command.” It completely caught me by surprise. I graciously accepted the award and then I thanked everybody for allowing me to serve in the 19th Support Command. It was with mixed feelings that I was bidding the command farewell because I had truly enjoyed serving with all of the people there. But I knew that I was moving on to a new role as a commander. I reflected back to when I was a Staff Sergeant in the Army embarking upon a journey to attend Officer Candidate School (OCS). My commander back then gave me one piece of advice. He said, “Staff Sergeant Masters, remember that your primary goal as an officer is an assignment that puts you in a position classified as staff with troops. Your ultimate goal in that endeavor should be to command. If the Army offers you a command, take it. Your objective should be to command a line company. If you don’t remember anything else I just said to you, remember this. If the Army offers you a second command, take it. There will be people that will tell you that you’ve already done your time and that there are other people out there waiting in the queue. Forget that bullshit. If the Army offers you a second command, take it! There has to be a reason that they are offering you the second command. Never let an opportunity to excel pass you by.” As I set off to take command for the second time I reflected upon those words from so many years ago. I can honestly say that I went forward without any exercises in futility.
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