Veteran embodies Article III of the Code of Conduct

| May 3, 2021

Article III

If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape.

All veterans can attest to the power of our programming and indoctrination. Sometimes it’s little things, like years and decades past basic training we can’t put on a belt without straightening it with the seam of the zipper. Sometimes it’s bigger things like rote memorization of the Code of Conduct, part of which is listed above.

Poetrooper sends in a story of one elderly vet who is refusing to stay captured. Sadly his “enemy” isn’t a hostile foreign force, but a memory care facility whose care he’s been entrusted to. You see, this fella and his lady are suffering from the insidious and heartbreaking dementia and Alzheimer’s. While he might forget many things, his military training he has not forgotten.

Fox News reports;

A Tennessee assisted living facility faces hefty fines after two residents escaped in March thanks to some military training, according to reports.

Elmcroft Senior Living in Lebanon must pay $2,000 for failing to provide daily awareness for the whereabouts of two residents who briefly escaped from the secure memory unit on March 2.

The couple, a husband and wife team who remain unnamed in public records, suffers from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, but they had their wits about them as the husband used his military training with Morse code to figure out the facility’s electric lock code, the Tennessean reported.

The husband would listen as staff punched the code in, and he was able to figure out the pattern. He made a break for it with his wife, managing just 30 minutes of freedom before a stranger found the couple wandering two blocks from the facility.

Staff were meant to increase their check-ins with the husband starting in February after he displayed concerning habits, such as wandering about and repeatedly seeking exits, FOX 23 reported.

He had scheduled times to walk outdoors to mitigate these habits, but it did little to deter his urge to escape.

“The safety of our residents is the top priority at our senior living community. We are thankful both residents were returned to the community safely,” read a statement from Elmcroft. “We reported the situation to the state and their family immediately after it happened and fully cooperated with the state during its review.”

The facility changed all of its exit codes following the incident.

I’ll go out on a limb that this wasn’t any Morse Code, since a keypad doesn’t normally work on such. What this old vet is is likely a recovering Signal Corps-type who dealt with touchtones. Maybe an old school telephone phreak.

Regardless of his former MOS, he clearly won’t be imprisoned. He escapes for what I’m sure was a glorious 30 minute walk with his lady on his arm. You have to respect that. To paraphrase Mel Gibson’s William Wallace, “they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!!!”

Category: Guest Link, Veterans in the news

39 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Sapper3307

Was he Claws Jedi Master in AIT?

Claw

Nope. Now wait a minute. You must be thinking of 26 Beans, SFC D or Hack Stone.

My AIT was UH-1 Helicopter Mechanic with a little Door Gunner training thrown in for good measure.

Ret_25X

knowing the DTMF tones can be very helpful! LOL

Although most security key pads no longer have unique tones for each key, older ones often did.

Either way, he exploited a flaw in their protocols.

Must have been a 29V!

Doc Savage

Old soldiers are old for a very good reason…

MI Ranger

Beware the Grumpy old Man, for is grumpy for a reason and he did not grow old sitting and doing nothing!

26Limabeans

There once was a guy that could whistle DTMF (touchtone) tones
and wreaked havoc with the phone system. DTMF tones are two
different tones sent at the same time.
Most security pads use DTMF but I suspect a simple musical
sequence is at hand here. After all, the guy had been listening
to it for a while. Dementia be damned!

Fortunately, SELCAL tones are two different tones sent with a
specific spacing which is much less suceptible to “whistlers”.
You pilot types know what I mean.

Yeah, thanks for the hat tip to Signal types.
The color code will be the last thing to go…

Sapper3307

the old 2600

Claw

“old 2600” – is that the TA-838/TT ??

Ret_25X

2600 hz was dial tone…we used to whistle the 1k test tone and the 2600 tone to avoid pulling out heavy tone generators for daily grooming of voice circuits.

Those were the good old days before everything went digital and you needed a million dollars worth of test equipment to perform simple tests.

Sapper3307

When toys from a serial box were cool.

SFC D

Brings back memories of calibrating each channel of a TD-660 multiplexer. “Send tone!” “Cut tone!”. And the fun games you could play with a CV-1548 ring converter.

A Proud Infidel®™

Maybe he had enough of being cooped up and just said “Hey Honey, I’m getting us some time outside!” to his Wife and then lived up to his promise?

Dustoff

When I saw this it reminded me of the Taco Bell commercial years ago.

Roh-Dog

I propose we convoy up there as rabble, blasting Ride of the Valkyries, negotiate in a firm yet borderline hostile manner to free the couple, if they care to come with ply them with the finest steak and liquor, with optional cigar.
Do unto others, and all that jazz.

SFC D

Where do I sign up

KoB

Count me in!

Anonymous

Ditto!

David

“Schedule outdoor time” as a variant… even SuperMax lets you out once a day! Screw that. That’s not a home, that’s a sentence.

Only Army Mom

This is both sweet and heartbreaking.

Have you ever noticed a Senior Care facility with a bus stop, in an area where there are no bus routes?

When dementia-type illnesses strike, short-term memory suffers. But, a memory of taking a bus home is something that is called up, so when they wander and see a bus stop, they sit down and wait. The trick is, to have the bus stops out of direct sight of the doors/facility, perhaps by a hedge or wall and a camera discretely installed to alert staff. Staff is instructed to go out and sit down next to them and chat until they can be coaxed to come back, for a meal, for warmth or to get out of the heat, etc. This simple fix works, helps seniors retain dignity and is much less traumatic and traumatizing than being returned in a police car.

Lots of senior facilities are installing bus stops. IMHO, they all should.

FuzeVT

Interesting. . . Hadn’t heard that before but it makes sense.

Steve

100% sweet and heartbreaking.

Don’t know what’s up with me today – but this whole story kinda bummed me out.

Good on ya bud – hope you get to be with your missus forever.

Poetrooper

“100% sweet and heartbreaking”

That was precisely my reaction when I first read this very poignant piece yesterday. I felt sad for the old couple who are probably fairly close to my age, but at the same time I was smiling and rendering a mental salute, thinking “Bravo Zulu, old soldier; that took some balls, shriveled though they may be.”

I sent it to Mason since he’s our valor guy and to me this was an act of valor, misguided perhaps, yet it still took courage, inspired by love for his old life partner, wife and friend.

Anonymous

Hooah!

President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neanderthal B Woodman Domestic Violent Extremist SuperStraight

My kind of Crusty Curmudgeon! HOOOOAH!

Green Thumb

Continue on Active Duty.

This dude could teach some of the younger Soldiers a few things.

Poetrooper

He could teach some of the old ones, too, as a SERE instructor for captured and confined senior citizens…

Pam 645X0

The facility my late father was in had two courtyards. One had a 7 foot brick wall around it and the residents could access it whenever they wanted. The other was one that family members could take the residents out to walk and visit. My dad (retired AF TSgt) liked them both. They made his final months more bearable.

11B-Mailclerk

As I read that article, I could hear in my mind the incidental music from the old Mission:impossible TV show. (The piece where the agents are doing low-key impossible things)

Lalo Shifrin did some pretty amazing music for that show.

Anonymous

Here (the soundtrack suite from the original show) in various possibilities:

Martinjmpr

I would think the little ditty from “the Great Escape” would be more appropriate.

SFC D

“recovering Signal Corps-type”.

“Hello, my name is SFC D, and I’m a recovering Signal Corps-type”.

Prior Service

Lucky the old gent didn’t have to apply his SERE training as well.

You go, gramps!

FuzeVT

“like years and decades past basic training we can’t put on a belt without straightening it with the seam of the zipper.”

Ha, ha! So true!!!

Poetrooper

Even fifty years later, checking that gig line is still automatic for ol’ Poe…

UpNorth

Same here. Every day.

waltusaf

Never underestimate an old man with a DD-214 (stolen from a t-shirt I saw a while back.)

ChipNASA

I gently giggled at this while thinking about possibly, MAYBE, having some excess moisture in my viewing sphere housing units.
Fuckers.
Nice going GRAMPS!!!

Dustoff

“Look Babe, tonight we’re going over the wire” …..

West Point 1987

My G-G-Grandfather was a professional catch-as-catch-can wrestler back in the 1890s, fought two close losses to Farmer Burns…a real bad ass. He was in a home in his early 90s, over 300 lbs, all lean beef. Hands, feet, ankles and wrists so big he couldn’t button his sleeves or lace his shoes. One day he packs a bag, puts on his snap-bill cap and announces he’s off to see his kids. My then young grandfather came to find out what happened, and when he yelled at the staff for not stopping him, they asked, “you do know it’s your grandpa you’re talking about?” He turned up a week later two states away visiting cousins no one in the family knew existed. Came back on his own.