82nd ABN Lieutenant Grinches out on his platoon
Christmas Eve saw one platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne Division of the US Army recalled his whole platoon, including those on leave, for a morning formation after one of them got pinched for DWI.
The Army had a Grinch in its ranks this year, a platoon leader who recalled a whole unit for a morning formation Christmas Eve after one soldier got busted on a DUI charge, officials said.
The soldiers in the platoon at Fort Bragg, N.C., were ordered to show up in uniform for a formation at 9 a.m., even if they were on leave. But the commander showed up in civilian attire and did paperwork while they were made to wait, said a post on the popular Facebook page U.S. Army WTF Moments, which appears to have first revealed the incident.
The original post included a screenshot of text messages apparently sent after 1 a.m. on Friday, which was a federal holiday, and said the incident involved a platoon in the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division.
“Because nothing says #soldiersfirst like calling people in from leave who had nothing to do with a situation,” the post said, referring to Army initiatives aimed at focusing more on taking care of people and curbing toxic behaviors.
In a comment on the 82nd Airborne Division’s official Facebook page in response to the post, an official said that the recall was unwarranted and an “error in judgment.”
The regiment’s 2nd Battalion commander counseled both the 1st Platoon leader and the Alpha Company commander to stress “the importance of protecting their soldiers’ valuable time off with family” and to ensure the mistake didn’t happen again, division spokesman Lt. Col. Brett Lea told Stars and Stripes.
Three of the 34 paratroopers recalled from the local area were on leave, Lea said Monday in an emailed response to a query.
After an initial formation, they remained in the company area for about 45 minutes before being released, he said. He did not confirm whether the platoon leader was in uniform.
When the three soldiers who were on leave return to duty, they’ll get to pick an extra day off, he said. The others will get Wednesday off.
Category: "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", Army, Disposable Warriors
Dumb ass.
I think he saw the collective punishment/blanket party scene from Full Metal Jacket too much and it just didn’t work out like he thought it would in real life.
Dumbass!
Need to transfer that asshat. He’s ruined there.
4/25th ID (ABN) Fort Richardson, AK, might be fun this time of year.
This is why you don’t answer the damn phone on leave, pass, or even lunch.
Tell those idiots you have something in the smoker and to EABODs.
Leave is earned, therefor a right, not a privilege or favorable action.
The Good Idea Fairy strikes again.
Interestingly, ol’ Poe was reading an article yesterday about LTG Hank “Gunfighter” Emerson who was a LTC battalion commander in young Sgt Poe’s brigade in Vietnam in 1966.
When he later commanded the 18th Airborne Corps at Ft. Bragg, his SOP was that when a trooper got a DUI, the perp and his commanders up to battalion level had to show up in General Emerson’s office where the perp received a stern personal reprimand from the CG.
Emerson, who got his callsign and nom de guerre, “Gunfighter” because he wore a Colt revolver on his hip rather than a 1911, was a helluva combat leader in Vietnam.
But his policy on DUI’s seems like a huge waste of time for company and battalion commanders.
Doubt very seriously that the Platoon Leader’s (PL) name and signature was on the DA Form 31 (Request and Authority For Leave) for approval for leave for those three Soldiers who attended the formation.
Not defending the PL…just have this feeling there is “more” on this story on the PL’s poor judgment call.
Where was the Platoon SGT and the Squad Leaders BEFORE the formation took place?
Hard to believe that only the PL was informed of the DUI..was it a DUI on Post or in the surrounding Bragg AO?
Something is missing from this story…
🤔
Yep.
First thing I thought to, where the hell was this LTs PSG? (Or 1SG)? He should have been the first one to say “hold up LT, this is a bad move”.
Just make the DUI mop the rain for a month, and in absence of any rain make him sweep the parade ground. Smoke him at 10, 2, and 4 between mopping or sweeping.
Looks like the division has a new SLJO for 2022….
Airborne, make the coffee.
RLTW!
so much for that ‘judgement’ category on his OER… shows there is more than one aspect to ‘just because you can doesn’t mean you should’
The only people that should’ve been involved in this was the Soldier, PSG, 1SG, and Commander. Everyone else can wait till duty hours monday. There’s nothing to be gained by bringing the platoon in and it’s none of their business at that stage anyway.
As a former platoon leader in the 509th PIR, I assure you all here, that it would never have even occurred to me to do something this stupid, even when I was only a butter bar. Moreover, my platoon sergeant or the 1SG would have grabbed me by the stacking swivel and stopped it. And ditto to SFC D’s comment as the proper response.
If anyone deserves scrutiny here it’s the Company Commander who apparently led this LT to believe he had the authority to do what he did, and the PSG who didn’t stop the PL from doing it. Both of those men should have known better than to allow this to happen.
I don’t quite understand the PL’s role in this. There’s a reason 2lts are called Platoon LEADERS and not Platoon COMMANDERS.
Policies like “If we get a DUI everybody comes in for formation” are usually COMMAND policies that come from the COMMANDER, which a PL is not.
Nearly every unit I was in, the Battalion Commander reserved UCMJ action for DUI’s, but did not get actively involved until the reading. Everything prior to that was left to the Company Commander, 1SG, and PSG. The PL was kept informed and up to date, but that’s it.
What a 24K shittyassed prick of a candyass primadonna atomic sphincter weasel. Just because of one dumbass he decides to fuck his entire Platoon out of quality Family time on Christmas Day, what a fart-sniffing piece of frag bait!
And you. cumcave A Proud Infidel®™️ have again earned yourself yet another spot on the infamous The As(s)teroid of Insults®™
” 24K shittyassed prick of a candyass prima-donnal atomic duodenal weasel.”
“You know me, I’m always fumbling around with these grenades.” PVT Gottlieb
I was thinking this PL was really channeling his inner Capt Sobel.
Nice Band of Brothers reference Mason. This LT will always be known for this fuck up.
Concur.
There are better ways to make a point than chickenshit or even inspired chickenshit. My favorite was the portable cross. When someone did something truly dumb get the portable cross out and crucify him in front of the squadron building with a sign listing his offenses and then let everyone come by and see them. The general reaction was that looks painful, I don’t think I want that to happen to me.
Will say this, though:
DUI’s are a problem and the military does believe in mass punishment.
This LT was off the range with his actions for sure, but he will inevitably have to explain it to higher and will probably get a nice chunk of fallout as well even though he did not commit the DUI offense.
Well, at least one Platoon in the 82nd Airborne that will not be reaching 100% participation in the upcoming Army Relief Drive.
If they did a fundraiser titled “Hit PL Dumbass with a pie in the face for $1.00” they might rake in some cash for Army Relief.
“pie”? Thats a funny way of referring to a baseball bat, must be regional slang.
These are Infantrymen, after all.
I had a battalion commander that got his nose broken during a pie-in-the-face fundraiser. I bet Ret25x knows the story.
He is definitely on his way to becoming Milley’s next fluffer.
And I thought it was bad enough when my PSG called me and all of the other SSGs into the plt office and told us we were failing our Joe’s, because a Joe had gotten a DUI that weekend. This sort of reminds me of some stories I’ve heard from Marine vets and how they were treated.
That this Lt even thought this was a good idea tells me alot about where the Army is headed.
Amen to that, now to go give my DD214 another hug and a kiss!
So, is this guy trying to prove his bonafides in the new military?
Nothing says being a dick like calling people in off leave on Christmas Eve.
My five enlisted years’ instincts ALWAYS put the brakes on before my commissioned years could act on any stupid impulses. That said, my observations over the last three decades is that NCOs more often opt for the mass punishment route. Really want to know what the PSG was doing here.
There’s a time and place for mass punishment, one dumbass getting a DUI ain’t it.
Where were the NCOs? God put them here so that LTs were something more than doorstops (and I include myself)
I remember one Platoon Sergeant I had who would put the brakes on the overeager PL we had at the time by slamming his hand on his desk and yelling “DAMMIT SIR, I’m going to run MY PLATOON the right way, you sit at your desk and I’ll bring the paperwork to you when it needs to be signed!”. He’d also salute Company Grade Officers saying “Here’s your salute for the day Sir, enjoy it!”, he was an E7 for the second time and didn’t GAF about politics, I so missed Old School Leadership like that in other Units I was in!
9Somebody please edit the “9” out, A Proud Infidel®™️needs to do a better job of proofreading before hitting the post button!
As a Rifle Platoon Leader in the 82d, I once got a call from the MP station that I had a soldier in custody for DUI. They agreed to release him into my custody if I came and picked him up.
It was winter, snow on the ground, I came on my motorcycle and drove him to the barracks. He was wearing jeans and a thin shirt. Long, cold trip.
He underwent Platoon Sergeant “extra training.”
This LT? Can’t understand this.
Question: Is it even LEGAL to call someone in off of approved leave for something like this?
Conversely, if a PL orders someone who is on approved leave, (with a leave form signed by either the Company Commander, S1 or Battalion Commander, all of whom outrank the PL) to come in off of leave, can that soldier be UCMJ’d for failing to do so?
Seems to me that a leave approval form is in the nature of an official set of military orders. In order to ‘call someone in off of leave’, those orders have to be cancelled by someone who has the authority to cancel them, which is an authority I’m pretty sure the PL does not have.
My military time was long before even cell phones became common among soldiers, so in my day it simply would not have been POSSIBLE for a PL to do this.
But I’d like to think that if I was one of those soldiers on approved leave, I’d just stay on leave and ignore the “recall” and if they wanted to try to UCMJ me, I’d be happy to pull a Dick Winters and demand trial by Court Martial.
My guess is that even if the Company Commander supported this (which I doubt he would), the SJA would likely kick it back so hard up the PL’s 4th point of contact that it would come out the top of his head.