Funny inspection stories...

[Dan Shapiro]

Winter - 1968 - Herzogenaurach, Germany. We're awakened in the middle of the night for a "security alert". Everyone dons combat gear and draws a weapon from the armory. Then we're marched out to the base perimeter fence and placed about 20 yards apart from one another in order to repel "demonstrators". About 45 minutes later the 'inspection team' walks the line. The major in charge is incensed that I have no water in my canteen. He wants to know why I'm not prepared to repel demonstrators. I simply said, "Major, if they'd given me ammunition for my rifle, believe me, I'd have filled my canteen."

He didn't ask any more questions.

[Doug Douglass]

Winter 1964, we were the only two Coast Guardsman in NATTU's Photo School at NAS Pensacola in a class of squids, jarheads, waves, and one nasty WM. Since we were E3 and E4 we were in charge of the class, marching, set watches etc.. Sully was a Radarman 3rd class changing rate to a photographer so he could make rate faster and have more shore duty with his young family. I was a SNPH striker and had to do A school before making E4. Well the Navy really didn't know much about the Coast Guard and what to do with us being we were TAD attached to the 8th CG District and paid via the US mail, and me with seaman strips in an avaition rate, all which confused them to no end. So almost anything we said or did was okay with them. Very few Navy even knew what the white shield on our right sleeve was. One day there was a scheduled sea bag inspection and Sully being in for a while and married was short several items in his sea bag and didn't have the money to replace them. Since we were in different rooms I told him I would remove the same issued clothing items he was missing from my sea bag and we would tell the inspecting Navy Lt. that what we had was all that the Coast Guard had issued us. It worked like a charm.

(Last week I drove down to the Navy Air Museum in Penscola and the old photo school building is still there, but a lot of the old frame buildings were wiped our by hurricanes.)

[Dan Shapiro]

During an IG inspection in Germany, the Colonel doing all the inspecting was full of questions. When he finally got done, he smiled and asked me if I had any questions of him. So I said, "Sir, do you ever get tired of the smell of fresh paint where ever you go?"

The 1st Sgt got red in the face, the colonel didn't stop laughing for 5 minutes.

[Ltdave]

when i was a Lowry AFB Colorado, i had been told by a departing roommate, that the easiest way to deal with the room was to make the bed with the spread over the mattress sheet and keep the rest in the wall locker. also to keep an AAFES bag in the wall locker for minor trash like envelopes and clothing tags and the like. that way the bed LOOKS made, the garbage can liner stays clean and you dont have to empty it everyday to avoid catching grief from the 1st Sgt and the Squadron Commander if they should walk through...

i suffered through a couple of more room mates and passed this same information on to them. all went well until the day i was scheduled to PCS to my first duty station after a week of leave...

i walked into the room to get my suitcase, briefcase and camera bag and i would have sworn a bomb had been detonated. seems roomie #3 had left a key to his wall locker someplace not so secure and the 1st Sgt had found it during his room inspection. inside the kids locker were, AT LEAST 12 pizza boxes, 6 AAFES bags full of trash and his bedding all of which, along with his uniforms and civilian clothing, had been strewn around the room with a note stuck on a hangar that was locked to the locker hasps (to come visit the commander)...

i had to literally climb over the mountains of debris and detritus to get my gear from my bed. i got tangled up in something on the way out but managed to 'get free' from the grasp of the mess...

i dont know what ever happened to the young Airman but i cant imagine the rest of his stay at school was very pleasant...

[rayg]

Here's one of mine. Guard duty, Germany 1958. Guard line up and inspected. The sharpest guy appointed as supernumeral which means he didn't have to stand guard unless needed.
Anyway we get in the guard truck driving us to our guard area in the Ammo dump. A large complex with Lots of numbered bunkers and streets. I'm assigned bunker numbers to guard. The truck stopped and tells me to get out. I do, and look around. It's nighttime and dark. Don't see the bunker numbers I'm assigned, he must have dropped me at the wrong place, I start walking and looking for them.
Dark night and a jeep approaches with the officer of the guard, oh oh, still can't find where my bunkers are. He'll ask and then see I'm not near them. So the best thing I could do was try to make a good impression and challenge him by the book.
I yell loudly, Halt, in a command voice, who goes there, the Lt. answers, turn lights out I say, dismount one and advance to be recongized. The Lt. comes up, I salute and say recognized sir.
He gets back in the jeep and takes off with out asking any questions. I continue walking for the next ten minutes trying to find my assigned bunkers and you guessed it, here comes the jeep again and by now I'm on a different street and still have'nt found the bunkers. Again I yell loud Halt in the same command voice, who goes there, the Lt. answers, turn lights out I say, dismount one and advance to be recongized. The Lt. comes up, I salute and say recognized sir.
And away he goes no questions, whew, good thing it's dark and he probably was'nt paying attention where he was.
The guard truck picks us up and and takes us back to the guard house. I never did find those bunkers.
After I get back, the sgt of the guard says the Lt wants to see to you. I think, oh oh, he knows.
Anyway the Lt. says to me, you did a fine job challenging me. You're relieved and the supernumeral will take your place. La tee da, how about that, LoL, Ray

[Guamsst]

In Saudi we didn't have actual "inspections" on our tents. But, if someone was a slob an NCO would come by and look at their living area then chew their @$$. We had one guy that apparently wasn't fond of showering and hadn't changed his linens for about 3 months. This info made it's way up to a MSgt who went by to take a look at things. He FLIPPED OUT!!! by his account you could clearly see the outline of the guy on his sheets. Someone asked him if it was really that bad. I doubt I'll ever forget his response. "Was it that bad? HIS SHEETS LOOKED LIKE THE GOTDAM SHROUD OF TURIN!"

While going up for a command wide award for base Fuels flights our base was picked as one of 3 finalists. When the IG team arrived for their 3 day inspection our "icebreaker" had them drunk by 10am so no inspections the first day. Day 2 we dazzled them with BS briefings about our systems and vehicles then off to the club with our "special teams" They were so hung over they did no inspecting on day 3 and almost missed their flight out. We won that years competition.

Not an inspection but funny to me atleast. We had a rash of DUIs and had to perform the retreat ceremony at the Headquarters building in service dress every Friday for I believe two months. I was running late and was worried I would arrive after they sounded retreat and the whole flight (about 100people) would see me and I would never live it down. Luck was with me though. I showed up at the last second but no one noticed as the cops had 2 cars with lights flashing behind my roommates car and had him handcuffed and bent over the trunk of his car in full service dress in front of the Headquarters building. It turns out that two genius cops had arrested him for doing 60 in a 35 even though they had no radar, did not measure his time over distance, or pace him. They admitted he accelerated hard after leaving a stop sign but stopped accelerating after crossing the intersection. How did they figure he was doing 60? "Well, we had to do like 50 to catch up with him" My roommate had the ticket thrown out on grounds of stupidity. Even my roommate freely admitted his Civic could not do 0-60 in the 40ft it took to cross that street and I'm no physicist but I am positive you can't catch a car doing 60 by driving at 50...LOL

[Darreld Walton]

The USAF is never been known for its spit and polish unless you were a SP. In my time the SP's were the like being in the military and the rest of us a loose formation of guys in uniform. For some reason in the mid 80's the SAC IG decided that an open ranks inspection in class A's was going to be part of the visit. Because of this all of us had to buy the wheel hat ie; bus drives hat because almost to a man the flight cap was our head gear.

The IG lands at Minot AFB, a blizzard then sets in, we have snow up to our butt and we are called to the gym for a pre inspection of our class A's. So there we are trying to keep neat and clean busting through snow drifts and snert. There we were in the gym in our class A's with little mud puddles forming around our feet as the snert melted. What a complete joke. All this exercise did was increase sales for clothing sales. I don't think I wore my class A's more then a dozen time in 13 years of active duty. I did wear a parka almost year round though.

Same-same, GI!!! After basic in 1973, the first thing to hit the trash can was the bus driver's cap. Never gave it another thought, until summer of 1978, when our new squadron commander (341 OMMS/MMT) decided to hold open ranks inspection. The run on hats lasted about ten seconds at the BX, and they were gone. Next door neighbor was a sky cop, and offered to loan me his, which I accepted. I hadn't tried the thing on until the evening before, and the thing was at least three sizes too small. Fortunately, I had a "one shift" standby the next morning, and caught a can change (Guidance and Control Set) and didn't have to play.
Ditto on the parka. Additionally, I don't think that I had a set of fatigues in five years that didn't have at least some spot, somewhere, of the red "pucky" that we used to seal the raceway and mating bolts.

[Darreld Walton]

Gotta say, the absolute funniest thing I saw on an inspection, (though it wasn't very funny for us at the time) was in basic at Lackland, 1973.
Most of the guys had two razors, one kept for display and never used, the other in one of those little plastic cigarette pack holders that had an elastic strap so you could keep your smokes at your ankle, and out of your pocket.
Well, the kid in the bunk next to me had his display razor out, when our TI picks it up, looks it over, and asks the young airman if he used the razor......Airman replies, "SIR, YES SIR". The TI bends over real close to the kid, and asks ""now, you wouldn't lie to yer ol' Sarge, now, would you?", kid replies "SIR, NO SIR!" Then the TI picks up the blade pack with the injector, puts in in the razor, pushes a new blade in, and out flies the blue painted, dummy, blunted 'safety blade' installed from the factory, and in slow motion that seemed to take at least ten minutes, the thing flipped and spiraled down and made a tinkling sound that seemed that it could've been heard in the next county..............took awhile for the kid to sit down after the non-surgical glutemus maximus removal.......

[Guamsst]

The Air Force comments about not wearing certain items for ages reminded me that when I went to the NCO academy I had to put two devices on my longevity ribbon. So, it had been atleast 4-5yrs since I had worn my blues...LOL

Friday I had to explain to my boss, a retired supply chief, why I never wear my blues on Mondays as required. Once the whole fuels vs. static producing skin melting polyester thing was explained he seemed to understand.

[Former Cav]

I was at Ft. Cartoon, CO in 1967 in the 1st 77th Armor Bn by the back gate going to Fountain, CO. I can't remember which tank company I was in, but each plt had 5 tanks. Each tank was numbered A-10, A-11 (1st platoon, 2nd would be A-20). Charlie Co would be C-11 etc.
Our OEM equipment had to be laid out on a tankers tarp. This tarp was real heavy canvas and must have weighed about 100 pounds and was probably 20 feet square. On one of the corners, a white square about 3 feet square was painted on it. ON that, was your vehicle number in black paint. (might have been O.D.. it's been a while). One tank was MISSING it's tarp. There was ONE tarp that had all four corners painted OVER on BOTH sides of the canvas. It was midnight requisitioned obviously from tank to tank and company to company. This thing must have weighed about 200 plus pounds and was about a 1/2 inch thick on each corner from all the paint.!! No one ever said anything.
That was the most C.S. station I was ever at. My pay records were screwed up the whole 10 months I was there. (this is why I call Ft. Carson, Fort CARTOON).