Pissed Off Staff Sergeant Leads to Removal of California Air National Guard Commander
Sorry I could not resist making the title for this post:
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The head of the California Air National Guard, Maj. Gen. Clay Garrison, was relieved of command and replaced by Brig. Gen. Gregory Jones two months after a newspaper detailed the fallout from a scandal involving someone urinating in the boots of a service member. A Guard spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Shiroma, on Friday confirmed the shake-up, but he did not have additional details.
The command change follows a Los Angeles Times report on allegations that whistleblowers at the Guard’s Fresno base suffered reprisals for questioning actions or conduct, including an incident in which a female guardsman discovered urine in her boots.
In interviews with the Times, several current and former members of the Guard described a culture of retaliation by high-ranking officers and mistrust in the inspector general system intended to hold them accountable.
Air Force Times
You can read much more at the link, but this is just a weird case. First of all I don’t know of anyone that leaves their uniform in a urinal and I have also never heard of anyone ever urinating in someones boots which is extremely unprofessional. Then to top it off the bathroom was considered a “crime scene” according to the LA Times that required two Security Forces investigations and there was even demands for the FBI to investigate. Then there was even an effort to conduct a DNA test of the urine and then senior officers tried to cover up this stupidity by ordering the evidence destroyed.
This whole stupidity reminded me of back in 2003 when my unit was waiting to cross the berm into Iraq from Kuwait. The camp in the middle of the desert we were at had a number of porta-potties. Someone was going around and shitting all over the porta-potties and would leave messages taking responsibility for the mess. The perpetrator went by the name “Shithouse Bandit”.
It became a running joke trying to find out who the Shithouse Bandit was. I guess the porta-potties should have been sealed off as a crime scene, multiple investigations conducted, called the FBI and had DNA tests done to uncover who the Shithouse Bandit was. To this day I continue to wonder who it was crapping all over the porta-potties.
More like pissed on?
Where was the sergeant’s reflective belt while the crime was being committed?
I heard they prevented that type of incident.
Jokes aside,
If incidents like this were being reported but not acted upon the fault in the process should be identified and removed. If it’s at the top so be it; if not then punish appropriately, don’t just can the boss for optics.
As for pursuing the culprit, in what work environment is this type of behavior acceptable? Seeing as there are those in milcom who love to excuse so much of the stupidity with cries of “but this is the military we’re held to a higher standard” come forth from the shadows now you hypocrites.
Don’t agree? Come here and I’ll pee on your shirt while you’re wearing it and let’s see how you feel.
(Offer not valid for CH, restrictions apply.)
Wait… you will pee on me?
For free?
LIMERICK
An old story has its roots
in a cat with great attributes.
But this story of abuse
and penile juice
rips it off with the name Piss in Boots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrtS2_TfbeY
We all have stories about the military. Strangely, none of mine involve urine (mine or anyone else’s). Some of you might consider me to have lived a sheltered life.
I do have one story involving an officer pretending to “eat a gun.” In public. In the middle of the only armed exercise outside a practice range I ever took part in.
As the (enlisted) Gunner, I was responsible, during our annual exchange of top secret plans between the Alert aircraft and “the Vault”, for acquiring, test-firing, loading and issuing weapons to the rest of my crew (all officers). They were responsible for lugging the safe from the truck to the vault and getting a new safe. At first, I was very happy with my role.
The Navigator, a 1LT, quickly unloaded his revolver (I didn’t see this), surreptitiously dropped the shells into his pocket, placed the gun in his mouth with a flourish, and pulled the trigger rapidly. Ha-ha-ha, funny joke, eh? The rest of the officers (a MAJ, 2 CPT, plus another 1LT) thought so. I was almost physically ill. 😡 😡 😡 😡 😡
I all but quit right then; but “In SAC no one can hear you scream”–plus, I thought he’d be fired (see “Personnel Reliability Program (PRP)”. He made Captain a year or three after that and left the Air Force some years later…
This was probably what influenced my decision to quit flying when I did. Talk about a “loss of confidence”. Same guy (during an ORI!) got messed up trying to “dead-reckon” navigate around thunderstorms, threw the sextant down the ladder and yelled “****-it, I’m lost!”
So don’t look to me when seeking a “rainbows and unicorns” view of anyone above E-3, unless I know ’em personally. I know a lot of actual heroes who earned all they received and more. And a lot of others who should have lost their medals, rank, and freedom.
It’s hard for me to get too upset about an NCO who takes such little care of her uniform as to leave it in a bathroom stall overnight. And, allegedly, the California Air National Guard has not been all that shiny in many unreported instances not involving women pissing on each other’s shoes. Sinecures, dropping folks wounded overseas without a medical separation, and essentially acting like Mean Girls In Uniform(tm), according to a few friends still living in California. YMMV.