Army flight school when I attended it, was divided among two groups, Commissioned Officers [from West Point, Reserve Army Training Corps (ROTC) and Officer Candidate School (OCS)] who were getting their basic branch training (Aviation) and the Warrant Officer Candidates (WOCs). The main difference between the two groups was the Commissioned Officers had already completed their initial officer training and were awarded their commissions before they started flight training. If they flunked out, then they were just transferred to a different branch and they went on being Officers.
Aviation Warrant Officer Candidates on the other hand, had to get your wings to get your bar (Warrant Officer Commission). Because the WOCs were still in training, we were treated differently through the initial portions of our training. For our 1st 10 weeks of flight training, we were assigned to Bravo (B) Company and lived in barracks, subject to the will and discretion of our TAC Officers, much like basic training, only magnified. Few people wash out of basic training, while washing out (failing) was an ever present danger for WOCs. There were so many hurdles to overcome: Primary Flight, UH-1 Transition, Basic Instruments, Advanced Instruments, Basic Combat Skills and let us not forget Night Vision Goggle qualification. Bravo company was Primary Flight, if you managed to survive you moved to Charlie Company and if you were married, you won the honor of moving off post with your wife and family,
B Company had some interesting events that were associated with traditions passed down from flight to flight through the years. One of these traditions was the windsock in the company area. Every two weeks, the most senior flight graduated from B Company and a new Junior flight was brought into flight training. As part of the chaining of the guard, the Senior flight took down the windsock of their flight color and the new senior flight put theirs up. This required the assistance of the post engineers and a bucket truck that was scheduled every other Friday, at least until my flight, Royal Blue Flight, became the most junior flight.
When we were given our flight assignment, and color, as a group each new flight had to quickly determine their Flight Name, Motto and Guidon (Unit flag individual to each unit). At the time, Levi's 501 Blue button fly jeans were popular, so we adopted the name "501 Blues" as a name, "501 Blues, Heroes at a Hover!" as a motto and our Guidon was made out of Indigo Blue Denim. While having our Guidon made, we also had our flight's windsock made, again out of denim. We had also conspired to have the windsock ready when the Senior flight (Light Blue) took down theirs, just in case the other flights were not prepared to install theirs. Thusly, for the entire 10 weeks that the 501 Blues were part of B Company, our windsock flew over the company area. Officially, this was the was the first a many pranks that were the calling card of the 501 Blues.
Pranks were a staple of the WOC experience at Bravo Company. The interesting part is that the pranking was a very formalized process. Once the flight had an idea for a prank, I as the Administrative Officer had to submit a memorandum for approval. Generally, the final approver was the junior member of the chain of command of the person we targeted with the prank. If our target was The Senior TAC officer, Mr. Oden (The Royal Blue TAC Officer) was the final approver. If it was the Company Commander, the Senior TAC Officer was the final approver. (The Senior TAC was also the approver for pranks on Mr. Oden.) If we pranked the Battalion Commander, the Company Commander approved. Since we were pranking the chain of command, there were "Rules of Order" that had to be followed and these were part of the WOC guide. The general gist of the rules of order were:
No one could be hurt.
No property damage was allowed
Nothing that could be considered against the good of the Army would be considered
All pranks had to be Approved via the chain of command.
The Highest ranking person we pranked was the Aviation Training Brigade Commander (We replaced the shoelaces in his running shoes with Royal Blue Laces then invited him to run with us during our next Physical Training (PT) run (He accepted). We were never successful in getting the Brigade Commander to approve a prank on the Commanding General, but several were submitted and rejected by one level of the chain of command or another, but that didn't stop us from trying.
We pranked the Company Commander in Bravo Company twice. First we gained intelligence that he was an avid golfer, so we turned his office into the Royal Blue driving range. We had about 500 golf balls strewn about his office (all Royal Blue of course) his desk was the tee and the flag target was at the far end of the room. The second one we turned the door into his office into a museum display of a "Cubical Rat". We had Plexiglas covering the entire inside of his doorway, and had placed three, three-foot-wide walls making a tiny square room inside his office to make the "Display" There was a desk and chair from one of our barracks rooms and a live WOC inside the display wearing his PT uniform while feverishly polishing his boots. "Cube Rat" was a name given to a candidate that spent too much time working on his personal area of inspection "His Cubicle" and tended to avoid maintaining all the common use areas we had to also keep inspection ready at all times. The candidate in the display was actually a volunteer and we all made sure his personal area was up to snuff since he was trapped in the Commander's office until he came to work and saw the "Display".
Some pranks were beautiful in their simplicity. Our next junior flight was Gray flight. When we aligned in formation in the company area, Gray flight was on our immediate left. When we came to attention we shouted out motto: "Royal Blue Button Fliers, Heros at a hover! Da Da Daaaaa!" Then Gray flight would come to attention and shout: "Generic Gray, the Econo-flight! Brother can you spare a dime!" So this prank was simple, as Generic Gray finished sounding off, we did a silent three count and then we each tossed a dime over head to the left and you could hear 40 dimes going "cling, cling etc." all around the Generic Gray formation.
Our favorite target for pranking was our own Mr. Oden. Mr. Oden had made a tactical mistake during our initial briefing when he became our flight TAC officer. While going over all the rules and his expectations for Royal Blue flight he mentioned that he'd never been pranked by his own flight, the gauntlet had been thrown. If memory serves me correctly, we pranked Mr. Oden 11 times in 10 weeks. Some were simple and easy to stage, and execute, others took massive planning, coordination with civilians and sometimes, a good bit of money.
Simple pranks were done just about once a week. Here are some examples:
Filling every cubic foot of his office with crepe paper (Blue and White of course)
Placing his coffee cup upside down on his desk plotter with 500 BB's in it.
On simple prank involved a task every candidate was required to do for their personal area of inspection. You had to polish the inside of the lid to your Kiwi boot polish can to a mirror finish. (This took roughly 8 to 10 hours with the equipment we had readily available.) The standard was "I can see myself in it" when the TAC would open the lid and look inside it. We took this to heart with a prank scheduled the day our wives and girlfriends toured the barracks with Mr. Oden. Mr. Oden had just started the tour by taking them (Roughly 10 wives) into the barracks room I shared with my roommate. (We didn't know which rooms would be shown so all our rooms were prepped for the prank.) Mr. Oden was showing how our beds were made, (Hospital corners on the sheets, Army Blanket in a "White Collar" configuration, bounce a quarter off the bed, standard stuff we'd been doing since Alpha Company and WOEC.) Our wall lockers, and everything spaced evenly and our rolled underwear in the drawer, and finally our desk displays. He reached into the bottom drawer of my desk and grabbed my boot polish can, removed the lid and showed the ladies the highly shined inside of the lid. What he didn't know was that we Xeroxed his photo and cut it to fit and taped his photo in every boot polish can on the floor. Needless to say when he said he could see his face in the lid, he really could. We received some TAC officer retaliation on that one, when we returned to the barrack that evening after chow, all of our sheets and blankets were draped from the ceiling s all throughout the halls of our area. It was worth the extra work that night to get everything back in place.
Our "Coup de Gras" was a master stroke of both genius and coordination. And it got the entire flight a weekend pass to boot. Every weekend, passes were granted on the basis of how well you had performed for the week. The Premium pass was an Outstanding Plus (O-Plus) pass. An O-Plus was good from 6 PM Friday night until 5 PM Sunday evening. It was the only pass that also granted authorization to wear civilian clothes. All other passes (Outstanding, Satisfactory Plus, Satisfactory, Satisfactory Minus, Marginal etc.) required you to wear your Dress Class A Uniform.
The Setup. We set Mr. Oden up big time. We enlisted the help of his wife, our spouses, the manager of a local Domino's pizza (one of the spouses worked there) and of course the Senior TAC officer. The plan was twofold, get all the flight's candidates an O-Plus pass and surprise Mr. Oden with the biggest and best prank yet.
Location: Mr. Oden's home in Enterprise Alabama (just west of post)
Day: Friday Night
Time 7:00 PM (Just after dark)
All 60 members of Royal Blue participated (40 candidates, 20 Commissioned officers) and their families (As many family members as possible.) Mr. Oden lived in a 2-bedroom house a on a quiet street and we coordinated to park in a nearby parking lot. We all hid in the shadows of the front porch light, bushes, boats and anything else that provided concealment and waited for the appointed time. At 7:00 PM a Domino's pizza delivery arrived. The driver gets out (A spouse of one of the female candidates Mr. Oden hadn't met) and walked up to the door with 20 large pizzas and a bill for $277.00. Mr. Oden's wife had convinced him to stay home feigning that she wasn't feeling well, which kind of had him annoyed to begin with, and add to that a few Friday night brews and the stage was set.
The doorbell is rung, and Mr. Oden answered. When presented with the bill for pizza they didn't order, he saw all the pizza and then the bill and flipped out. He was FURIOUS and he knew he'd been setup and stuck with this huge bill he really could not afford to pay. The driver feigned no knowledge but that the phone number was called and the order confirmed and of course the order showed Mr. Oden's PHONE NUMBER. Let's just say that his response was not one that would have aired on public television and he got out his checkbook and started writing a check ranting about how he was going to get us back because we had gone too far! The payout was our queue for action, and 120 people or so, Candidates, Officers, spouses and families all jumped out and yelled SURPRISE! Along with the people, Beer, and Soda filled coolers, chips and other snacks all appeared and we were all invited in to his house for a pizza party. Now do the math here, 122 people (one of which is a pretty well-lit TAC Officer) and a 2 bedroom, 1 bath house. We were wall to wall people, which made it all better. We fessed up to the setup and also gave him a copy of the prank memorandum and also showed where the flight had actually paid for the pizza. Introduced our conspirators and of course we ate the pizza and drank the beer.
Like all pranks, we also cleaned up our mess, and left his house with a befuddled TAC officer who had a belly full of pizza and a couple more beers. We had designated drivers so that no one drinking had to worry about Driving While Intoxicated (DWI was one of the fastest ways to end your career as a pilot, or more especially a Candidate). We even took out the trash to the delivery truck so that Mr. Oden had nothing to complain about except being pranked, and we had approval for that. This also left the flight with all of us on a full weekend pass which was awesome for morale.
I'd also like to give a few kudos to the 20 Commissioned Officers who while part of Royal Blue flight class, they were not part of the barracks group who called themselves the 501 Blues. But they were very supportive of us. Some candidates held a grudge that the Officers had it so much better than the Candidates. Most of us felt that this was the system and we couldn't change it. (Just so you know, later it did, and after WOEC, all WOCs became Warrant Officers before they were assigned to B Company, giving them more parity with the Commissioned Officers) What the Officers did though that helped mitigate this is they supported the WOCs, both in spirit and with some money.
Part of the WOC experience was we had to raise money for various activities Guidon and Windsock, and endless group expenses like pizza & beer and other things that the class treasurer took care of. This was done with car washes and a variety of other fundraisers. When we had a car wash, you could pretty well bet that 20+ cars showed up with an Officer Post decal on it, and a generous donation. And a lot of their friends. 20 of the candidates also had a commissioned officer as a stick buddy (I was one) and again they were very supportive and tried to avoid talking about living at home, their kids and other privileges we only had on weekends. They also showed up when we graduated and got our bars. We were a pretty cohesive group.
No comments:
Post a Comment