After Desert Storm I had to deal with all the lifer losers that were not worth anything in Saudi rewrite
history as to how they did everything. Luckily we had a Sergeant Major that must have been a secret
seal or something because the three days of the invasion no one could find him. I am sure he was
conducting secret raids into Iran.
After a false conviction for dui, I passed the breathalizer twice, and a first sergeant that took some of my
money for a t shirt I never got, I moved over to Battalion Maintenance. H&S Company was not as into the
ponzi scheme thing as was the line companies.
I had some major medical problems, like many others, when I came back from overseas. The little boy
way to handle it was to bust us down and try to make us look like liars so the phonies in the Corps could
claim they had done the fighting.
I became training nco for the maintenance section. It was here that I got with the three civilian
technicians we had, two from General Dynamics and one from Textron Lycoming. I worked for a Warrant
Officer and a Master Guns so no one really bothered me.
I asked them if I could ramp up the training to make the unit more self sufficient. Knowing how the Corps
worked I made sure I documented this on the training records with the S3 shop so that the national
archives can verify what I am saying.
The three civiilian reps were estatic that I wanted to do this. The Textron Lycoming man had served as a
field rep with the 24th ID in Saudi so he knew what was needed. The GD guys were great , one was a
retired warrant officer in the Army and a Vietnam vet. The other had done work with the National Guard’s
M1 program so we got along just fine.
There was a 4th that served in 3rd Tanks in Vietnam but he was sent elsewhere and I only dealt with him
briefly.
The question I posed to the three reps was what classes do you think they need on a six week rotation
as a once a week session. They were excited and all gave me an outliune of ideas with in the week.
The 60 Marines of my section loved it due to a strange anomoly in the Corps. The Marine Corps is the
only service that accepts the color blind so I had a bunch of jet mechanic trainees from the air wing that
washed out becasue of the colored wiring harnesses. On tanks they are numbered not colored so this
was a bonus. This meant I had a group of sharp kids.
The program was a success and proved itself six months later in Somalia when the stretched out
logistics chain made on the spot analysis even more important than ever. I called John Malone, a Marine
I went to ordnance school with and who had taken my job as training nco, when the unit came back from
Somalia.
He gave the operation and the support a thumbs up. That was the only thanks I needed.