Craziest Promotion stories.

[DaleM]

Let us hear them.

Mine was this, On 15 Feb, 1964, what important event occurred that affects the Army today?

I had all these thoughts of us being more involved in Vietnam but my mind went blank. The President of the board, a Command Sergeant Major, then said, I bet your mother could answer this question. Boom, dawned on me. It was my birthday. The CSM then told me to relax and think about each question.

I was a red faced Specialist who end up passing and moved to Sergeant after that.

Thanks you CSM, and 101st Airborne Div, Air Assault for a lesson that stuck with me throughout my life.

 

[Jebadias]

Ok I'll bite.

I was in what they called the Seabee Vet program, a sorry little program which took Fleet Navy and other service vets and converted them into Seabee ratings. The final part of the program was to pass the advancement exam for the rate you were changing to. In my case I was an AO3 cross rating to EO3, so I needed to get a passing grade on the EO3 exam.

After sitting down for the exam my buddy (same program) asked me what exam I had. I looked and saw I had the EO2 exam. He did too. We talked about it for a bit. What should we do? If we say something we will have to come back for the late exam in a few weeks. The program was only concerned with the test to see if we know enough to be 3rd class Equipment Operators. Our abilities as 3rd Class Petty Officers was not in question as we had both passed 3rd class tests in our previous rates. I asked him if he could pass a 2nd class exam (we only needed to pass it, not get a score high enough to be selected). He said, "Hell yeah I can pass it!" I said, "Screw it, lets take it, after all, if we can pass a 2nd class test we defiantly could pass a 3rd."

A couple months later we both got called into the Company Chief's office. He had some colorful things to say, I won't repeat them here but I am sure you can imagine how it went. We were confused. We both had forgot about the exam by then. "We have a problem, you two took the 2nd class exam." "What? We didn't know that." we replied. More interesting language followed. "You two aren't stupid enough to not notice what exam you had!" he screamed. "Fine Chief, what's the problem? We needed to pass an EO exam to prove we knew what we were doing. If we can pass an EO2 exam then we know we can pass a 3rd class one." Apparently the support activity which administered the exam was a bit embarrassed by the mistake, and was insisting the exam was invalid. They wanted us to retake the 3rd class exam in the fall. "The problem," he said, "is that you two both passed the exam with a high enough final multiple to be advanced and you both have enough time in rate." I asked him what was going to happen... he wasn't sure yet.

The next month we were both back in his office. Apparently my battalion agreed with me, that if we could pass a 2nd class exam then we could defiantly pass a 3rd class one. They wanted us to graduate and move on. The support activity dug in their heels and insisted we retake the proper exam the next cycle. They decided to toss the problem up to brigade. Brigade had developed the program so both sides had to defer to their decision. They thought the whole thing was a joke, graduated us, then advanced us both to 2nd class. That ended up setting a precedent. A couple other people ended up intentionally taking the 2nd class exam by "mistake" over the next couple years until they finally got rid of the program.

 

[raustin0017]

In 2008 was assigned to the 17th Airlift Squadron, Charleston Air Force Base, SC. Was the Chief Loadmaster and had the honor of serving with some incredible dedicated Airmen. One of the 54 Loadmasters was a young Airman First Class (E-3) and stood well above his peers in all areas. After talking to the Squadron Commander it was decided the young man would receive a Below the Zone promotion to Senior Airman (E-4). He had been in the Air Force for only 3 years. After coordinating with the Security Forces our plan was set in action. One early morning around 0500 hours, the young loadmaster was on the flight line preforming duties preparing his C-17A for a local airdrop mission. Myself and the Commander walked on board the aircraft followed by two Security Forces NCOs and surprised the young man. I walked up to him, looked him in the eyes and said, "This is going to come at you very fast." The Commander then took out a 3x5 card and started reading, "You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to speak to a lawyer, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...do you understand your rights?" This was happening while the two officers handcuffed the very confused Airman. After he was handcuffed we just stood there for about a minute without saying a word. He asked what was happening and we said nothing. When the time passed I walked up to him and asked a simple question. "Do you know why your are being arrested?" He started to tear up a bit and said, "I don't understand what is going on." The Commander then explained to him he was being arrested for being out of uniform and he was wearing the wrong rank. The Commander then ripped off his Velcro name tag and replaced it with his new pay-grade and told him he is now wearing the correct uniform and ordered the officers to release the handcuffs. This outstanding young Airman continued to impress and outperform his peers for many years to come.

Many more stories to follow....Load-Clear.

 

[Weather Man]

 

[einehund]

In 2008 was assigned to the 17th Airlift Squadron, Charleston Air Force Base, SC. Was the Chief Loadmaster and had the honor of serving with some incredible dedicated Airmen. One of the 54 Loadmasters was a young Airman First Class (E-3) and stood well above his peers in all areas. After talking to the Squadron Commander it was decided the young man would receive a Below the Zone promotion to Senior Airman (E-4). He had been in the Air Force for only 3 years. After coordinating with the Security Forces our plan was set in action. One early morning around 0500 hours, the young loadmaster was on the flight line preforming duties preparing his C-17A for a local airdrop mission. Myself and the Commander walked on board the aircraft followed by two Security Forces NCOs and surprised the young man. I walked up to him, looked him in the eyes and said, "This is going to come at you very fast." The Commander then took out a 3x5 card and started reading, "You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to speak to a lawyer, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...do you understand your rights?" This was happening while the two officers handcuffed the very confused Airman. After he was handcuffed we just stood there for about a minute without saying a word. He asked what was happening and we said nothing. When the time passed I walked up to him and asked a simple question. "Do you know why your are being arrested?" He started to tear up a bit and said, "I don't understand what is going on." The Commander then explained to him he was being arrested for being out of uniform and he was wearing the wrong rank. The Commander then ripped off his Velcro name tag and replaced it with his new pay-grade and told him he is now wearing the correct uniform and ordered the officers to release the handcuffs. This outstanding young Airman continued to impress and outperform his peers for many years to come.

Many more stories to follow....Load-Clear.

Can't do that now... it is "hazing" (pronounced: haaaaaaazzzzzinnnnng - very nasally).

T-18 months to drop the retirement packet.

 

[01yellercobra]

In 2008 was assigned to the 17th Airlift Squadron, Charleston Air Force Base, SC. Was the Chief Loadmaster and had the honor of serving with some incredible dedicated Airmen. One of the 54 Loadmasters was a young Airman First Class (E-3) and stood well above his peers in all areas. After talking to the Squadron Commander it was decided the young man would receive a Below the Zone promotion to Senior Airman (E-4). He had been in the Air Force for only 3 years. After coordinating with the Security Forces our plan was set in action. One early morning around 0500 hours, the young loadmaster was on the flight line preforming duties preparing his C-17A for a local airdrop mission. Myself and the Commander walked on board the aircraft followed by two Security Forces NCOs and surprised the young man. I walked up to him, looked him in the eyes and said, "This is going to come at you very fast." The Commander then took out a 3x5 card and started reading, "You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to speak to a lawyer, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...do you understand your rights?" This was happening while the two officers handcuffed the very confused Airman. After he was handcuffed we just stood there for about a minute without saying a word. He asked what was happening and we said nothing. When the time passed I walked up to him and asked a simple question. "Do you know why your are being arrested?" He started to tear up a bit and said, "I don't understand what is going on." The Commander then explained to him he was being arrested for being out of uniform and he was wearing the wrong rank. The Commander then ripped off his Velcro name tag and replaced it with his new pay-grade and told him he is now wearing the correct uniform and ordered the officers to release the handcuffs. This outstanding young Airman continued to impress and outperform his peers for many years to come.

Many more stories to follow....Load-Clear.

Something like that happened to a buddy of mine. He was SEAOPDET out of Lemoore and right before we were set to go underway he was called into his DIVO's office. I guess the DIVO started giving him an ass chewing for something totally irrelevant that ended with him handing my buddy his promotion certificate. He then informed my buddy he needed to change quickly as he was currently out of uniform. It was an emotional roller coaster for him. His command wanted to give him the promotion before he headed out.

As for me, I have nothing cool to talk about. Unless you want to talk about missing E6 by 0.2 points three times and your command not wanting to help.

 

[Fordflo]

I was a base honor guard member just doing my assignment and I got to drive the base commanders car to a hospital ribbon cutting ceremony and I was lowest ranking E-3 there and we had the ACC commander 4-star give the speech and out of the blue he called my name from way way past the crowd ...he made it sound like I was in trouble and then he started talking about me and my family like how did he get that information, long story short he promoted me to E-4 below-the-zone...it seemed the promotion overtook the hospitality ceremony, cool thing happen 13 years later I met that 4-star again ...he was retired giving a speech at our SNCO academy...never thought I’d see him again... it brought a great memory for him to know I remembered... anyway, that for me was the most memorable promotion in the AF