Surviving military aviation Chapter 1: What not to do

[Reconjoe]

One lapse in judgment can be a dream-killer, especially in today's competitive environment, coffin nail-wise.
BzB

Like doing a line of coke at Seville's only 12 hour's before your morning flight the next day? Those random drug tests can be a real pain in the ass...

 

[BusyBee604]

Like doing a line of coke at Seville's only 12 hour's before your morning flight the next day?

I'm thinkin', that must be a joke? If not, I'm totally stunned...
BzB

 

[RadicalDude]

I'm thinkin', that must be a joke? If not, I'm totally stunned...
BzB

Oh no, that's a very real and true story. I knew the dude pretty well, but not about his little, uh, habit.

 

[Picaroon]

I'm thinkin', that must be a joke? If not, I'm totally stunned...
BzB

No, but he did get the details of the incident wrong.

 

[squorch2]

....and?

 

[Jim123]

Speaking of nose candy and other amazing things,

I remember a fleet pilot, from a sister squadron, popping positive for coke on a urinalysis... the squadron sent him TAD to the wing, figuring that although the investigation would take only a short time it would still be better to get him out of the squadron for the meantime. Well in the meantime, he popped again(!). Pretty sure he got orders to Leavenworth after that (the short-fused PCS type, not the ones to the war college there).

Another pilot, from another sister squadron, used the Navy's computers to download porn, even after being told to stop it. I suspect it wasn't ordinary porn, because he too ended up with special orders to the brig. It's always fun to look up people like these on the bubba list.

Yet another pilot, from yet another sister squadron, got busted by the local sheriff's cybercrime task force... it seems that the teenage boy, with whom he was arranging a liaison, turned out to be a cop.

I'm not sure I can pick a clear winner out of these three. Each is disturbing in its own way. When the career brief says that O2-O3 promotion is 99.9% with an asterisk, sometimes guys like these are that asterisk. Crime and punishment... all kinds of people make both good and bad choices throughout life, but the outliers make some truly horrible choices.

 

[xj220]

Stories

Holy shit, those are great examples of what NOT to do.

 

[BusyBee604]

Crime and punishment... all kinds of people make both good and bad choices throughout life, but the outliers make some truly horrible choices.

Cheez, 3 sister squadrons...what are the odds on that?

It's absolutely mind-blowing to me that a Dude with a dream goal, the education w/ grades, package quality, medical qual/physical fitness, (and dumb luck/timing) just to be selected.

Then the work & ass pain of OCS etc. Work/study in API, study, brief, fly, debrief ...learning, slowly closing on the dream, then very probably blow it all almost instantly with one insane decision. It's just incomprehensible to me. I guess I'm naive & not very knowledgable re. addiction.
BzB

 

[xj220]

Even worse for those that make command. All the asspain to get to that point to lose it all. Zipper malfunctions and addictions can do powerful things.

 

[Fog]

Makes you long for the good ol' days when naval aviators were the world's largest body of practicing alcoholics

 

[RobLyman]

Back in the day we were preparing for a change of command. Two days before the CoC, the outgoing CO gathered everyone into the hangar and told us that the XO was not going to be CO and instead we would get another CO. The old XO was being sent off to be the CO of a NAS overseas. Were were told not to speculate and no details were ever leaked out.

Many years later while on a staff tour on a late battle captain watch, another officer told me a sea story about the CO of a NAS he was at on his last tour. This CO had been caught with his zipper down at a local shopping mall during his previous tour and was shipped overseas. Once overseas, he was caught with his zipper down again with a male sailor in his command. A name check verified we were talking about the same guy.

 

[Gatordev]

Speaking of nose candy and other amazing things,

I remember a fleet pilot, from a sister squadron, popping positive for coke on a urinalysis... the squadron sent him TAD to the wing, figuring that although the investigation would take only a short time it would still be better to get him out of the squadron for the meantime. Well in the meantime, he popped again(!). Pretty sure he got orders to Leavenworth after that (the short-fused PCS type, not the ones to the war college there).

While not an aviator, I had an Airman pop positive for Meth during a routine sweep (I eventually found out I had a little ring going in my division). He was already a pain in the ass, but nothing big, just arguing with his Chief, etc. So off to Mast he goes where he gets restriction in the squadron spaces and will be processed out. Naturally he's not at fault, someone messed with his cigarettes! Through this process we come to find out his a pathological liar, his wife (who wasn't on island and was back at the mainland) was a Colombian illegal alien, oh, and pregnant! So anyway, while still on restriction, living in the squadron spaces, he was professing his innocence to the CO in the hallway. Not liking what he was seeing, another drug test occurred and he popped AGAIN for Meth, this time 40x the threshold. Well played. Even after he was off-island getting processed out, we'd get calls about other trouble he was making (impersonating an officer, for one).

After I left the HTs, there was a (former) HS IP who was arrested and taken away for smuggling blow into the country. I had one flight with him and it wasn't bad, but everyone did get an odd vibe from him when they'd talk/fly with him.

 

[Pags]

Back when Nittany and I where mere SNAs at VT-3 we had an IP get busted for attempting to solicit sex from what he thought was a minor (actually undercover escambia county cop).

 

[insanebikerboy]

an IP get busted for attempting to solicit sex from what he thought was a minor (actually undercover escambia county cop).

Hi! Why don't you have a seat over there!

 

[Pugs]

While not an aviator, I had an Airman pop positive for Meth during a routine sweep .

Had an AME2 in my first fleet squadron. Good guy, only E-5 working in QA, pops + for coke. Doesn't fight it and we Ad Sep him quickly. A couple weeks later the Oak Harbor cops shop up with NIS (before they were NCIS) with pictures of this guys head and other hacked up body parts they found in the crawl space of a house in town. We had all squadron quarters and the pics were put on the big screen in the hangar. Couple of guys passed out and a couple puked but we didn't have anyone else pop positive in the two years after that before I PCS'ed.