Quote:
Originally Posted by Adm.Lee
Michael Lee Lanning wrote an interesting book about being a mech. company commander in Germany in the early '70s, when the US Army was at a low point. I found his stories about supplies amusing. The first one being when he asked his supply sergeant how the paperwork was, the sergeant paused before answering, "Well, sir, MY ass is covered."
Lanning showed (I think) his own wisdom by next asking the sergeant what he was hoarding for trading use. The answer was some number of spare barrels for the heavy MGs. Those popped up in the memoir again, of course.
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I am reminded of a story from Robert Mason's "Chickenhawk", about helicopter pilots in Vietnam.
After a supply Huey crashed enroute, some naive new Supply guy was instructed to go around to the various units and ask the supply sergeants if they had anything that had been coming in on that downed chopper that now had to be replaced. The supply sergeants recognized a unique opportunity to balance their books, so to speak, and said, "Now that you mention it, I had ordered six cases of this, and seven boxes of that..." By the time it was all calculated, the Huey had some eleven tons of materials on it, according to the supply sergeants' tally. "No wonder the goddammed thing went down!", Mason commented.