Quote:
Originally Posted by sic1701
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.
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I was a supply sergeant in a battalion once that had a similar event happen... we had a CUCV (GI Chevy Blazer) on a train that was derailed, and some items were missing. By the time the paperwork made it to approval, that CUCV was carrying something like 5 tons of gear. But the commander signed it, and that made it official.
When I got back from one deployment, the National Guard state HQ supply guys were there when I cracked open the container full of equipment we redeployed. By the time they left, they had what my commander (naively) was referring to as "the extra list" - a few things that were not officially accounted for. On that deployment I had 4 or 5 little stash locations that nobody new about... they assumed some other unit owned that space.
As far as trading, good supply people don't operate on a "transactional" basis - "I'll trade you this for that" - but on a "relationship" basis - "I'll hook you up when you need something, and when I'm in a bind I can count on you to help me out if you have what I need". Helps get things done. (With that, I once pulled a deal that involved the Danish and Turkish armies and four different US bases... it was epic!)