Where's your vest?

Omega Tanker

New Member
I was a Tanker in the U.S Army for five years. At one point we were at a tank table 7 gunnery. I was on a new tank crew with a Pfc. loader a Sgt. gunner and an Sgt (p) Tank commander. I was a the driver as a specialist. The rest of the crew and I got along fine but the T.C., being promotable, was trying to make a good impression on his seniors, bucking for that rank and decided I would be his example.

Our gunner was well respected and rarely made mistakes, however he had made the error of forgetting his combat vest and was a little panicked. I told him "no problem you can borrow mine since I can't wear it in the drivers hole anyway". I went up to My T.C, who was talking with the other tank commanders and officers, and tried to quietly tell him the deal, trying to keep our gunner out of the lime light. I told him "Sgt Tkel forgot his vest, I loaned him mine since I can't wear it in the driver's hole anyway, I'll just wear my chicken vest (light armor, rarely used) to the briefing. If that's O.K. with you Sgt? His face was in a grimace and I could tell he was angry but his response left me at a loss. He loudly yelled (so the other NCOs could see what good job he was doing I suppose) Where the FxxK is your vest Specialist? He hadn't even been listening, just waiting to show off in front of the seniors, some of whom had over heard me the first time. So now I had to tell him exactly the same thing, only now he had brought attention on his inattention and the fact I wasn't the one who had messed up. I couldn't think of a simpler way of getting the information across so I repeated myself, more slowly, word for word, as monotone as possible.

The look of realization, that spread on his face, when he realized what he had done was more then worth the negative attention from the command ranks.
 
L.T.'s first combat patrol.

On my first tour in Iraq in '04 our old Platoon Leader got promoted and got a new position. We got a very green butter bar fresh from OCS in return. On his first patrol out of the gate he was understandably nervous. We set up in an over watch position on the MSR (main supply route) and watched the civilian traffic go by. After 15 minutes he looks over at me in the loader's hatch and says "I keep seeing the same car go by every minute or so, I think they're reconing us, we should prep for action." I replied "I haven't see anything sir, where are they?" almost immediately he says "here they come by again and charged his Ma deuce. I look to where he pointed and asked "Is it the white car with orange quarter panels?" He replied that it was. I said "Sir that's a taxi, like yellow cabs in NY" and dropped back down the hatch so he wouldn't see me laughing.
 
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