Comments on: Look at the Big Brain on Brad

By: Wendy C

Wendy C — Sat, 16 May 2009 16:27:20 +0000

How we know its not an active duty member, is by looking at ID cards. That will tell us if she or he is retired, active duty, or a spouse. No need to salute someone in car who has not earned the salute. And to the fellow who only notices half a$%ed salutes, and only those. I think you need to get off your high horse as well.

By: Pogue

Pogue — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:23:15 +0000

Re: Army vehicle inspections – they’re still doing it, at least in the training commands. When I was at Ft Eustis last summer every time there was a long weekend/4 day pass there was a detailed POV safety inspection. If the vehicle didn’t pass the inspection you didn’t get the pass.

By: VQ Bubba

VQ Bubba — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:47:33 +0000

Doesn’t this woman work on a city council some place? Or is that her sister who is a reserve Captain?

By: Curtis

Curtis — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:02:59 +0000

MCRD still has marines at the gate and they always salute as I drive up with my window down and my CAC in hand which I release into their hands for a good feel check before they hand it back to me and salute again. I give them a good day and drive on. The civilians guarding the sub base also get the rolled down window and display of the SPAWAR badge (which is where I’m going) and salute and wave on. I’m sufficiently old school that I don’t like to be saluted in civvies since by the rules of the naval service I cannot return one while out of uniform or if uncovered.
There was talk above about the army insistence on actually inspecting vehicles. Speaking as an Army brat who cleared posts all over the US since 1961, that had an old meaning to the Army. If they were going to permit one to drive on their post in one’s own POV, then that POV had to demonstrate to the Army’s satisfaction that the horn, brakes, lights, wipers, blinkers etc all worked. They also preferred a POV that didn’t leave puddles of oil while parked. This was the old Army which had plenty of soldiers to detail off to this task. In the modern era they’ve just decided to accept any old junker, just like the navy does, and scrape off the stickers of the cars that displease them.

As I recall my department head days I probably had my sticker scraped by some 32nd street nazi a dozen times. It was the closest thing to being a member of the CPO mess that an officer can experience since my visits with the traffic judge usually lasted about 4 minutes and most of that was telling sea stories while his minions were putting new stickers on the windshield of my car.

By: P-3W

P-3W — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:14:31 +0000

Saluting cars and stickers….

When we first got married, and as an officer’s brat, I was used to the idea of being saluted when we went through the gate. What unnerved me was when we were at PCola and I was a brand new wife in the great big pickup without power anything (hated to drive slowly and try to turn that rig!) was having squads (is that what they’re called?) of recruits marching and having the whole shooting match salute me! I was lost trying to figure out how to get where Husband was without getting yelled at when all the new sailors saluted me and made me quickly scan to see what I’d done wrong. I was ready to slam on the brakes and stop. Definitely unnerving.

My second favorite tale of saluting-gate-guards was our first Easter — we went to sunrise services at the water’s edge on NAS Corpus Christi. Two obviously brand new sailors were directing traffic to the service down the way on the wharf/runway/thingy, when the first one saw the blue sticker and started to salute. His buddy saw him move his arm so he also started to salute. The first fellow realized he didn’t have to salute stickers anymore and hesitated with his arm part way up. The second fellow saw his partner hesitate, so then he hesitated, too. They did this goofy half way up, now down, now up, salute for about 5 or 6 seconds before the first sailor gave up and just saluted all the way. It was so funny, especially after remembering the squads saluting any blue sticker that moved just a few months earlier.

The Army base my SIL is at has rent-a-cops and no one salutes. Of course, that’s the same base with no clubs of any kind for any rate/rank. Used to be fun to go to the O-Club for Sunday brunch or lunchtime.

By: Justthisguy

Justthisguy — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 21:20:53 +0000

1. Thebronze: Yeah I understand that, but my car had a silly NASA sticker, not a a serious Army sticker. Maybe the MP was afraid I might be Eberhard Rees or Von Tiesenhausen or somebody and start cussing him out in German?

2, JoeC, that reminds me of a gal I used to know and had a coupla dates with until she decided I was too weird. She had a company in the Army during the druggy seventies. Back then (before pee tests) one would do health and welfare inspections of lockers, flush the reefer and toss the paraphernalia. (otherwise, bringing charges etc. would leave the comp’ny a hollow shell)

She knew her brother, a buddy of mine, was a pothead, so she donated all of the weird little sojers’ pot pipes to him. Some of them showed excellent workmanship, some were stupid-looking. We examined them, had a good laugh, then tossed them rather than using them. Didn’t wanna catch no sojer germs, y’know