When I arrived in Baumholder to be the new Support Platoon Sergeant for the 2nd Battalion of the 68th Armored Regiment, I inherited an operation that was barely managing to  perform its duties.  The Support Platoon was made up of two elements: the Fuel Section consisting of ten 2500-gallon fuel tankers, (8X8 trucks called HEMTTS - Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck) and a storage tank and small warehouse full of lubricants and petroleum products;  and the Cargo section,  made up of ten HEMTT Cargo trucks, a couple of five-ton trucks,  and a jeep.  There was also an Ammunition NCO who ran the Battalion's multi-million dollar ammo accounts:  ammo storage (consisting of a couple of bunkers in the Baumholder Ammo Supply Point), and the issue and turn-in of ammo to the tank companies.  With the fuel, lube, and ammo accounts, I became  responsible for millions of dollars of inventory and facilities, not to mention all the vehicles and the soldiers (usually around thirty GIs). 

I say they were just getting by because there were junior NCOs in each section who knew how to do their jobs and kept the shortfalls of fuel and ammo to a minimum, but the out-going platoon sergeant was not a leader;  he just let things happen without any supervision or correction.  The Platoon Leader, a First Lieutenant, was content to "go with the flow" along as long as everything got covered,  but then would rant and rave when things didn't go so well. 

I mentioned on a couple of other occasions that I am not the kind of guy to just jump in and start making waves and changing things right off the bat.  If something is working, why change it?  I watched the platoon for a couple of weeks and determined where the strengths were, both in procedure and personnel, and where the weaknesses were.  When I did start making adjustments, I started in slow.  There were a couple of areas that needed immediate attention and I dealt with those through the NCOs who were responsible in those areas.

After about three weeks, I had fully assimilated into the platoon and we began to make some  improvements and a few changes that I wanted made to comform to my own managerial methods. 

The Ammo NCO (I can't recall his name), a small Staff Sergeant with a big mouth, was one of those souls who thought everyone was entitled to "his" opinion.  He bordered on insubordinate on several occasions.  He had a hard job and no one had been supporting him in that work for some time.  I guess he expected that I would be a continuation of how things had always been for him.  It took a bit of convincing to make him believe that I not only wanted to understand how the ammo accounts were handled, but also wanted to be involved in their management.  The first incident of the Ammo Sergeant's smart mouth came in front of a couple of the buck sergeants.  I gently informed my ammo guy that I relied on my NCOs to set an example of correctness and courtesy.  When he responded with some drivel about "that is just the way things are... everyone in the platoon knows it, and I had better just get used to it."   I told him that if everyone knew it, then it wouldn't be very hard for me to round up a few witnesses when I charged him with Insubordination and hauled his butt to the First Sergeant.  He backed down some, but kept some of his swagger so everyone would know he wasn't really backing down.  The next time he got lippy with me I just asked him if he was familiar with his rights under Article 31 of the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 31 is basically the military version of Miranda).  He blanched and shut up.  My charm was working.

When I had first interviewed the Ammo NCO, I asked him what was the part of his job that was causing him the most trouble.  His eyes grew wide, his eyebrows rose nearly to his hair line, and he declared loudly (and in chorus with a couple of other sergeants who were in the office at the time) "DATs can't count!!"  Then everyone cracked up.  They explained to me that whenever the Battalion went to a gunnery exercise, Graf,  Wildflecken,  Hohenfels, or wherever,  the Ammo guys would put a 55-gallon drum in the tank park.  It was painted red, had the top cut off, and had six-inch-tall white lettering that said "Amnesty".  Its purpose was to collect ammunition that was inadvertently left on the  combat vehicles when they left the firing ranges.  Primarily it was for small arms and simulators.  Ammunition was not allowed in the vehicle parks so the barrel had to be emptied daily and the ammo collected, inspected, and put back in the usable ammo batch or if unusable, turned back in to the Ammo Supply Point. 

When the tanks fire for record, they have a fixed number of main gun rounds to fire.  If for some reason they are not able to fire them all, they have to be returned to the ammo issue pad at the range.  Before the tanks fire on the practice range or the practice ranges, the have to "zero" their main guns.  They fire three rounds at a checkerboard-looking target and adjust the laser sights to bring the bullets to the point the laser is sitting on.  They only get three rounds to do this, and they are supposed to fire three rounds to verify their "zero".   At the end of each zero range day, the Ammo NCO would find two or three main gun rounds in the Amnesty  barrel.  And the rage would begin.  Those main gun rounds created an extra couple of hours work for the ammo guys.  And try as they might, they never could catch the perpetrators.  After explaining it all to me, my Ammo NCO ended his rant with, "Sarge!! How hard is this?  Booom   Booom  Booom...How freaking hard is that!!!   DATs (dumb-ass tankers) CANNOT COUNT!!!"

One Monday I walked into the Ammo office to talk a little business with our Ammo NCO and found him putting photos into an album.  The photo captions said "Stuttgart" "Heidelberg" ... "Frankfurt"...etc.  I asked him what he was doing.  He said he was putting together an album to send to his parents.  I watched over his shoulder for a few minutes and said, "Those are all pictures of Trier...I was there Saturday and I saw all that stuff".  He answered quickly, "They ain't gonna know."

Despite his cockiness, his whiny attitude, our nearly coming to blows on occasion, and the borderline insubordination, I have to say he was the best Ammunition NCO I have ever worked with.  He had a firm grasp on a difficult job.   He juggled ammo projections, orders, issues, turn-in, accountablility, inspections, inventories, and maintenance of an account that ran into multi-millions of dollars annually...and he made it look easy.  Once he realized I was serious about being involved in the management of the section, he brought me up to speed then proved to me that he was on top of it and I didn't have to worry about it at all.  We would meet once or twice a week routinely, more often when gunneries or manuevers were coming up.  He honestly made my life a lot easier, while at the same time challenging my leadership skills with his mouth and his attitude.   I was glad to have him around.