For Veteran's Day: Military Intelligence Explained
A lifetime ago, I found myself stationed at a small USAF installation on the shores of the Black Sea in Turkey. Most of us who were enlisted folks were Russian Linguists or other technical specialists, so it's easy to guess what we were up to.
So, since the place's mission was a 24/7/365 thing, there were four groups of people who actually did the things we were doing there. We worked rotating shifts, an ingenious way to deprive as many people as possible of as much sleep as possible. So the rotation was four days on day shift, 24 hours off, four days on swing shift, 24 hours off, four days on midnight shift, and then 96 hours off. It was those 96 hours off that troubled some of the non-technical NCOs and junior officers on that base who worked regular 9-5 day shifts.
Having a quarter of the E-4s and below off-duty for four days did not sit well with these administrative folks. We could, and did, get into all sorts of mischief, from smoking hashish, which could be purchased in local Turkish pharmacy shops, to various other distinctly non-military activities.
At one point, the highest ranking administrative NCO decided that we should be doing some sort of work during those 96 hours. The task he decided on was to paint the roundish rocks that lined the main road through the installation white. So, we were assigned to that duty during our 96 hours of down-time, given cans of white paint and 2" wide paintbrushes. In time all of the rocks were duly painted, providing a decorative and unified appearance to the road's edge.
In due time, the commanding officer of that installation was replaced. The new commanding officer discovered that the off-duty time of the people who were actually doing the skilled work that was the mission of that installation and who worked a difficult rotating shift schedule had been used to paint the rocks white. He thought that was a bad idea, and ordered the same senior NCO to get rid of those rocks.
So, the NCO made all of those enlisted folks who had painted the rocks white during their 96 hour down time turn each rock over so that the unpainted side was uppermost and to make sure that no white showed. This, of course was to be done during the 96 hour periods when we were off duty.
Order must be maintained.
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Stubby.
I haven't seen (or done) things that stupid- but we both know I'd be lying.
I do miss LTs somedays. I told more than one "trust me" 
