A funny story about a soldier "dying"
Wanted to get your attention with the subject line. 
Germany 1992, I think.
Our regular schedule was 4:30 am wake up, 5:00 am PT (running, push-ups, football/basketball etc), then we had until 8:00 am to shower clean and go to the chow hall.
On Thursdays we had 5 straight hours of training 7:00 am until noon. Full "battle rattle" (helmet gas mask weapons etc.). Everyone in the 3rd Infantry Division across Germany. Usually basic stuff.
So at our headquarters they did training too. Mind you this is the early 90's so we're still talking typewriters but there were computers. Basic DOS stuff but they were connected to what was the internet then. We actually had a GPS thing on our track (Bradley) until the Lt. crunched it in the turret, "Well there goes a month's pay" he said.
HQ was training on personnel matters. Check this if this happens...check this....and so on.
I heard this second hand but apparently it went something like this:
Sgt. : okay so if a soldier dies you tab over and hit F1 to click here
The Pvt. at the keyboard follows along
Sgt. (wrapping up the training): you normally would hit F5 to send it
CLICK
Sgt. : But don't.......HOLY SHIT!!! Did you hit it??!?
Pvt. : Yeah
What that set in motion was various actions:
Pay stops
Soldiers Guaranteed Life Insurance payments initiate
Communication with the local recruiting station to put on the dress greens and go to the soldier's front door (this sadly happens every day)
Of course this wasn't instantaneous but as slow as communication was at the time so was trying to stop or fix it.
Frantic phone calls back to the US followed. They got it cleaned up but there was a few crazed hours of panic at HQ.
I'm not sure who the soldier was but for a brief time he was dead.
Post script.
We had an admin guy who was a Scout. He'd gone through the whole 16 week basic but got stuck in a cramped office for 2 years. Never set foot on a Bradley but did "field duty" way more than we did. He was constantly at training including doing HR things with remote connections out in the woods. He rode the same bus I did in from Frankfurt but I never saw him until he was "short" - getting ready to transfer.
He was pissed. He ended up hanging out one night with me and the machanics who I made sure I was friends with.
"I never got to do shit!"
Me: "fuck them"
"How?"
Me: "create a fake soidier" --- I totally stole that from M*A*S*H*. I don't think he used "Tuttle". I think it was "Peterson". He couldn't issue him a weapon but he had a gas mask and everything else that could be created or issued to "him".
Several months later we had a new First Sargent. They have to sign off on each person as well as Allen wrenches. Full inventory.
As they called off the names when they got to the fake ..... Peterson...no answer....the 4 or 5 people who'd been in the room that night cracked up. The leadership of our Troop scrambled inside.
E6 standing next to me: "What's so funny?"
Me: "It's a matter of national security"
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