Perfect Example: The Value of Old-School NCOs

Battalion was coming back from heavy exercise after one week in forest. In the first APC was master sergeant sitting furious, hopeless and stressed all at the same time. Staff sergeant (old as hell and hard as a rock) approaches and asks whats wrong?Master SGT says: I'm fucked, men have a weekend off starting in few hours and I forgot to order busses... 200 men and no transport..goddamnit.SSG says not to worry.Just when we arrive to barracks you supervise maintenance and after vacation inspection send men without transport to main gate. And so it happens.

Meanwhile battalion is cleaning and showering SSG pulled some old favors back and got the MP's close all other gates except the main gate. So he quickly organizes troops into several formations "going to city 1 form line here, going to city 2 form line here" and so on.Then he just waited until neighboring battalions gets their vacation started and he stopped all civilian vehicles. He opened the door, counted empty seats, asked destination. Then shouts to the formations "three men going to city number 4 enter this vehicle FAST". This goes on like an hour and every time if any driver dared to even start whining, SSG just shouts like a dragon: "Shut your f*ng face or else..."I asked him two Q's some time after that day.1) how did it go at the end. He replied shortly: "sir, after 90 mins there was no men without transportation."2) Any officers driving those vehicles? Reply: "sir I'm not sure, I was too busy trying to get men back home."-respectoldschoolers-