Sleeping on Post

Sleeping on post was a problem that became widely accepted and because it was not properly addressed several dog handlers were court-martialed and severely punished with jail time and a dishonorable discharge. Some of the guys would joke around and laugh and say, "I hear you were caught sleeping last night."

Eventually, the Kennel Master overheard the guys talking about it. Over a one week period, five or six guys were caught sleeping by the Kennel Master and the Night Supervisor. Ironic that the Night Supervisor was the witness with the Kennel Master who would send the sleepers to jail, because he had been one of the supervisors overlooking the previous dereliction of duty. This was not someone accidentally falling asleep because he sat down for too long. One soldier had his poncho spread out like a mattress and his boots off. He was planning on sleeping.

There was a shakeup of leadership in K-9. The ones who should have been replaced were not, but the Squad Leaders and the Assistant Flight Chiefs lost their jobs. Some of the guys, who outranked me, chose not to accept a leadership role because they did not want to work for the Night Supervisor or the current Flight Chiefs. I accepted the position of Assistant Flight Chief and I decided that I would work hard at making sure no one else went to jail, for any type of breach of duty.

It was my job to give the briefings at guard mount. Every night I would give a speech about weapons safety and about being continuously alert on post along with the intelligence report and the code words of the day.

It was important that everyone believed that I would send them to jail if I caught them sleeping, including my roommates. Then it happened. Base was trying to reach one of my squad leaders so that he would clear his post for a fire mission. He did not answer. I was taking someone back to the barracks, so I had a witness with me. As we drove down the post, the kid kept saying, "I won't be a witness for you." I had to finally tell him to shut up.

When we got there, sure enough my squad leader was asleep. I swapped out his radio and attributed his lack of communication to a bad radio. After we had cleared the area I had a heart to heart talk with both soldiers. I told them that they were to tell no one that I had found the squad leader sleeping and that I had better not hear it come back to me about what had happened that night. It never came back to me that I caught anyone sleeping on post. I did not have a problem with either of them after that. The squad leader was thankful that he did not go to jail and became one of the best dog handlers I ever served with during my four years in the service.