The Squeaky Wheel

After being promoted to Assistant Flight Chief, my Flight Chief told me that I could have one day off a week, the same as him. I kept my rotation the same as the troops, one day off every 30 days. We had to cover a minimum number of posts every night and we did not have enough handlers to give everyone one a day off a week. On the nights I assumed Flight Chief's duties, I did not walk a dog, but the other six nights of the week I did. It did not go unnoticed by the troops I commanded, that I stayed in the same rotation of nights off as them.

The troops had lost faith in their leadership because their friends had been sent to jail followed by dishonorable discharges.There was a feeling of betrayal by their friends in leadership, because they knew that their friends were sleeping while on duty and they condoned it by doing nothing to stop this egregious behavior. Because of the loss of morale, I took it upon myself to do what I could to help build the esprit de corps necessary for a unit to perform efficiently. I never had a lack of opportunity.

One such opportunity presented itself when the incident of the squeaky wheel occurred. We had two trucks and two jeeps assigned to the kennels for night time duty. I would walk to the motor pool and pick up the flight chief's jeep every evening, then pick up my squad leaders and drive them to the motor pool to pick up the trucks. We would then go back to the barracks where I would pick up the flight chief and the trucks picked up the troops assigned to duty that night. At the end of our shift, we did everything in reverse and I would then walk back to the barracks and take my cold shower because the troops had used up all of the hot water. This was not a hardship because the water was not all that cold and the weather was extremely hot.

One morning, when returning the vehicles to the motor pool, I reported that a truck had a squeaky wheel. The sergeant told me that it was the bearing and that we should continue to drive it until it failed. We did and one day it failed, but it was not a bearing.  The lug nuts were loose and it destroyed the rim and the wheel. The motor pool demanded to know who had driven the truck the night before. I was the acting flight chief that night and I refused to give them the name of the driver because he did nothing wrong. The other flight chief immediately gave up the name of the driver for his flight. The motor pool then attached my paycheck and the other drivers paycheck for the cost of the damaged rim and wheel.

This was a horrible miscarriage of justice. I immediately went to our Operations Officer and explained to him what had happened. K-9 did not have a lug wrench to check or tighten the lug nuts and only the motor pool had a lug wrench. The motor pool was informed about the squeaky wheel when it first occurred. The motor pool did not check the lug nuts and told us to drive it until the bearing failed. The officer corrected the injustice and the NCO who told us to drive it until it failed was never very friendly towards me after that. But the troops I commanded knew that I was there to support them and, for the most part, they did their job for me.