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“Tim Walz was NOT a commander! That must be removed immediately. Its false and untrue.”

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Dunno about Command Sergeant Majors, but there certainly seem to be a lot of Command Private Majors coming out of the woodwork on that article. Illegitimi non carburundum. Qwirkle (talk) 05:10, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

PS. Notice just being “false” isn’t enough; they gotta null-and-void it. Qwirkle (talk) 05:10, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah...folks who talk about the military but have never served tend to have a bad poker face. It's really in the involuntary things, like using terminology that is maybe technically correct in a very literal sense, but is just never something anyone in uniform would ever actually say. Like dude who complained about Walz not "completing the testing." There's a lot of testing involved. Drug tests, vision tests, HIV tests, hearing tests... but nobody would ever refer to the SM Academy as "the testing". GMGtalk 10:46, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do you remember the old joke about the Sergeant Major test site? Qwirkle (talk) 17:35, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
? GMGtalk 18:08, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One of the truly great shaggy dog stories; it can be expanded to fill a whole evening if desired. Qwirkle (talk) 21:46, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
By all means. GMGtalk 23:49, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So, on an obscure part of Fort Fillintheblank, hidden by forest, and surrounded by triple standard concertina and the occasional toe popper, there is a single company's worth of quarters and motor pool where an engineer unit maintains a nearby grassy parade ground with fanatical fervor. At each side of the secret field are concrete curbing and gutters. Every fillinthetimeperiod, when it becomes obvious a few more Smadges are needed, prospects are sent TDY orders, and the engineers begin final preparations. A giant crane rail emerges from its hiding place, and slowly makes its way down the field, guided by the curbing. Hanging off it are soldiers armed with grass shears, comb rakes, potting soil and grass plugs perfecting the lawn without stepping on a single blade. When the job is done, the OIC flips a single cigarette butt into the field.

On the testing day, each prospect is sent down a trail to survey the area, and report his findings.

Some poor souls quickly return, and simply describe a grassy rectangular field. They will soon be passed over twice.

Some take their time, and qualify and quantify, giving dimensions, grass height and cultivar. If they are precise and accurate enough, they will be encouraged to apply for warrant officer.

But the true Ser'eant Major returns almost immediately up the trail at a trot, eyes blazing, and says "THAT FIELD IS ALL FUCKED UP!"

Qwirkle (talk) 05:27, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reminds me of the apocryphal story that there was a private walking on the grass in a parade field. Sarnt Major sees him and predictably "Get the hell off my grass!"
From the distance "Do you know what my name is?"
"No."
He rips off his name tape "Fuck you Sergeant Major!" And books it in the other direction.
But anyway, it is legit kindof weird that we use civilian contractors for so daggum many things but we still somehow end up with boots doing lawn care. I get the argument from attention to detail, good order and discipline, cleanliness wins and loses wars. But that's not really the kind of "mowing the grass" that the Army is supposed to be good at. GMGtalk 11:07, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was in the other camp, I think relying on contractors to the degree we now do is a big problem. There are four sets of prices for everything, and only three good ones: 0ne for those who know how to do it, and can, one for those who know how, but can't, one for those who at least watch the market, and one for those stupid enough to take all their advice from the people selling things.
There isn't, thank God, a vibrant private market in making war to compare our costs with. Qwirkle (talk) 16:24, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't be so sure. Didn't Russia just have a thing with mercenaries? GMGtalk 18:33, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Joking aside, Wagner was one of the worst examples of privatization of gain and socialization of risks and costs in recent history, and that's a field with a lot of competition. Qwirkle (talk) 23:49, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
True — and I'm playing Devil's advocate a bit — if you've earned your CAB, you can make six figures pulling security for some...I dunno...trucking company in Syria or something. I know at least one guy who was probably going to drink himself to death and that was his way out. Get out of the States and have a weapon in your hand. Of course there's an entirely different issue there of the US subsidizing private...well...mercenaries...because nobody besides the government is going to pluck you out of high school and give you a quarter million dollars in training. These private contracts aren't exactly entry level positions. GMGtalk 10:59, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is a wider problem than many people realize. Everybody gets that new 2LT is often a net negative for a goodly biece of time, and that a guy starting basic training is not a useful military resource yet. The same is true, though, for most other professions, and the initial career of an engineer, say, was often in the murky overlap areas with the blue collar side of the profession. You got hired on into a vasty bullpen of a hundred desks, and did some drafting and site survey and eased your way into the realities of the job. For that initial period, though, you were a net liabilty to the company.

The bullpen is gone now; most of the introductory overlap is replaced directly by computers in most AE firms. I am not sure this is always progress. Qwirkle (talk) 18:10, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I saw this reply, but yes. I grow tired of getting a 2LT who hasn't been to basic, hasn't been to BOLC, but it's our fault if they get a negative comment on their OER. I'm not even an especially good Soldier and I have no idea really how I made rank.
I remember as a young SPC driving an LMTV lost in the baaaaack woods of Knox with a 2LT and having to turn around. "Sir, I need you to ground guide me so I can back up." We're totally alone and in the dark. Dude looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. If I was king of the Army I would do lot's of things, but the first would be to mandate that you have to at least make E4 promotable before you can commission. Sir, I appreciate that you have commendable power-point-fu and great cardio, but that doesn't apply to a lot of situations. GMGtalk 13:16, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost: 14 August 2024

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* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:26, 4 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I want to report something like vandalism, but don't know where, so I'm doing it here

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I noticed a "bad edit" on the page Weetamoo (she was a Native American tribal princess/queen in New England, Puritan times); I reverted the edit thinking "assume good faith". Then I realized that the edit looked like a poorly attempted citation, and the source was absolutely not encyclopedic (it's now a dead link, but something like https://web.archive.org/web/20170329044918/http://royalwomen.tripod.com/id7.html ) so I looked more and noticed the numerous other edits by the same user https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Contributions/Wheeligrl18 , and there is some absolute trash in there, like "Weetamoo was an early example of gender fluidity" with no citation.

I got your name from an earlier kerfuffel on related pages with related users like Indigenous_Girl (who is no longer active) https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive311#Buffs,_Indigenous_Girl_and_CorbieVreccan

you seem like you are not insane, so I thought perhaps you'd know where to point this. I (without a login) didn't want to start doing bulk reverts, and i'm not an expert on the topic anyway. The Talk page and the page itself seem to be not looked after by anybody reliable 98.7.197.219 (talk) 02:33, 5 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Tripod is pretty categorically not a reliable source. As a teenager, I wrote a choose-your-own-adventure space odyssey on Tripod...just to ensure I never had a girlfriend. At any rate, the first step is to talk to the person, which is usually a pretty good move in most any disagreement. If that's unproductive, you might want to post on the talk page at WP:NDN. As a last resort, you could try posting at WP:ANI if the issues are systemic and attempts at discussion are entirely unproductive. Just be aware that ANI is unequivocally the worst place on the entire project, where time and effort go to die. But it does occasionally resolve things without making a bigger mess than there was to begin with. GMGtalk 11:30, 6 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Voting for WikiProject Military history coordinators is now open!

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Orphaned non-free image File:Gabonese Football Federation Logo.png

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A barnstar for you!

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The Barnstar of Good Humor
I, too, like being included. I dream of horses (Hoofprints) (Neigh at me) 02:41, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Voting is now open for the WikiProject Military History newcomer of the year and military historian of the year awards

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