quote:

Originally posted by Sgt Neutron:
The Airman was an SF troop(Security Forces-they changed from SP-Security Police about 20 years ago). I've seen some that joined the AF because collecting shopping carts at Wal-Mart parking lots was too complicated a task.

Yeah. A good buddy of mine is in the Air Force, and he says that Security Forces often aren't exactly the best and brightest.

In his words, the Air Force recruits who only have a couple brain cells to rub together and barely manage to pass the ASVAB are given two options for Career Fields: Services, where they stir pots of beans in the kitchen or hand out towels at the gym all day, and Security Forces, where they stand at a post guarding a building or a group of aircraft all day.

Yeah, but they look sharp while waving people through the gate, so there's that.

I'll always remember as a SP4 and even as a PFC, driving through the gate at Griffiss AFB to go to work at the hospital in the morning while wearing hospital whites. With the whites, our rank insignia was gold and on the collar. The SPs clearly didn't know Army rank (nor did many in the AF for that matter) and I was saluted more often than not. We always found it rather comical to tell someone who outranked us "as you were" while returning their salute.

Being retired military and having worked at an Air Force base as a civilian, the first thing that struck me my first week was how their culture was worlds apart from the Navy I served in. Never did adapt.

As for the SF gate guards, yeah maybe half would understand the rank on my retired ID and salute. Funny but the only place I was ever addressed as "Commander" was by civilian check out clerks at the Commissary after they looked at my ID.

Another real man of genius, this one from the Army National Guard:

https://www.armytimes.com/news...ng-to-steal-weapons/

Fort Bragg police ask for help finding soldier accused of trying to steal weapons

By: Kathleen Curthoys   15 hours ago

Editor’s note: The Fayetteville Observer is reporting that Spc. Cameron Reese Bray turned himself into his unit on Thursday evening.

A soldier tried to steal two M4 carbines and fled by foot from a training area at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, officials say.

Spc. Cameron Reese Bray, 23, was seen leaving the western edge of the training area, The Fayetteville Observer reported on Thursday afternoon.

Bray is accused of trying to steal the government weapons during annual training with his National Guard unit, Fort Bragg spokesman Tom McCollum said in the report. Bray has a criminal history and was thought to be trying to go to his hometown of Greensboro, McCollum said.

The soldier is with the 732nd Forward Support Company, 5th Battalion, 113th Field Artillery Regiment, according to the North Carolina National Guard.

Police were asking that anyone who sees Bray call 911 immediately, the report said.

Editor’s note: The Fayetteville Observer is reporting that Spc. Cameron Reese Bray turned himself into his unit on Thursday evening.

This gave me a chuckle. It might go better for him if he'd turn himself in, to his unit.

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
Yeah, but they look sharp while waving people through the gate, so there's that.

I'll always remember as a SP4 and even as a PFC, driving through the gate at Griffiss AFB to go to work at the hospital in the morning while wearing hospital whites. With the whites, our rank insignia was gold and on the collar. The SPs clearly didn't know Army rank (nor did many in the AF for that matter) and I was saluted more often than not. We always found it rather comical to tell someone who outranked us "as you were" while returning their salute.

I wore cook's whites in the Army, which were essentially the same as the hospital whites. Gold pin-on Specialist (E-4) rank on the collars and a unit crest on my green garrison cap that looked like this. It was always hilarious to see the confused look on the Air Force types when I walked past them, as from a distance my collar rank could have been gold oak leaves of a Major and the unit crest looked like a Lt. Colonels silver oak leaf from a distance.