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50 years ago -Vietnam - The good Lieutenant
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50 years ago -Vietnam - The good Lieutenant


Nov 9, 2020, 7:11 AM

I have told about the "Monkey Man" lieutenant we had for a time, but we did have a platoon leader once who was the the exact opposite. He was a West Point grad who had aspirations of being a career officer and had all the qualities a leader should possess. He cared about his men and also for the civilians who were being affected by the wartime conditions. Near the end of his assignment with us, we had been in the jungle for an extended time and hadn't been able to shave or even bathe for a good while and had a chance to do so by a stream just before going to the rear for a weeklong break. As I said before, we had to shave using a one inch mirror but managed to see part of our face a little at a time to get the job done. The Lt. just trimmed his beard instead of completely taking it off and when we reached the home base, the battalion commander happened to be there and was not happy to see a trimmed beard. He executed a formal reprimand saying that if he had time to trim the beard, he had time to completely shave. I was told that such a reprimand from a superior officer was a roadblock to future promotions and would ruin career advancement. Talk about injustice in the world.


Message was edited by: clover65®


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Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - The good Lieutenant


Nov 9, 2020, 8:19 PM

That kind of mentality has only gotten worse since Vietnam. The vast majority of flag officers these days couldn't run a gas station if their lives depended on it, but they sure can look nice in their perfectly pressed uniforms.

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Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - The good Lieutenant


Nov 9, 2020, 11:49 PM

Stuff like that gets overlooked after a while when the higher ups understand that is was bs. I always hated going back to my battalion headquarters for that very reason. I had a handlebar mustache and we were not supposed to have our mustache go below the corner of our mouths. We also were not supposed to keep our .45s in shoulder holsters ...... had one of those too. We would always walk on egg shells around battalion, but fortunately my last six months my platoon supported the 3rd Bn. 1st Marines, so we lived in their compound and their Battalion Commander had operational control over us, but didn't bother us much otherwise. We swept his roads for land mines, found and blew up booby traps, and accompanied them on all operations so he didn't bother us too much.

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