The Promotion

Sometimes it becomes advantageous to get a promotion in the Army to make life a little easier. I found that if you take the bull by the horns, you can make things happen a lot faster than you think. Here’s the Story.

The Promotion

 

In 1969 when I finished Avionics Communications Equipment Repair School, the Army promoted me to Specialist 4th Class. I was content at that time ride this rank until I got out of the Army. I was sent to the 52nd Artillery Group on Artillery Hill near Pleiku, Vietnam, on January, 1, 1970. After I had been there a couple of months. I could see some advantages to getting  promoted to Specialist 5th Class because they had an NCO ( Non Commissioned Officer ) Club where you could get a steak and they had much better movies than the enlisted men’s club. I was working for at Warrant Officer Pilot called Mr. Romanek who was also the PLL Officer ( helicopter parts ). I asked him to write me a recommendation for promotion. He told me he didn’t have time from that crap, but he told me to write my own recommendation and he would sign it. So I put my creative writing skills to work and made me sound like best damn prospect out there. He didn’t even read it, he just signed it and turned it in.

 

L-R    Lt Colman, Mr. Romanek, Lt Wolf, Me, Mr Huluca grilling steaks at the Air Section on Artillery Hill.  Mr Romanek was my boss and a Pilot. Sometimes it paid of to have several officers as buddies. They got me out of a lot of Company Duty. Mr Romanek helped me promote my own promotion.

 

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We had a Staff Sargent living in our hootch, and I was coming in one evening and he ran by me got out the door and barfed his guts out. I looked in his room and he had been eating one of those steaks he bought at the NCO Club. I noticed it was about half gone and I could see three or four maggots cut into on the part that was left. I’m guessing he ate those maggots and started to cut off another piece of the steak and saw what he had eaten and got really sick. I thought …..”Well having access to those steaks may not be as great as I had thought.” That Staff Sargent consumed a quart of Kentucky Bourbon every single day that I knew him. One day I noticed he had turned a bright yellow color and advised him to go to Sick Call. The next day he was gone. He was diagnosed with Jaundice of the liver and sent back to the USA.
In about two weeks, I received notification that I was to go before the review board for promotion. There were eight candidates but only two positions available. I got MaMa San to polish my boots and iron my fatigues and headed for the meeting. When I got there Captain Chavez was heading the review board and I knew immediately that I would be promoted. Captain Chavez had read my file earlier and noticed that I had a degree in Mechanical Engineering and sent someone to get me. He had a water pump problem that I was able to solve and get the water supply running again. He was blown away that I solved the problem.

 

 

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In a couple of days, they had a small promotion ceremony for me and the other guy that was promoted. I went to the NCO Club that evening and got a steak and had a few beers. However, I cut that steak into very small pieces and inspected each bite carefully before eating it.

 

That’s Captain Chavez congratulating me on being promoted to SP 5. E5. I was grinning pretty big because I had got it done in less than a month.

Thanks for reading The Promotion,
Bill