Bob, I guess you rotated out of the 119th about the time I got there, and as you said there was some ugly stuff going on.
Maybe I was naïve, but I don’t know of any one screwing around with flight hours, and never heard of awards allocations that meshed smoothly with battalion numbers, that may have been going on but it would have been above my pay grade. With regard to you not receiving an Air Medal after flying as a crew chief for about seven months, that does not sound right at all, were you a crew member or did you sit in to get flight time when you could? As for unscrupulous “managers” receiving flight pay without flying I’m sure that went on.

I did not see resentment toward the young kids receiving awards and decorations amongst the lifer NCOs that I was associated with. I, and all of the NCOs I knew, would have stood up and proudly saluted those young men for the hell of a job that most of them did and I still salute them today.

I will talk about something that I did see though, a small number of “pot-heads” that the lifer NCOs had to deal with. My 1st day at the 119th I was assigned as flight Plt Sgt of the Crocs, the Sgt I replaced was shipped out a week or so early because there was a grenade found under his pillow, I’m not sure how true that was but it got my attention I can assure you. I can remember having a surprise inspection and finding drugs in unlocked lockers (no one locked their lockers) and the individual saying “that’s not mine anyone could have put it there”. I also recall checking the guards at night on the perimeter and finding a 5 lb bag of pot between an individual’s feet and him looking down and saying “I just sat down, that’s not mine”. We also had someone so high on drugs that he passed out while he was trying to frag the NCOs Quarters. I guess all units had some of these same things to deal with.

In closing I want to say that this was a small few of the young troops, most were real fine young men doing the job they were assigned to do, and I truly believe I served with some of the finest Troops, NCOs and Officers in the 119th and I’m proud to call them fellow soldiers. I also believe that the NCO Corp is the backbone of the Army