A quick story about some fun with the military system. There was a very lame soldier assigned to our company named Roscoe Freed. As befitting his name, he was red headed with buck teeth and probably met the very minimum standards for I.Q. Amazingly, despite having been in the army for at least 9 months, he was still a buck private E2, the second lowest rank. It was almost impossible not to at least achieved higher rank, as it is an automatic thing for time in grade, so when Fillback and I noticed this we decided to take action. We initiated paperwork for immediate promotion to private first class. Since this was long overdue it passed immediately. This was done on no recommendation from any of his superiors. We were pleased to have righted this egregious wrong.
As we thought more about it, we became incensed that he had gotten screwed for so long so decided to make up for it by putting in a special request for another promotion. As I recall we wrote up some garbage about his dedication to duty, extreme skills, etc. This did not go down quite as easily as he had barely sewn the new stripes on his shirts. We were questioned by the top sergeant and the captain. We stuck with our story (apparently they did not interview the guys working with him), also pointing out how he had been overlooked before. Shortly we were pleased to inform private Freed that he had been promoted to Spec 4 rank (Army equivalent to corporal). We joked about this calling it the "Rapid Rise of Roscoe". The guys in his squad were not amused, as it had taken them longer for the promotion and they really didn't like the guy. I can only conjecture that given his meteoric rise, he continued his Army career, retiring as a full colonel or perhaps brigadier general after 30 years. He is probably the guy responsible for much of our Mid East policy. I still count this as my brightest military achievement.
As a p.s, I did some fact checking with Sgt. Fillback, who lives in Vancouver, Washington, and he failed to add to the story due to being old and memory deficient. He thought perhaps we had taken him all the way from E1 and was unsure who initiated the action, but believed I had the lead on this one. Fillback is still a very funny guy and a good writer. We had tons of fun writing fake memos and dropping them on each other's desks. We have only gotten together twice since Korea, the first time when we moved to Seattle, stopping by in South Dakota and again a few years ago in Portland.
As we thought more about it, we became incensed that he had gotten screwed for so long so decided to make up for it by putting in a special request for another promotion. As I recall we wrote up some garbage about his dedication to duty, extreme skills, etc. This did not go down quite as easily as he had barely sewn the new stripes on his shirts. We were questioned by the top sergeant and the captain. We stuck with our story (apparently they did not interview the guys working with him), also pointing out how he had been overlooked before. Shortly we were pleased to inform private Freed that he had been promoted to Spec 4 rank (Army equivalent to corporal). We joked about this calling it the "Rapid Rise of Roscoe". The guys in his squad were not amused, as it had taken them longer for the promotion and they really didn't like the guy. I can only conjecture that given his meteoric rise, he continued his Army career, retiring as a full colonel or perhaps brigadier general after 30 years. He is probably the guy responsible for much of our Mid East policy. I still count this as my brightest military achievement.
As a p.s, I did some fact checking with Sgt. Fillback, who lives in Vancouver, Washington, and he failed to add to the story due to being old and memory deficient. He thought perhaps we had taken him all the way from E1 and was unsure who initiated the action, but believed I had the lead on this one. Fillback is still a very funny guy and a good writer. We had tons of fun writing fake memos and dropping them on each other's desks. We have only gotten together twice since Korea, the first time when we moved to Seattle, stopping by in South Dakota and again a few years ago in Portland.
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