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Message: <blockquote data-quote="El Mahdi" data-source="post: 5528142" data-attributes="member: 59506">Sweet!  I was a Buck Sergeant also.  These kids today don't become an NCO until E-5 now.  I can't imagine being a Senior Airman for as much as 6 years!  (Possibly 6 1/2 if they make below-the-zone but never make Staff.)  I like that I can say I was an NCO for all but four years of my service (17 out of a 21 year career).  Within another 6 years, the only future retirees that will be able to say something similar, are those who make Staff Sergeant first time out.  (The last retiree possibly able to say they were a Buck Sergeant, mathematically, will have to be retired by May or December 2016 if a CMSgt, May or December 2012 if a SMSgt, or already retired if a MSgt or below.)   You know what EOD troops say: don't worry unless you see me running!<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  Snipers are a different breed also, just in the opposite way.  I knew a guy that was originally a Marine sniper, but had gotten out of it and crossed over to the Air Force to be a helicopter crew chief (predominantly at the urging of his wife who didn't appreciate the ops/deployment tempo they had to deal with).  Snipers just think differently.  I was joking around with him one day and got in a particularly good joke at his expense, and then commented that I should be careful picking on him.  That he might just get mad at me and set up on a water tower to take me out. Without missing a beat and as matter of factly as if he was commenting on the weather, he replied: "Nah.  Water Towers don't provide an adequate escape route..." My only reply was a non-grandma friendly version of Crap!... The same guy drank like a liter or more of Mountain Dew every day, and still had steadier hands than me.  Most outwardly relaxed and quiet spoken guy I've ever met.   Yeah, that's gruesome, but it reminds me of an old prank. When I worked on B-52's, we used to mess with newbies about the ejection seats.  When new troops first get assigned to a B-52 maintenance unit, they have to recieve egress training so they can safely work around the ejection seats.  A B-52 has six crew seats, 4 on the upper deck that fire upward, and two on the lower deck that fire down.  Because the two lower fire down, they have a spring actuated guard that holds the crewmembers lower legs in place so that their legs don't kick up when they eject (all one has to do is press your lower leg backwards against a little release lever, and the spring loaded guard snaps around to sit against the front of your shin).  That guard however is completely unattached and independent to any of the ejection firing mechanisms.  But new troops tend to get a bit nervous after all of the warnings and horror stories about not properly safing an ejection seat before working around it (upper seats aren't too bad, as they likely won't actually eject if triggered, they'll just smoke a lot unless the upper ejection hatch has been previously removed, but lower seats can eject on the ground).  So, to mess with them, if a newbie accidentally triggers one of the leg guards (or you reach down and accidentally/on-purpose trigger it for them), and they haven't been previously told about what it is, you can really mess with them by saying something like: "Oh my God!  Don't Move!  You just armed the seat.  Stay here and I'll go get an Egress troop!"  Then leave them sitting there for a little bit while you laugh at them outside the plane. Juvenile for certain, but fun none the less.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Not much different than sending them to another shop for a gallon of K9P (...sound it out...), or sending them to the SP's for 100 yards of flight line, or sending them to the avionics backshop for a 9v AC battery...<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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