This is a story my mom told me about one of her friends from years ago. Her friend was working part-time on a Navy base giving out equipment to service members using the sporting facilities — tennis courts, pool, gym, etc. The service member would have to sign in with their name and rank.

One time she had an older gentleman come up and he signed his rank as “R.A.” She saw that and said, “You look a little old to be a Radioman’s Assistant.” He looked at her and said, “That’s Rear Admiral.” She said, “Uh, well, here’s your tennis racket, Admiral. Enjoy your game.”

She made sure she wasn’t there when he brought the racket back.

Back in the early 2000s I was in the Territorial Army, the UK equivalent of the National Guard. I served for around five years or so before being honourably discharged. One Christmas I put my name down to work as staff for the officers’ and NCOs’ annual dinner.

During the dinner, I ended up working behind the bar in the officers’ mess. One of our “clients” for the evening was a young officer I knew well enough to consider a personal friend. He had just been promoted from Lieutenant to Captain, and so was spending his evening buying drinks for his fellow officers, and having drinks bought for him.

At one point during the evening, this officer staggered up to the bar. I could see that he was very drunk. “Hi, [My Name]!” he slurred, smiling at me. He ordered another drink for himself. “Are you sure that’s wise, sir?” I asked. My officer friend smiled and said it would be fine. I gave him his drink.

A few minutes later, the duty sergeant, who was behind the bar with me, took me aside for a “chat.” He told me that I must never question an officer, that I should have just given him his drink without question. “But sergeant, he can hardly stand!” I protested. The sergeant nodded sadly. “I can see that,” he said. “But you’re a private, and he’s a newly-promoted captain.” I sighed, shrugged and said, “Okay, sergeant.”

The next morning I learnt what had happened to my officer friend. He was leaving the officers’ mess, tripped, fell down a flight of stairs, and ended up in hospital with a fractured skull.

I learnt two things that night: 1. Just because someone wears a rank it doesn’t mean they always behave responsibly or are always right. 2. Rules are often necessary to create order, but sometimes, rules are complete bulls***.

This was a story my father told me back when we lived on an Air Force Base. The Air Force has a place called the Base Exchange; it’s a military department store. Like all stores, it has handicapped parking. One day a lady is about to pull into one of said spots when another zooms into the spot.

The lady who gets out of the car in the handicapped spot has no sticker and no mark on her license plate. The first lady clearly has the blue rear view mirror tab plus a sticker. She rolls down her window to ask the lady in a hurry if she could move or put up her handicapped tab. She says this all politely. The lady in a hurry proceeds to rant at nearly the top of her lungs about how she can park wherever the h*** she wants, that her husband makes way more than here, and that she should mind her own business.

The first lady who has the proper stickers is obviously upset, so she goes to BX management, and they eventually notify the SPs (Security Police). But when they hear who the rude lady is, they call someone else. It turns out she is married to a general, who personally comes down to tell her that she has no right to do something like that and that he isn’t paying to get the car back when it gets towed. Apparently, this isn’t the first time she has done this, but this time he’s calling her out in front of others, tired of this. He personally apologizes to the lady who needed the spot and has his fuming, embarrassed wife do the same.

(I work on a Navy ship. I go into my work-center one morning and see something I never even imagined I’d ever see. The filters for electronic equipment I am responsible for have turned BLUE over the weekend. It turns out my coworkers had to repaint a door and sanded it down in the work-center first; thus, the blue paint dust got sucked into my equipment’s filters. Cleaning the filters falls under a specific maintenance plan, and this one is a monthly “check.” However, by the rules, I can slip in an extra one if the need arises, as long as I tell the work-center supervisor.)

Me: “Hey, [Supervisor]. My equipment is… blue. I’m going to do the M1 check on it.”

Supervisor: “Okay. Thanks for the heads up.”

(Some time later:)

Coworker: “Hey, [My Name]… That check was scheduled for me this week, anyway.”

Me: “Was it? Okay, well, it’s done now. I wasn’t going to leave it with blue filters.”

Coworker: “Well… you’re not going to do the rest of my checks, too?”

Me: “Seriously?”

Coworker: “Yeah, you should do the rest of my checks, too!”

(Yes, my coworker was annoyed that I didn’t do the rest of his work for him. He didn’t care that the job needed to be done immediately — obviously dirty filters are an electronic safety issue! He just felt I should have done the rest of his work for him, too.)

(My mother works in Massachusetts, processing tuition paperwork for soldiers attending college, so she receives a lot of calls not only from soldiers but also from their families. Her supervisor is originally from Texas, and she relates this story to me one day.)

Supervisor: “You’ve reached the education department. How may I help you?”

Out-Of-State Caller: *excited* “Ooh! So that’s what a Massachusetts accent sounds like!”

(They would also frequently get callers mispronouncing Worcester as “War-chester.” It’s “wuss-stir,” or “wuss-da” with a Boston accent.)