How not to order a Tank

 The conflict between Sgt A, my platoon Sgt and the supply Sgt started when supply decided that avionics should not be in control of their own repair parts and supplies. This resulted in a supply clerk being forced on us.  We went from getting what we needed within a few days to having to remind the supply guy that he actually had to order the parts and that we actually needed parts to be able to do our job.  This concept is completely alien to the typical supply clerk they usually didn't order stock EVERY.DAMN.DAY. That's a little misleading.  We really only turned in the orders twice a week but he did have people coming in to fill out the part slips every day.

Being as I considered it to be a good idea to make friends with this guy to reduce the friction when ordering parts I had a front row seat to the upcoming circus.   One day he looks up from the microfiche machine and asks if I knew grenades only cost $1 each. As an E4,  I'd never really considered the ROI or considered the cost benefit analysis of grenades.  As we BS'ed a little he continued to throw out the costs of various gear until he came to the stock number for the M1 Abrams tank.  At that point he laughed and said "wouldn't it be funny of I ordered a tank"? I told him I thought that would be an all around bad idea but he insisted that since it was not on our TO&E it would never make it through the order process and was sure that Sgt A would catch it and consider it a great joke.  So he filled out the parts slip, stuck it in the pile of parts to be ordered and turned it in for Sgt A's signature and then promptly forgot about it.  

I don't know if Sgt A missed it or if he saw what it was and figured this was a good way to screw Sgt B but he never said anything about it.  90 days later I drove into the airfield and there set a brand-spanking new M1 tank on a flat bed trailer. Flat OD green, never been camo painted.  It still had that new tank smell. The whole surreal scene was unfolding like the MASH tank episode. My squad leader, Sgt L, was just standing there beside his truck starring at it.  We lined up for morning formation in front of this marvelous machine and Sgt A gets out of his truck and has a conniption fit. 

The best part is that the supply clerk only worked afternoons and he had no idea what was waiting for him. 13:00 rolls around and we have afternoon roll call, right in front of the tank, of course. Supply dude comes walking up and gets ripped a new one right in front of all of us. The MP's come walking up and Sgt B gets there just in time to watch his guy get perp-walked to the patrol car. Supply dude ended up with something like 2 years in Ft Leavenworth, with the remainder of his service time to be completed on his release so they could dock his pay for round trip tank delivery fees and we went back to ordering our own parts.