how i was allowed as a corporal to tell off a Major in front of his Boss.
So i joined the Danish national guard a second time after some years out of the service and also prior national guard service.
yeah i had some rough years where i dumped everything.
But i got the bug again and signed up.
Got into a bad army unit and switched over to an air force unit, when i happened to move near one.
After a few years i decided i wanted to go the command route, and quickly got promoted to corporal.
The Captain of the unit got me to take on the unit paperwork position, a sort of staff sergeant position i was working towards for now.
Then our district, basically a battalion command with around 20+ companies spread all over the country, held a weekend shooting exercise.
Including lots of night shooting, because the Major in charge of it, really wanted to. But his schedule was totally out of whack, since we had to be on the range at 0800, and we were not done until after 0200 due to the night shooting. (danish summers it doesn't get dark until after 2300)
So we would basically only get some hours of sleep before we had to get up again.
Ok i can technically do that schedule, but it's pretty stupid. But i was already formulating some thoughts in my head.
And when i got up sunday morning, after around 4 hours of sleep, and the major wanted us to have a nice gathering of all the troops, with his LT COL boss there to see it too.
Now rules state, that drivers have to have 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep/relaxation, or 2 x 6 hours of sleep/relaxation before being allowed to drive at the drivers discretion (if you feel to tired to drive, you are not allowed to drive)
So i took my idea past my captain, a nice and relaxed older chap with a pipe always in his hand and a nice short full face beard. 119
He said go for it. He had also basically put me in charge of our company for the weekend, as he was setting me up to take over after him some day.
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So we were lined up for the day, at 0800, and the major was going over the day, and the departure later this day at 1400. Where people were let off to drive home on their own.
When it came time for questions, i asked him wether he had thought in the drivers need for sleep, as at least 40% of people here had to drive home on their own.
He said yes.
So i asked him when are we supposed to get that sleep, seeing that we only have 6 hours left of shooting and then we are dismissed?
He didn't have an answer for it then, so i turned around, and dismissed all my drivers back to bed, in front of everyone. My captain was just grinning from ear to ear.
It was quite fun to watch the majors face just turn red and not saying anything.
And i never heard anything about it even later on. Though that guy was always bad at doing exercises that motivated people.
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