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How to Get "Fired" in the U.S. Army

Just by Following Orders

2024/06/24

In 1966, I scraped by and graduated from Washington & Lee University (W&L) - a school that prided itself on imbuing us with a strict sense of honor. So had my military high school, Fork Union Military Academy (FUMA). 

On graduation I'd been accepted in W&L's law school but on graduation day, Dad, harboring a pathological hatred of lawyers, discussed my future: Our parental obligations to you are over, son, and it's time for you to grow up. Active duty in the Army is your next job.

Daniel Friedman Draft status: Selective Service Classification 1-D

After a summer of employment as a bottleneck moving through a men's clothing factory, no longer 1-D, it was either answer "the call" as a lieutenant or as a buck private - with a whole layer of officers overhead to give me more guff.

Back in Baltimore, my girlfriend Joanne needed just minutes to snag a better boyfriend (he had a cool car, a Porsche!) but that was, in retrospect, nothing.

The world was more than ever upside down: in my sophomore year Kennedy was shot, then Martin Luther King was murdered (which a lot of us thought was worse), and our country was still frantically spewing agent orange and napalm over Vietnam. Nearly everyone with whom I trained went to 'Nam. Few returned.

Following orders from Dad and Uncle Sam, I reported for active duty in my new duds.  

Daniel Friedman on active duty, Arlington VA 1966

By the fall of 1966, I was at my first job in the Army at Fort Meyer, Virginia.

If that looks like a stupid grin on my face I agree. Life didn't come with an instruction book. Hell, I didn't even know whose baby I was holding.

Luckily for us, most military jobs don't involve killing. Not even violence.

Just one of my 16 additional duties was to serve as "theater officer" managing a non-appropriated fund and running two military post movie theaters in northern Virginia. 

Can you see where this is going? While Joe Nessleroad was getting squashed by a tank in Viet Nam, I would be collecting movie ticket stubs in Northern Virginia.

About those tickets: my CO, Colonel Careerman, told me that I needed to sign a letter to him in which I accepted full accountability for the movie theater funds as left by my predecessor.

But this was important: two summers before, at Adjutant General (AG) school, we were taught absolutely never to sign an acceptance for any fund or material without an inventory. If anything gets lost or stolen, we would be personally responsible and could even be charged with theft ourselves!

That was academic theory. Now I was "in the real Army" (and expecting soon to be off to "kill for peace"). My predecessor theater officer, who also had enjoyed 16 additional duties to his main assignment, was long gone.  

Now I made a little mistake: as I'd been taught, I actually looked at what I was signing "for", and my audit found that money was missing, and had been for over a decade. 

Two theater officers before me had simply "signed" accepting responsibility for the theaters and their money; neither of them had ever looked at much less tried to balance the theater's books. But that's the way it worked. Tickets are sent to the theater officer and he's supposed to send an equivalent amount of money back to the fund. They just kept rolling the mistake forward, paying past dues out of present sales.

How was I going to do that when we had $370 worth of tickets but only $125 in the bank?

I went to my CO for advice from this much more experienced adult.

About this theater fund, I said, I have no evidence and make no suggestion of theft or malfeasance; but there was simply sloppy bookkeeping. Mostly no bookkeeping. The funds don't balance.

Sir, I asked, I'm willing to accept responsibility for the fund and bank account for the balance that presently exists, but with the reclama that prior to my acceptance date the account funds don't match the ticket sales. I'll be responsible for the present balance going forward. OK?

Col. Careerman was immediately furious at such insubordination. His face reddened, the birds on his shoulders lost their feathers, and with spittle spraying he put me in my proper place:

STAND AT ATTENTION LIEUTENANT!

Yes SIR! and I snapped-to and braced my sunken chest as best I could. I couldn't imagine why he seemed a little upset.

While I stood at rigid attention he gave me a second, loud and very direct order:

You will sign a letter IMMEDIATELY, accepting accountability for the movie theater funds. NOW!

Outside the Colonel's office, and of course having heard this exchange, Mrs. Gearhart, a career USDA civilian employee, gave me that look of disgust that said it all:

Lieutenant, You are really a jerk!


What else to do? Back at my desk I wrote and signed a letter something like this:

To AAMPS and Ft. Myer Command

21 November 1966

Sirs:

In compliance with a direct order from my commanding officer, Colonel Careerman, and notwithstanding that my initial audit does not find that our AAMPS account is in balance, I hereby sign this letter of acceptance of and responsibility for the Fort Meyer Theater Fund fund as ordered to do so by my superior officer.

Respectfully,

2d Lt. Daniel Friedman, 05229902
Headquarters, Fort Myer, Virginia

As I was supposed to do by regulation, I both dropped off a copy of this letter for my CO with Mrs. Gearheart, and at the same time I sent off a copy to the Army Air Force Motion Picture Service HQ to whom I was accountable, adding a note asking the AAMPS to allow me to accept responsibility for the fund with an  "adjusted balance" in accordance with my audit (attached).  

Wet behind the ears? Boy, was I naive - the career sergeant in my office leaned back in his chair and laughed.

Then, reading over my already mailed letter, he gave me a generous gift, the first page in my Instruction Book.

"Lieutenant, do you understand what is going to happen to you now? "  "You have embarrassed your CO. Your ass is going to be fired!"  

Amazing! I never imagined that you could be fired while in the Army. Killed, yes; Even beaten up, probably. But fired? Really?

In 24 hours I was indeed "fired" as I received new USDA orders to move. I was now sent to a new, far-more-remote assignment in outer Siberia (so to speak, at CAMSTA Cameron Station) where they figured I could do less harm as post adjutant. (Total staff, 2 officers, 4 enlisted men, 2,400 DOD Civilians, site of the largest commissary in the world).

I managed to last at CAMSTA for a few more months until, with the luck of my Irish grandmother Hannah, I would be sent to Seoul, South Korea.

But the Fort Meyer Theater Fraud Case didn't stop there. Not on your life.

The Department of Army's Inspector General was called in by AAMPS and the IG sent a team of forensic accountants to Fort Meyer where they spent months sorting out years of snafu'd bookkeeping, finally balancing the books after three months of analysis.

Nobody had stolen anything. But the books had to be set "right".

Meanwhile my loving sister Linda Ann sent me letters and drawings offering emotional support during my active duty, principally focusing on the horror of killing and maiming one another.

Linda added in one of her letters sent to me in 1966: 10,000 men have been wounded in Viet Nam. Just think. 10,000. That's a huge mound of bleeding bodies.

I still think AAMPS and Colonel Careerman should have accepted my new starting point. 

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