As a PFC I was in Okinawa with a Cpl Cherry. Cpl Cherry was from Boston (and I hated his accent) and probably the laziest bastard I have ever known.
I was stationed at a first/second shop for generators even though I was trained EERS (Electronic Equipment Repair Specialist) which means I was able to fix the electronic equipment on the electricity generatoring part of the generator.
Well, it was slow and we were cleaning the tools in the our toolboxes that we could check out. Everyone there including two other senior Corporals were helping clean tools. Cherry says, "I'm not cleaning tools. Especially someone elses." He even stated later that he wanted to marry a rich girl so he didn't have to do anything.
So he's walking around bossing people around since he won't clean tools. I always thought that the other coporals should have nutted up and put Cherry in his place but oh well.
So we are cleaning by the numbers: Everyone pick up a 9/16" wrench. Begin to clean it. Okay, done cleaning, bring it up here.
Well, I've got a really dirty wrench and I'm really trying to get it clean and Cherry tells me to bring my wrench up and I tell him just a second I'm trying to get this last bit clean and tells me to ****ing bring up the ****ing wrench right ****ing now. So I pop up from the ground walkover and throw my wrench down. He says to pick it up and I snap. 'You are a ****ing worthless piece of ****. Even Cpl XXX and YYY are helping are you aren't doing ****,' I tell him and storm back to where I was cleaning tools. He yells something at me but I really wasn't listening. What I wanted to do was pound the absolute **** out of him.
One of our Sgts. comes out and tells us to go bust rust, paint, change oil on our MEP 16's. So I go out into the yard and Cherry comes up to me later. He threatens to kick my bellybutton cause he's so pissed at me and I shouldn't talk to a senior like that, blah, blah, blah. Granted he's right about not talking to a senior but comeon, everyone including our Gunny knew that he was a ****up. I nod my head okay. As soon as he leaves I go back to the office and talk to the more senior Sgt.
First priority is mission accomplishment. Second is troop welfare. Well, we had accomplished our 'mission', the tools were clean and here was Cpl. Sheeitbird threatening the welfare of one of the troops. Oops. And not very leaderlike I might add.
Sgt had Cherry up to the office for a royal bellybutton chewing. And Cherry steered a wide path around me for quite a bit after that. I was more or less happy then.
Just to show how much of a **** up Cherry was. He signed for six year term. He went in with automatic promotion to PFC out of basic. He was in his sixth year when he made Cpl with us at Camp Hanson.
I learned to deal with the suck ass's. The ones that really don't do much in terms of work (they usually delegate the work to others) but they brown nose with Sgts, Staff Sgts, Gunnys, etc. I used to think that working hard would get you recognized but I had to accept brown nosing works also. And a little self-promotion isn't a bad thing after all.
But I still have trouble with the absolutely lazy ****ers that expect everyone else to pick up their slack.
