12 days extra duty for a prank that was essentially meaningless? Is that normal?
As a former Company Commander, I think they stuck the right balance here. The SPC in question did not lose any rank, not did they "Max him out". A thousand word essay on "Why not to be a dumbass" is about right. The 12 days (?, 14 is the max for a company grade Art 15, so they cut him a break there, might have to do with not pushing back his ETS date, whatever.) is a warning to anyone else that wants to try something like that. It means "If you do this, you will get more then just a essay to write, Capache' ? ".
And they reason they have to do something is that future dumbasses might think about trying this *expletive deleted*it. Jumping out of a plane and having a cell phone, waterbottle, or somesuch slip out of PVT Dumbasses hands and go hurdling down at terminal velocity to either tear or possibly collapse the canopy of the jumper beneath you is a serious concern. Also there's the possibility of getting hit with said *expletive deleted*it. That's why jumpmasters go over each jumper before boarding the aircraft to make sure nothing is loose, and why you "Check Equipment" right after "Stand Up", to make sure nothing came loose.
Finally, someone asked about why he was even jumping when so close to getting out. Any and all of the following reasons: 1) Airborne units have to have a certain percentage of assigned folks current and qualified to jump. 2) To maintain his jump pay until ETS. 3) He did a "Hollywood" jump (No combat gear, just uniform and helmet), Everyone else in the unit jumped with ruck, weapon, and whatever else they are assigned to jump with. It reduces his chance of injury (not jumping with 50+ lbs of gear strapped to him), yet still counts as a jump. 4) He's not out yet. You never know when the defecation will hit the rotating oscillator, in which case SPC Short-timer could become SPC Deployed/Stop-loss'd. I saw it happen during Desert Storm. Me, for one in particular. There were busloads of folks that had completely cleared and made it all the way to Rhein-Main to board the Freedom Bird back to the land of the Round Door Knobs, only to be told to turn around and go back to their units. They were not happy campers. Especially the ones that went back to units that were deploying to the sandbox.
Now what SPC Dumbass should have done was wait until about a month after he had ETS'd and then post the pics. Not much the Army could do then. But like Terry, I'm not signing this so no other troopies get any smart ideas.
