I am working on a bottle of 12 year Glen Grant Single Malt (it was on sale) and thinking about some of the stupid shit I did while I was in the E4 mafia.

A few things I clearly recall doing.

Rode the floor buffer enough times to qualify for a badge
Drive both my squad leader and platoon sergeant crazy
Placed a "free candy" sign on the military bus I was driving one day

Who else was in the mafia?

That's a legitimate NCO in the Marines, but I was definitely one of the Lance Criminals when I was E3.

Lol, yes. Every E-4 was in it wether they admit it or not.  Every one of them shammed in some way or another…evolution

I was in the E4 mafia but I did stupider shit as an O1.

Agreed

I made it.

I was an E4, 2x

The O-4 Mafia is smaller, but much more powerful

The O-4 Mafia is smaller, but much more powerful

Nope, However I was in the LPA. (Lieutenant Protection Agency.)

I have since quit the O grade rat race and become what every E4 wishes he was… a W2.

Reminds me of that saying.

"How do you make E4 in Korea?  Go there as an E5."

I know those O-4 mafia types.  I was that training NCO who attempted to get the O-4s to do their AR-350 training, etc. done.  It was worse than herding cats.

This was from my time in a CSH.

in it?.....i was a fucking capo

Been there.

Being a senior Full Bird Private wasn't nearly as cool as the Mafia makes it out to be.  Having a birds eye view of the tsunami of stupid that was going to surge down the chain was a curse. Youth is wasted on the young

I achieved the ultimate shamation, by Volunteering!

Full time grass cutting detail.   We would work in the morning and play golf or sleep in the afternoons.    Second year, I was in charge.  The shamming opportunities were greater, but I had to deal with an idiot that shammed so hard, he didn’t even show up.   I had to get him drummed out of my elite unit.

I'd been in Army a year, get to Panama from. Lewis a PV2(just a shammer, not mafia),just an AIT ribbon my AAM hadn't caught up to me. Got stationed at FT Davis Atlantic side, my platoon thinks im a cherry. My squad leader sends me on a mission for Chem lights batteries etc.. I hop the bus to ft Clayton pacific side an go shopping at big PX. Lol..he wasn't happy when I got back...I did explain I'd been everywhere,  but couldn't find the batteries.

I served as an E4 NCO briefly in the USAF and later earned my commission in the USA.

Yeah...I was thee guy for my engineering unit and civil affairs battalion.

one of the things I did was I kept extra spare parts for various work stations and desktops.

one of the most important and prized items for the Corps of Engineers is a special card reader that communicates with the CEFMS( Corps of Engineers Financial Management System), it is the one that approves cards and and stuff that needs to be ordered and requisitioned.

Those cards are made by only one company and one company only and they are always backordered. They also cost over 1999.99 bucks.....they look like a graphics card actually.

My trick was that I found accounting specialists for the JBLM all over the various office and places and I found their old work stations or I scoured the retirement announcements, I then made sure that they and nobody was gonna use their work stations so I can take their card readers that nobody wants or needs for that office. The hardware part is installed in a PCI-E slot in their work station.

I ended up with over 2 dozen CEFMS card readers in my possession.

Every office in the army at JBLM and also at Fort Belvoir needed those fucken cards and I was THEE guy to have it.

Some offices had no money to get stuff or card readers or money for the new FY to get new stuff or when a card reader breaks down.
But I gave it to them in exchange for something.

Like the Army Travel office needed new ones and I would just install it, they pulled favors when my unit deployed to Katrina, we got 1st class seats and also great hotels on deployment instead of the base hotels.

There was even help and request for card readers from other USACE offices and they usually contacted me.

I felt like a Ferrengi on Star Trek.... I can find stuff in the the "Great Material Continuum"

I got shit done and helped my unit get awesome stuff  in return for what was needed to get done.

I loved being an E4 and when the promotion board and my packet came up for E5 plus my Masters degree and time in grade. .I was sad to go to NCO shit.

I kept trying to train the next E4s in my units and I failed...none of them got the concept of how special they are.

I kept trying to teach them that they can add to that a certain amount of autonomy since their careers can’t be affected by an evaluation report (unlike everyone senior to them), and you get to an extent Soldiers with a disproportional yet humongous amount of power.

I loved it.
I helped my unit get superior  commendations 4 years in a row overseas due to the stuff I can get done.

Attached File

While out processing i promoted myself
from E-2 to E-4.

Does that count? ??

Learned a lot of felon skills as an e4.

I finally made E5 when Stu Russell, a Vietnam Vet, died and opened up  a slot for me.

Not as much as most.  No fault of my own.

The battalion I was assigned to was slated to get decommissioned about a year later.  A few months after I made E4, the decom started.  I had been an E4 for about a year when I found myself in a different battalion in a different brigade.  The new unit basically assumed the worst and figured we all were the result of a different brigade offloading their shit bags onto them.  So even though I was the most senior E4 in my new platoon by a pretty wide margin, I was one of the new guys and shit on like a cherry fresh out of airborne school.

It got better with time as we took on some new cherry privates.. but yeah, not much of a sham shield here.

Why yes, yes I was...  

It occurs to me that I sort of am again in my current position (LEO).  I'm not a supervisor, but I'm the second most senior patrol guy in the Dept.  Many parallels between me in the Army and me now...  

For a never been there guy, what's so weird about E4?

Its basically the highest rank you see before you become an NCO.  So you aren't in charge, but you are usually the next highest ranking person in your team.  The privates get stuck with the shitty details while you get left alone.  That also allows the E4's to just get away with more stuff that would get people in trouble.. because they aren't being babysat 24 hours a day.

In the Army, the Specialists (E-4s) are the top-ranked guys without supervisory capability, and as such, are the can-do subject matter experts on just about everything that gets done. They’re smarter and more experienced than any flavor of Private, but as I said, they have no supervisory power (because they aren’t yet NCOs).

But they can get shit done for you.

Depot-level Supply is running out of motor oil, but your team vehicle is running a quart low and you don’t want the First Sergeant up your ass about it? Your bro Specialist Snuffy down at the motor pool has a secret stash and will hook you up with a quart if you owe him a favor later.

Got some extra points to add to your promotion packet, but the line at S-1 (Personnel) is always godawful long? Specialist Paperpusher will hook you up after work hours for a six-pack of his favorite beer (it’s that expensive Italian kind). But don’t show up until after 1830 in the evening, once everyone else has left.

Forgot to get that leave form in ahead of time and now you need it expedited through channels? Not a problem! Specialist Clerkerton in the company orderly room owes you a solid, so he’s going to put your DA31 on TOP of the stack of forms he takes in to the CO, and he’s going to wait until the CO is in a good mood (probably after his first cup of joe). That way, he sees your request when he’s positive, and he sees it first thing.

If you’re a junior enlisted man in any service (though my experience is strictly Army), either you or a buddy of yours ‘knows a guy’ who can expedite just about anything, although different guys have different capabilities. It is all about forging relationships and building a complex web of favors owed and favors done. It gets shit DONE

Skated as E4 until I checked out.

I had the most fun with my buddies as a specialist until they made me go to the board
At least my unit moved you to a different platoon when you became a SGT so you weren’t in charge of your bros…

Yep

Twice they wouldnt let me be terminal lance.

I’m sure academics have a term for this but as an o I had a National Geographic type interest in watching these situations unfold.  To me it’s almost a healthy side path to the bureaucracy

Yeah, I was a made guy. A Goodfella if you will.

Yes, yes I was. Then I got corporal

I was a Lance Corporal with a hash mark... I wore it like a badge of honor.

The only real fucked thing I got away with was one day I was whored out to help motor T to help fill a bunch of HUMVEEs.  It was pissing rain (circa 1993) at Camp Pendleton and on my last vehicle I did donuts in the mud and brought the 998 back and took off.  Let them clean it

CSH- Can’t support healthcare? I know it is combat support hospital.

Hell I was an e4 in the last evacuation  hospital in the army in the late 1980’s.
I was a specialist and CPL in an  m60a3 BN and an e5 and E6….then got demoted to 01E….I was a CPT and assigned to the 10th crash and twenty worst 21st CSH in Mosul in OIF one.

But you repeat yourself...

I'm witnessing descension in the ranks. With the Army saying everyone will be a Corporal prior to becoming a Sergeant we are witnessing the birth of a new entity. The Corporal cartel.

Sham team assemble

Meanwhile at shamquarters

Attached File

The O4 mafia is no fun at all.  The first thing you learn is why O4s wear gold oak leaves.  It is because they are the 2LTs of the field grade Army.  All the shittiest staff work lands on your desk, and you are required to polish those turds into gleaming PowerPoint slides that no one cares about.

Being an LTC is fun though, especially if you are not even going to bother putting in your packet for O6.  It is amazingly freeing.

Like 2x powerful? Lol

Ahh yes, Soju will do that to you.

Except me. I kept my rank and laughed at those that didn't.

Yes, but we didn't call it the mafia - we just called it a Sham Shield.

yep. I held that power for a time......

Yep.

For the part bolded in text:
I have been assured by some newer vets on this forum that it isn't "that way" anymore. but back in the day, it was "McHale's Navy", a gallon of ice cream and a case of Tobasco sauce (negotiated for with a buddy in Supply) could buy anything on a US Navy ship.  

Once upon a time, I was in need of a new pair of flight deck boots and dutifully submitted my request chit. The Divo was kind enough to info me that the USN only provided boon dockers (which nobody wore if they didn't have to because there was no ankle support). That same day at lunch time I asked the mess-crank if he could get me a pair, $20, and 15 minutes later I had a brand new pair of boots.