The story is this: At 9pm I was working night duty in the avionics shop.
We were scheduled to go home on standby at about that time and were about
to cleanup and turn in our tools when the hanglar claxon went off



Not sure about the MC, but in the Air Force, going on standby meant
things were slow and you didn't pull your entire shift sitting in the
shop...you went back to the dorms or the bowling alley with a pager so
they could get a hold of you if needed.



I checked the obvious things, and nothing, so I
turned around to my sidekick, the slowest kid in the shop,



I'm beginning to doubt THAT...



and asked him
if they had done anything to do the bird that day. Changed the APU, he
said. D-oh. Ok, did you check it when you were done rewiring it? No. No??
Did you bother to run it up? No. Why not? I'm not checked out. (It takes a
short check and two switches to turn on the APU on an CH-46A... that
should give you the picture.)


I'd say he did what was expected of him. It may have been a simple job,
but if he wasn't signed off for that and did it anyway, it would have
shown that he couldn't follow simple instructions and he could have
damaged the equipment and cost us taxpayers more money (which you
obviously don't care about). Yes, it should have been checked out, but
he should have asked you to do it since you were obviously checked out.
Since he appears to have been working on your shift, why was it that
YOU didn't know maintenance had been done to the unit? Were you
sleeping in the box room or blowing the unit commander?



The next day the Vietnam
vet crew chief (and senior crew chief in the squadron) told everyone in
the squadron I knew my **** down cold and he'd trust me to work on
anything with a wire on his bird. I already had the ability to do just
that, but that one compliment made my whole year. Doesn't happen very
often.


What doesn't happen very often? You do something right or you get
noticed for doing something right? So, you only had one worthwhile
moment in a whole year? With that average, you must have done 3 more
"incredible" things during your stint. Can you provide links for these
as well?



Within weeks I got my best eval ever and had my txfr request out of NC
approved, to California. The rest is history, and records from that day
will verify everything happened exactly as I state here.



If they loved you so much, you would think the CO would deny your
request to keep you around for all the other emergencies that came
up...I don't doubt that's exactly how it happened, but again, what's the
big deal?



And yes, both the mom and the child were OK, I just never heard from them
again.


After seeing this thread they probably blew their brains out from the
depression of knowing you were somehow minutely involved in their lives.