Keystone Kops me, baby

As I prepare to depart the CRC, I can't help but recall some of the incidents of the last two days in particular.

There was a larceny in the barracks a few days ago. Normally I wouldn’t be too bent out of shape about it except it’s the 19^th laptop to be ripped off in the CRC barracks compound in the last year…

Now, going back to my days as a former cavalry troop commander, once I found out about the theft, the entire damn building would’ve been locked down. No entry in or out by unauthorized personnel. Everyone who was passing through the CRC would have been restricted to the building. Immediately. I don’t care if it’s at 4:30am or not. Anyone who was not at the building would have been recalled to that location.

The search that ensued was so perfunctory as to invite comparisons with the Keystone Kops (hence, the title). So, after faking the funk, and not shaking out every wall locker, space, and bag (to include those who work there, not just those who are transients), maybe a more detailed health and welfare inspection might have been in order. As to the protocol of shaking it all out – rank is not a discriminator. Every individual in the building (to include those in other cycles as well as the cadre) should have been searched.

The next day, those who decided to ship gear home at government expense got to go back to the Transportation staging point, and stand fast for about three hours as another incredibly half-ass search was conducted, this time by a CID agent who didn’t look a day over 17 and elements of the aforementioned cadre.

Of course, the laptop wasn’t to be found. Any likelihood of finding the missing laptop borders on serendipity because it’d take nothing short of divine intervention for that computer to show up after the incredibly crappy (“faking the funk” might be a generous way to describe it) search that ensued. This isn’t what you see in forensics laboratories, folks, but it’s not goddamn preschool, either. The involvement of the unit leadership was, to be honest, a tad sketchy.

Nineteen laptop computers in a year. Does this indicate a trend? A problem? Now, not to really defend the unit leadership, the guy involved did fail to properly secure his crap, and if he’s so stupid as to leave a laptop computer on a wall locker or on his rack or, as has been the case, on his belly as he falls asleep, there’s some personal accountability issues at hand, too. In spite of your best interests, sometimes there’s no saving Joe from a Criminal Case of Dumbass.

It’s all about commandership. Sometimes you have to be an asshole to do the necessary things that sometimes piss people off, but are unavoidable in the interests of good order and discipline. I could say the same thing about the enforcement of AR 600-9 in the CRC battalion, given the large number of fatbodies trolling around the compound. Standards are great, everyone should have some.

Unbefuckinglievable.