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That’s harmless compared to my CO’s blunder during a battery level evaluation many years ago. He encoded mission coordinates for one of our Vulcan platoons, giving it a 10 KM route defense. Tough mission, considering Vulcans had a max effective range of 1KM.

Platoon Leader didn’t help, took it at face value. Almost blew the entire evaluation. We passed…barely. I didn’t make any friends with the platoon leaders…I was acting XO, spoon fed their orders for the next, and final day. The Chief Evaluator heard every word of mine while standing outside the CP.

His reaction? “That was beautiful, LT.”

Earned me a lousy performance review, CO was mad at me for saving his arse (I basically ran the battery for the final 24 hours), but it also got me kicked up to Battalion HQ…my first platoon sergeant was at HQ, NCOIC of S-3, Operations.

Spicer is the kind of officer who should never be put in command of troops. Keep him at a desk back in the rear.