Posted on 09/10/2004 11:24:42 PM PDT by Dont Mention the War
Edited on 09/11/2004 12:00:43 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
From the comments page of http://wizbangblog.com/archives/003629.php:
Author: Timmer
Web Site: http://digitalwarfighter.com
Comment:
Old AF Admin Wheenie with 20 years in service here. One thing I haven't heard a lot about, only a little, is the format of some of the documents. They're just wrong. The headers are wrong. The signature blocks are wrong. They're just WRONG.
There's no such thing as a Memo for file. There's a Memorandum for Record, but no Memo for file. NO SUCH THING.
Addressing an official document with
MEMORANDUM FOR:
didn't occur until the 1990s. The AF didn't move their signature blocks over to the right of the documents until the same time, before then they were anchored four clear lines down the left margin.
An official signature block looks like this.
JOHN S. SUPERTROOP, Rank, USAF
Duty Title
Three line signature blocks are reserved for flag officers (Generals) and Colonels sitting in a General's billet. But they look like
JOHN S. SUPERTROOP
General, USAF
Duty Title
Now civilians may scoff and say so what? Who cares about admin details like that? Ummmmm, the military does...quite a bit too much actually. I've seen inspection teams tear entire careers apart over the admin details being mucked up.
There isn't an admin guy in any branch of the service who wouldn't have taken one look at these documents and waved the bullshit flag. You could show those documents to any airman coming fresh out of school down at Keesler and they'd have a blast tearing them apart.
Those documents aren't just fakes...they're really really bad fakes. And all it would have taken was someone with some sense of how these things are done. The more I look at them...the more I get the feeling that someone sort of scanned through http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/pubfiles/af/33/afman33-326/afman33-326.pdf AFM 33-326 and shoved all this together. Before that we had AFR 10-1 and it had the formats I mentioned above.
Remember though, before anyone goes, "Hey, that looks right." We didn't use that manual until 1996 and it's been updated since then.
Bottom line, wrong fonts, wrong headers, wrong formats. It's bullshit, you can't hide from it.
Guess which See-BS will be obsessing over?
Wrong Memo, Wrong Time, Wrong Font.
Rather and CBS have decided to stonewall this and hope it goes away. What can we do to break the dam? The mainstream media did their public duty by publishing stories about the forgery charges. Of course, if it were a Republican charged with such a crime, they wouldn't let up until they had the guy's job, and possibly put him in prison. Hypocrites.
But to keep the story alive, someone has to come up with something that the mainstream media just can't resist. Something that will press them to go after Rather and CBS in spite of their desire to protect one of their own, and their even stronger desire to not do anything to help Bush.
You are absolutely right and I mentioned this in a reply to an earlier post. Another problem is that the one memo is not typed on squadron letterhead, the letterhead is typed in. God help the NCOIC of the Orderly Room if he/she did not put in an order early enough to make sure the commander did not have paper with the correct letter head. Also, the format is wrong, there is no FROM, SUBJ, TO at the top of the memo. (Actually I think in the early '70's the abbreviation RTAO, Reply to the Attention Of, was used.) The date is all wrong. It would not be written 18 August 73, but rather 18 Aug 73.
And you're also right about the importance of the formatting. An IG team would rip the squadron apart for using the wrong format on any documentation, so all records were formatted and written correctly, regardless of who wrote them or what their purpose was.
Personal memos had the signature on the right back then if I remember correct?
Same things my husband mentioned. He did admin around that time (early 70s). He took one look at the document and pointed out the things that are just wrong.
The letter to 1Lt Bush ordering him for a physical was NOT a "personal memo"..
OPS33,
The word is definately gettig out.
Continuing to pray that this thing unleashes a ring of fire and a whirlwind of force to utterly expose and obviate all the underlying animus that engenders it.
The mercies of God are new every morning. (Lam. 3)
Got this from the above thread, post #21
Apparently the docs in question bear very little resemblance to the military's requirements for formatting written communications. (The following is copied from the GOP site.) -- Frank JT Boomchucker
Delegate
Group: Members
Posts: 1
Joined: July 2004 Posted: Sep. 09, 2004 -- 9:30 pm
I would say that the so called "document experts" CBS consulted for authenticity of this document should have included an Air Force company clerk. I daresay they would have caught a number of errors. I spent 10 years in the USAR as a 71L Administrative Specialist, honorably discharged as a Staff Sergeant. There is little if any difference in correspondence regulations between the branches of service. I dug out my old AR 25-50 "Preparing and Managing Correspondence" and came up with a number of issues with this document. This document is either a forgery or done by an incredibly inept company clerk.
Problem 1: While it is legitimate to use a typewritten letterhead, the letterhead in this document is incorrect. It should show "Department of the Air Force" as the first line. The use of a P.O. box is very questionable
Problem 2: Military memorandums have an "OFFICE SYMBOL" field as the next line below the letterhead (or suspense date if one is required) on the same line as the current date.
Problem 3. I quote: "Stamp or type the DATE on the same line as the office symbol, ending at the right margin." The date in this document should be all the way over to the right, yet it begins just slightly to the right of center.
Problem 4: The second line of the MEMORANDUM FOR has a glaring error. By regulation: “if the MEMORANDUM FOR address extends more than one line, begin the second line under the third letter of the first word after MEMORANDUM FOR. The second line of this address begins under the fifth character of the line above.
Problem 5: Almost as glaring an error as the superscript "th" is something that no military person would do...rank abbreviation in military correspondence is very specific. "1st Lt." is *never* used. This abbreviation is "1LT" Every rank in every branch of the military is *always* abbreviated with a 3 character abbreviation.
Problem 6: I never saw anyone go to the trouble of typing "not later than (NLT)" The military is awash with acronyms, NLT being one of them. No company clerk would use both the acronym *and* the fully written form in the same sentence.
Problem 7: The beginning of the signature block in the CBS document starts directly below the misplace date field. Actually, the signature block is supposed to start at the horizontal center of the document.
Problem 8: The rank for the commander is incorrect-see problem 5. In a signature block the rank is to be spelled out completely or use correct abbreviations. It should read either Lieutenant Colonel or LTC, not “Lt. Colonel”
Problem 9: The signature block is incomplete. It is missing the branch of service. I should read “LTC, USANG” for Lieutenant Colonel, United States Air National Guard.
That’s nine errors in a 2 paragraph memorandum. If any of the clerks under me in my unit had turned in a mess like this, they’d have been doing pushups until I got tired. Back to top
PING!
Bump
Sorry to inform you but you are wrong on about half your points...the AF didn't use 3 letter rank abbreviations for starters.. This is not the Army....
Keep digging that hole, Dan, theirs lots more to put in it.
I wonder if the clever folks who came up with this have already joined Kerry's girlfriend in Kenya.
Where's the FBI in all of this? Considering that federal docs have been either forged or tampered with, shouldn't they be on the case? Or is this like Sandy Berger stuffing secret docs. down his pants...we'll believe whatever he says, besides if stuff is missing, he must have thrown it away. Sorry.
Yes, and has been pointed out, Killian wouldn't have wasted his time writing useless letters of warning to GW when he had plenty of time left to take the physical....and Killian wouldn't have written it in the first place. Not normal, not sensible, beneath his dignity, not cool.
One of the problems I see with the Hanoi John campaign and his supporters is their lack of military service. The only veterans he has around him are strictly window dressing.
When they make up these forged documents their lack of experience shows - it’s like watching a Hollywood war movies written, produced and directed by people with no military experience. The errors are glaring to those who have been there. It’s like Hanoi John’s claim of receiving shrapnel in his butt from an underwater explosion. It just ain’t gonna happen.
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