One Step at a Time

by Greg O’Niell

After arriving at Frankfurt am Main, from Fort Benning, GA, I was assigned to HHB 1/4th ADA [Air Defense Artillery] (IHAWK Missile) at Spangdahlem Air Base, in the Eifel area of Germany. When I walked into the PAC [Pay and Allowances Continuation] office of the unit the Personnel officer, a captain asked me if I knew what SIDPERS stood for [Standard Installation Division Personnel System], and how I felt about a challenging job. I told him I didn’t know what SIDPERS stood for and that I was game for any job he assigned me to do. So I wound up taking over the job of a clerk who had no clue of what he was doing, with over 300 unresolved computer error conditions in his data-base, and with low 30s percentile processing rate for the data entries he made.

I was a 16E10 (IHAWK Missile Fire Control Operator), having graduated from the school at Fort Bliss, TX, being assigned as an orderly in the Day Room at the HHB 2/62nd ADA at North Fort, Fort Lewis, WA, because I knew how to type with a manual typewriter, and the First Sergeant glommed me as soon as I reported to his unit. I was sent from that Day Room to OCS Class 1-80 at Fort Benning, GA, where I spent five weeks before being injured at the Rangers Advanced Obstacle Course. I was taken from the class and put in the ‘Crutch Crew’ working at Infantry Hall handling the video ‘Show and Tell’ for the Abrams M-1 tank. Afterward, I was recycled to Class 3-80, in the same 51st Student Company, with the same set of Tac officers who then targeted me for their special attention. I went through that same obstacle course and made it, I even managed to get a standing ovation from my fellow candidates on the ‘Log Walk’ at Victory Pond.

I was on the second rope, headed feet first toward the ‘Ranger’ tab, when the Ranger captain on the dock yelled at me to turn around, and to go hands first to the tab. Yes, I managed to turn myself around, while hanging 40 feet over the water, in the middle of December, with 32 degrees ambient air temp. The water was just a few degrees warmer. I pulled myself to the plaque, touched it and went to a hanging position, holding onto the rope, and asked permission of the captain to drop into the water. He waited a while before saying “drop candidate”–so that I would go in with my boots filling with water on the way down. But I did get to the surface, and swam to the dock to pull myself out. I got the standing ovation when I turned around on the rope.

After ten weeks in Class 3-80 I was boarded out for what I didn’t know. Being a Navy ‘retread’, I went straight into AIT and skipped basic training, missing out on land navigation instruction. It didn’t help that we were given paper maps for the land navigation test at OCS [Officer Candidate School], in the rain, with poor Xerox copies that quickly soaked with rain. In any case I blew that test, and that got me boarded out. I was actually glad, as I found out about officers bending rules and orders, using them as a guideline for for playing politics, not my style. Later on, in Germany I heard about a battery commander, a captain, who managed to put his unit’s radar equipment in a valley instead of high ground, I guess he blew that land navigation too.

Back to my meetup with the PAC officer who gave me a job to learn from scratch, having to teach myself an entirely new MOS: Standard Installation Division Personnel System (SIDPERS) Specialist. I studied every training manual I could get my hands on and worked with the brigade keypunch operator. I was responsible for daily data entry, using keypunch work sheets, and had to defend what I gave the operator when I put in the correct data on the worksheet and he hit the wrong key on the keypunch card. That error was on him, not me. I was responsible for all rosters, inventories, and personnel data records for over 850 assigned personnel with battery commanders and first sergeants coming to me to resolve their staffing problems.

Before I left that unit to go back to North Fort, Fort Lewis, I had resolved all error conditions on the data-base, with consistent high 90s percentile computer processing rate, earning the Army Commendation Medal. I’m not one to give up on a challenge, and I take them as they come, one step at a time. That job taught me the value of accuracy, and paying attention to details.

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This first appeared in The Havok Journal on June 24, 2024.

Greg O’Niell is a Vietnam veteran who served on the attack aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63) in the Tonkin Gulf and on Yankee Station. He received orders to the Defense Information School upon returning to San Diego. Graduating as a print journalist, he became editor-in-chief of a 12-page newspaper at NAS Whiting Field in Milton, FL, adhering to the school’s motto, “Strength Through Truth.”

Following his Navy tour, he joined the Army, attended OCS at Fort Benning, GA, and served in various commands up to brigade level at the 9th DIVADA brigade HQs at Fort Lewis, WA. Emphasizing the oath taken to defend the Constitution against all enemies, he advocates for unity and proactive collaboration to address national and global issues, urging veterans to work together to build a “global symbiotic culture” through mutual support and cooperation, rather than relying on corrupt politicians.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.