Oooh I got a good spotter story that involves an E-6 getting demoted to an E-3. (US Army).
So I was stationed at Aberdeen Maryland for my AIT. AIT is where they train you to do your job in the Army. I was in a loooong repair bay that was used to teach us to repair towed artillery. This was a brand new facility with a glass wall that faced a beautiful forest.
At the other end of the bay, were soldiers learning to repair the 242 chaingun that is mounted on most Bradley's. All day you would have tanks/artillery/Bradleys coming and going through this bay.
One day while compressing the recoil springs for a 105 howitzer we suddenly heard a god awful deafening screech. Basically that horrible sound Michael Bay decided to use in the Transformers movies when they transform.
An E-6 (Staff Sergeant) was ground guiding a Bradley into the bay but didn't notice that the 242's barrel was pointing up, like this. That caused the barrel to catch the roll-up door. As soon as we heard the metal on metal sound, suddenly bay windows startted...I don't know...popping. One after another. Smash! Smash! Smash!
Huge sections of the building had to be completely replaced. The Bradley's entire turret housing had to be replaced. The 242's barrel assembly, and feeder were all lost as well. Half the windows in the bay had to be replaced. Holy shit there was calamity!
That wasn't all though. My class had a freaking recoil spring that was fully compressed hanging in the air that we had to leave when the area was evacuated. Those springs can easily punch a hole through a car if let loose. So a whole bunch of engineers had to be called in to make sure it was safe to decompress the spring. They basically treated it like a bomb.
Next week the E-6 became a Private First Class (E-3). Bad part was he was a great instructor that everyone liked. Not sure what happened to him though as I left a few weeks later.
