Paratrooper punished for jump with his pet fish

Misfit

Misfit

Lawful neutral
http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/2015/04/28/jumping-paratrooper-fish-selfie-update/26536155/

The paratrooper who celebrated his upcoming departure from the Army by jumping with his pet Siamese fighting fish — and whose selfie of the act later went viral on social media — will serve 12 days of extra duty before closing out his time in uniform.

Spc. Matthew Tattersall, who is assigned to 2nd Battalion, 505th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, received a company-grade Article 15, with the extra duty as punishment.

"The way I see it, if you do the crime, you'd better be willing to do the time," Tattersall said. "They certainly, if they absolutely wanted to, the punishment could have been far worse, so I'm not upset about anything. I understand that there were going to be consequences for it."

Tattersall, who had already written a 1,000-word essay about the importance of airborne safety and professionalism in the Army, also could be bumped down to E-3 if he breaks any more Army regulations.
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edinsomd

edinsomd

New Member
Got this from an milblog I frequent. Has "sea story" written all over it.

"We had this guy in our platoon in the 82d by the name of Billy Owens. He had a stuffed King Kong gorilla that was probably 20 inches high and posed in the classic King Kong manner – you, know, the upraised arms. Well, Billy wanted Kong to get a jump in, so he packed the toy on the top of his ruck and tied an artillery flare parachute to old Kong, so when Billy exited the aircraft, he got Kong out of his ruck and tossed him free. Well, artillery flare parachutes aren’t always cooperative, so poor Kong streamered in (edinsomd-parachute failed to inflate). But the safety folks on the ground thought that Kong was a real paratrooper and they yelled at the poor dumb monkey to “pull your reserve”. Kong hit with a loud thud – ambulances and safeties rushed to the scene of Kong’s impact only to discover that it wasn’t a real jumper, but a toy. Owens owned up to the trick and he’s probably still out on Sicily Drop Zone trying to push it to main post. But there was no social media and no cell phone cameras, so the push ups were the only punishment inflicted on poor PFC Owens."
 
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