We taught you; so, now, go do it.

fuzzybuddy

fuzzybuddy

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The Sticks, Northeast PA.
One of the things I can honestly say that I like about serving in the Armed Forces was their attitude about accepting responsibility. For example ( I was in the US Navy, so I can only speak about the Navy, but it's the same in all the services.) if you were sent to radioman school, after you were assigned to a ship. You might be 18, but everybody, on ship, from the Captain on down relied on you to be the radio guy. Again, you might be 18, but you're steering a $10 billion ship. This is a bit dated, but my buddy was trained to draw blood for lab work at 10 AM. At 11, he drew blood on his first patient, who happened to be President Nixon. When you're a kid and someone gives you that kind of responsibility, I'm proud at how we responded.
 
A lot of responsibility indeed.

I've always been a firm-believer in the idea that not only does responsibility make one grow up faster, it makes one mature faster.
 

We taught you; so, now, go do it.​

They don't always teach you. We used compressed ammonia in tanks to make hydrogen for weather baloons in the Air Force. Elsewhere on the base there was an ammonia leak not involved with us. We were assigned to fix the leak and we didn't know a damn thing about doing so. It should have been some HAZMAT team's job, but we were picked because we just happened to use ammonia.
 
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Chet said:

We taught you; so, now, go do it.​

They don't always teach you. We used compressed ammonia in tanks to make hydrogen for weather baloons in the Air Force. Elsewhere on the base there was an ammonia leak not involved with us. We were assigned to fix the leak and we didn't know a damn thing about doing so. It should have been some HAZMAT team's job, but we were picked because we just happened to use ammonia.
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That's some dangerous stuff ! I worked as a field serviceman for Waukeshau Pierce Industrial Engines Houston. The company would buy and sale used power plants and other large industrial equipment. There were several large Refrigeration compressors from a buy sitting outside alongside the building and my service manager told me to go out and remove the access plates on the bottom of all the compressors so a buyer could inspect them. I went out and took the tools I would need and proceeded to remove the service cover on the first one and once I had all the bolts removed I gave it a good whack with my big hammer and a cloud of ammonia came out of the compressor, trapped I suppose but very bad stuff, I ran away and managed to keep it from getting into my lungs but the service manager treated it like nothing happened. It was a few years later we had a transport truck go over a guard rail on one of the main freeways and it was compressed ammonia, it wiped out a half a mile of grass and foliage and killed several people trapped in cars that the truck had fallen on. Some survived but did not live long because it destroyed their lungs. They still transport that stuff on our highways and railways.
 
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