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The Neidermeyer: Difference between revisions
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== Real Life ==
* It should be noted that this sort of thing actually occurs in [[Real Life]]. While fraggings are uncommon (though they did occur in Vietnam), plenty of stories get passed around the modern military about which officers to avoid and who's a dirtbag.
* [[World War II]]:
** Since his Turtledove counterpart's been cited, one example might as well be named directly; George Armstrong Custer. He was a glory-seeking General that lost his wits, every man of his Seventh Calvary, and his life in the campaign that led to the Little Big Horn. And he got in that mess from increasingly frantic and frustrated desire for glory to turn to political advantage, no matter how many tribes or soldiers died to get it!▼
*
*** However, one incident that is largely forgotten is that Custer almost singlehandedly prevented a massacre when [[General Ripper|Philip Sheridan]] ordered an assault against the starved, exhausted and defenseless remnants of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House. Custer, realizing that the surviving Confederates were in no physical or emotional condition to fight anyone and were completely encircled, rode in front of the Union Army frantically trying to stop the attack. Custer's actions managed to delay the attack long enough for the famous surrender to be negotiated. Custer may have been a psychotic nut-case but he had nothing on Sheridan.▼
*** The irony is that Fredenhall was an excellent logistician. He was sent back to Stateside, where he made more for the Army logistics than any other general.▼
*** Custer led a cavalry force of 700 men to take out Sitting Bull and the 800 natives who had left a reservation. Ignoring his scouts (members of the Crow tribe) who told him the village they spotted had THOUSANDS of women and children and probably an equal number of warriors he split his force in half to "trap" the enemy. Custer's own group, about 200 soldiers personally led by him would end up facing at least 1800 native american warriors, warriors who had just fought off the other half of his armed force which had attacked the village. The only survivor from Custer's group was a horse called Commanche which had nearly a dozen wounds from bullets, arrows and spears.▼
*** What everyone always forgets is that he was a Colonel at this point, having been a General in the civil war, and wanted to regain his rank!▼
*** Custer had problems even before Little Big Horn: suspension from duty for a year for being AWOL, misappropriation of funds meant for provisions for reservation Indians, and during Reconstruction duty in Texas he only narrowly escaped being fragged by his own troops (namely, the 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry, of which Custer had been given command and who resented his attempts at discipline). He was routinely called a 'dandy' and 'Ringlets' by his men as a result of his obsession with his personal appearance. Little Big Horn itself was the result of Custer's insubordination and happened when Custer and his men deserted their commanding officer (of note: Custer had earlier been denied independent command because of his continued use of his position and his men for political lobbying).▼
▲* In [[World War II]] General Lloyd Fredendall was one of the original commanders of Operation Torch (the American invasion of North Africa). Once on the ground in Africa Fredendall had his headquarters built 70 miles behind the front lines, which was viewed as cowardly by both the troops under his command and by his peers and superiors. From there he proceeded to issue unsound commands that showed little grasp of military tactics, including a tendency to place infantry in positions where they could not receive decent air or artillery support. By most reports Fredendall was a swaggering, cocky man who did not listen to his subordinates. Even more unfortunately, his adversary in the campaign was [[Magnificent Bastard|General Erwin Rommel]] and his famed Afrika Korps. After the crushing American defeat at the Kasserine Pass Fredendall was relieved of command and replaced by George Patton, after which American forces actually started experiencing success in North Africa.
▲** The irony is that Fredenhall was an excellent logistician. He was sent back to Stateside, where he made more for the Army logistics than any other general.
** Patton himself has been accused of being more than a little of a martinet, far too concerned with the dress code in a combat zone (including the fact he demanded, and may even have gotten, front-line infantry to wear their ties), attacking Metz and the Vauban forts without proper preparation and demanding the attack continue after it became clear it was not going to succeed, and finally culminating late in the war with his famous tirade against a soldier who had been shot in the foot for cowardice (said soldier had already won a Silver Star for valor).
*** With regard to the slapping incident, the soldier in question was away from his unit without permission and legally Patton could have had him executed for desertion. What Patton did was the better option, albeit not the best one available.
** There is one story that the sailors aboard a US Navy vessel were lining up for geedunk (ice cream) when two Ensigns shouted "Make way for officers" and started shoving through. Whereupon [[Four-Star Badass|Admiral]] [[Father Neptune|Halsey]] who had been waiting his turn patiently with [[A Father to His Men|every other sailor]] shouted "Get back where you belong!" With appropriate sailorly adjectives no doubt.
** Hermann Goering, by 1945, was called the most hated man in Germany beccause of his obsession with fame, glory, [[Bling of War]] and rampant egomania. Given [[Those Wacky Nazis|the competition]] at the time, it's quite an achievement.▼
* Most recently,{{when}} [http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1969602,00.html this officer].▼
*** Göring was a perfect example of [[The Peter Principle]]. A brilliant [[Ace Pilot]] (22 victories and Blue Max) and a competent wing commander, he found his level of [[General Failure|total incompetentness]] as Reichsmarschall.▼
** [[Adolf Hitler]]. By the end of the War, many of his own men—particularly his generals—wanted him dead more than the Allies due to his repeated strategic blunders. Indeed, a few senior officers, many of them [[Officer and a Gentleman|Junkers]] (contrary to [[Nazi Nobleman|common belief]], the German nobility generally disdained or even outright hated Hitler), led [[wikipedia:20 July Plot|a plot to assassinate Hitler]] in 1944. [[Captain Obvious|It failed, of course]]. [[Sarcasm Mode|On the bright side]], it inspired the film ''[[Valkyrie]]''.▼
*** When approached for advice by a junior officer, Graf allegedly responded with “Don’t come to me with your problems. You’re a fucking department head”, and later “I can’t express how mad you make me without getting violent!”▼
*** To say 'strategic blunders' doesn't quite cover it entirely. After the defeat in Stalingrad (a defeat that occured purely due to Hitler's personal strategic intervention) Hitler went from "makes unreasonable demands and interferes in well made plans" to "totally detached from reality". The famous stories from his war room are that he would regularly issue orders to units that no longer existed or were so undermanned they might as well not exist, then when his plans didn't work out, would blame the subordinate who was "responsible". Most Generals were lucky enough that they would simply be demoted or put somewhere out of the way (Legendary General Guderian was one example), however some were not so lucky and would be executed for cowardice or "defying orders".▼
*** Started a (confirmed) drag race with another destroyer that nearly resulted in a collision; the ships came within 300 feet of eachother. A photo from the deck of Graf’s ship shows the vessel heading straight toward the other. To make it worse, when the bridge crew went to sound a collision alarm (so all hands could brace and ready repairs), Graf ordered them to not sound the alarm. Such an alarm, after all, would have to be noted in the ship’s logs. That would mean she’d have to explain why she endangered two very expensive ships and a couple hundred lives in a pissing contest▼
*** One well-known story from the war is that when the D-Day invasion began, Panzer groups sat idly by while the Allies invaded. The reason? Because they needed Adolf's ordered permission to get into the battle. He did not until late in the day, because ''he was asleep''. And ''nobody'' wanted to be the one to wake him up and tell him the bad news.▼
*** Tired of delays leaving a port, she ordered that the ship accelerate to 25 knots instead of 10, despite being informed it was dangerous to do so. As a result, the USS Cowpens ran soft aground and mangled the ship’s propulsion screws. She then allegedly grabbed a British exchange officer by either the throat or the lapels (accounts differ), and began shouting “Did you run my fucking ship aground?!”. She then went on to order the crew to falsify records and claim they were moving at 10 knots.▼
** Captain Herbert Sobel, former commander of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101 Airbornee. He was incompetent, petty, a [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]], and a complete [[Jerkass]]. Many say that his [[Moral Event Horizon]] was raiding his troop's rooms and confiscating everything from magazines to nonregulation clothing. When he was replaced, [[And There Was Much Rejoicing|everybody was happy]]. It should be noted, though, that while he was almost universally hated by every man who trained under him, those same men almost universally say that it was Sobel who made E Company into the elite unit it was ''because'' of his [[Jerkass]], overly harsh treatment. (Yes, the portrayal of him in ''[[Band of Brothers (TV series)|Band of Brothers]]'' is widely agreed to be ''perfectly accurate''.)▼
*** Allegedly covered up the fact that her ship had struck a whale by ordering the crew into lockdown and temporarily terminating e-mail privileges.▼
** An even more infamous example from the same war and company (and eventual miniseries) is 1st Lt. Norman Dike. He's been accused of delegating all duty to lower officers and NCOs during his tenure, and for disappearing from the front lines for hours at a time during the Battle of the Bulge; many of the men under (and over) him accused him of simply using the E Company assignment as a way to get "field experience" before continuing his climb up the ladder. Most infamous, however, is his historically-documented ''meltdown'' during the assault on Foy, Belgium. While trying to lead E Company on the Foy attack, he completely froze up from terror and was unable to give any commands at all, aside from one order for Easy to halt their advance into the town... in the middle of an open field. He was famously relieved of duty by [[Memetic Badass|Ronald Spiers]], who would go on to lead E Company to victory in Foy. After this incident, Dike was quickly drummed out of the Airborne and was lucky to not be kicked out of the Army wholesale.▼
*** Graf was such a dick to so many people that the crew supposedly began cheering when another officer arrived relieve and replace her aboard the USS Winston Churchill▼
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**** YMMV, but she ended up with an [[Evil Only Has to Win Once|FTN]] moment when the Asst. Secretary of the Navy decided she did nothing to earn anything less than an [http://www.navytimes.com/news/2012/01/navy-fired-cowpens-co-to-get-honorable-retirement-010612/ honorable discharge].▼
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▲* Most recently,{{when}} [http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1969602,00.html this officer]. For the link impaired, Holly Graf’s Neidermeyer behavior includes:
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* [[Public Domain Character|Ernesto "Che" Guevara]] was like this about half of the time more or less, depending on the source. While he was occasionally known for showing reckless bravery and some decent planning, at other times he was notably incompetent, fled from battle, and generally was a burden to his men. And he was verbally abusive to his men almost all the time and generally showed a disdain for "Bourgeoise tactics" that hardly helped matters at all. He is perhaps most infamously known for his [[Last Stand|"last stand"]], where according to most accounts he left the rest of his unit to fight it out against the [[Bolivian Army Ending|Bolivian forces attacking him]] before surrendering afterwards with two loaded and primed pistols.
** Despite leading revolutionaries in Africa, Guevara was often overheard to disparage his black fellow travelers, stating that black people did not have the intelligence to make communism work.
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** Plus, after their mutiny, the crew returned to Tahiti and began treating the natives little better than slaves. Eventually the natives rebelled and killed nearly all of them.
** It should be noted at this point that the famed Mutiny on the Bounty was not the last time Bligh faced a mutiny of those under him. His overly strict and by the book attempts to enforce discipline when he was made Governor of New South Wales sparked off the [[wikipedia:Rum Rebellion|Rum Rebellion]].
▲* Hermann Goering, by 1945, was called the most hated man in Germany beccause of his obsession with fame, glory, [[Bling of War]] and rampant egomania. Given [[Those Wacky Nazis|the competition]] at the time, it's quite an achievement.
▲** Göring was a perfect example of [[The Peter Principle]]. A brilliant [[Ace Pilot]] (22 victories and Blue Max) and a competent wing commander, he found his level of [[General Failure|total incompetentness]] as Reichsmarschall.
▲* [[Adolf Hitler]]. By the end of the War, many of his own men—particularly his generals—wanted him dead more than the Allies due to his repeated strategic blunders. Indeed, a few senior officers, many of them [[Officer and a Gentleman|Junkers]] (contrary to [[Nazi Nobleman|common belief]], the German nobility generally disdained or even outright hated Hitler), led [[wikipedia:20 July Plot|a plot to assassinate Hitler]] in 1944. [[Captain Obvious|It failed, of course]]. [[Sarcasm Mode|On the bright side]], it inspired the film ''[[Valkyrie]]''.
▲** To say 'strategic blunders' doesn't quite cover it entirely. After the defeat in Stalingrad (a defeat that occured purely due to Hitler's personal strategic intervention) Hitler went from "makes unreasonable demands and interferes in well made plans" to "totally detached from reality". The famous stories from his war room are that he would regularly issue orders to units that no longer existed or were so undermanned they might as well not exist, then when his plans didn't work out, would blame the subordinate who was "responsible". Most Generals were lucky enough that they would simply be demoted or put somewhere out of the way (Legendary General Guderian was one example), however some were not so lucky and would be executed for cowardice or "defying orders".
▲** One well-known story from the war is that when the D-Day invasion began, Panzer groups sat idly by while the Allies invaded. The reason? Because they needed Adolf's ordered permission to get into the battle. He did not until late in the day, because ''he was asleep''. And ''nobody'' wanted to be the one to wake him up and tell him the bad news.
▲* Captain Herbert Sobel, former commander of E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101 Airbornee. He was incompetent, petty, a [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]], and a complete [[Jerkass]]. Many say that his [[Moral Event Horizon]] was raiding his troop's rooms and confiscating everything from magazines to nonregulation clothing. When he was replaced, [[And There Was Much Rejoicing|everybody was happy]]. It should be noted, though, that while he was almost universally hated by every man who trained under him, those same men almost universally say that it was Sobel who made E Company into the elite unit it was ''because'' of his [[Jerkass]], overly harsh treatment. (Yes, the portrayal of him in ''[[Band of Brothers (TV series)|Band of Brothers]]'' is widely agreed to be ''perfectly accurate''.)
▲** An even more infamous example from the same war and company (and eventual miniseries) is 1st Lt. Norman Dike. He's been accused of delegating all duty to lower officers and NCOs during his tenure, and for disappearing from the front lines for hours at a time during the Battle of the Bulge; many of the men under (and over) him accused him of simply using the E Company assignment as a way to get "field experience" before continuing his climb up the ladder. Most infamous, however, is his historically-documented ''meltdown'' during the assault on Foy, Belgium. While trying to lead E Company on the Foy attack, he completely froze up from terror and was unable to give any commands at all, aside from one order for Easy to halt their advance into the town... in the middle of an open field. He was famously relieved of duty by [[Memetic Badass|Ronald Spiers]], who would go on to lead E Company to victory in Foy. After this incident, Dike was quickly drummed out of the Airborne and was lucky to not be kicked out of the Army wholesale.
* This happens often when the former military people end up in the areas, where the less straightforward methods are the norm. A good IT example would be Bob Belleville, the Apple's Software Manager for the original Macintosh development team. The guy was an alumnus of the same Xerox PARC lab as the most other Mac people, but his stint in the Navy had shifted his priorities somewhat. He once almost fired one of the critical OS developers over a dispute about the crucial part of software he felt was unneeded, and drove the chief OS architect to tears and filing his resignation (during the critical period of the OS development, mind you) because of his supposed ''insubordination''. In both cases only a good chewing out by Steve Jobs himself made him relent somewhat.
** A common problem with former military ''is'' [[Stranger in a Familiar Land|re-socializing to the civilian world]]. Once you spend a long enough time in, it takes time to get used to the less formal (in appearance) environment of the civilian workforce. There are reasons why former military are often seen in jobs with known chains of command.
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