Crockett

Davey Crockett. Davey was a sergeant. An older guy, he had prior service. In fact, on his uniform he wore an 82nd Airborne Division combat patch, combat infantryman badge, airborne wings indicating a combat jump, air assault wings, pathfinder badge, and foreign jump wings. Wow. He must have jumped at Grenada in ’83 or Panama in '89. He was a filler from another Civil Affairs unit down south. He brought hundreds of pounds of his own personal gear. Mostly computer gear and his DJ stuff! At home, he ran his own computer company and did DJ work on the side and sort of like a hobby. He seemed to be an experienced NCO and I learned a lot from him. He also was very cool under fire. Early on, he was our master looter and handyman. He supplied us with working plumbing through the use of an Iraqi Army water trailer and an elaborate pumping system that he designed, a washer and dryer, a water heater that he looted and then rigged up to the house plumbing system, and a microwave. I’m sure I haven’t remembered everything. At the IAC, he rigged us up with internet capability before the Army signal guys showed up. They were appalled, yet fascinated that we had self-enabled internet capability. At parties, he would rig up his elaborate DJ gear and had a really great collection of music. But Davey had a problem. He was a social troublemaker. He enjoyed spreading cruel rumors about people and couldn’t seem to stand a serene working or living environment. He enjoyed picking at people’s duty performance and criticizing. It got so bad that we petitioned Colonel Edwards to kick him out of the house. It never came to that. One day, one of the generators at the Convention Center went out. As Crockett went to fix it, he reached under and accidentally hit one of the contacts, which was still “hot”. He fried part of his hand and had to be medevaced. While in the states, he petitioned to be awarded a Purple Heart! Now this award is only for people wounded in combat. His reasoning was that since he was in a combat zone, and since the generator was down due to enemy activity, his injury qualified. Please. Colonel Edwards made sure that he didn’t come back to Iraq. There would have been a mutiny. Later, we found out that he was wearing all those combat and qualification badges on his uniform, but apparently was a "PX Ranger". This is a guy who buys all the hi-speed patches at the PX and merely sews them on his uniform, without actually having earned them. This is a serious offense in the military. This was really strange to me, as in the field he certainly conducted himself in a manner worthy of the fake patches he wore. I think he's still in trouble with the military over this. I've never understood how such a competent guy could not only fake a career, but spend a lot of energy creating turmoil within the unit.