There are two types of military personnel, enlisted and officers.

Officers are higher ranking than enlisted, and as the person in today’s story shares, enlisted personnel are required to salute officers.

As an officer, it might be kinda cool to have a whole lot of people salute you at first, but after awhile, especially on a super hot day when you don’t want to waste time dealing with salutes, you might not find it so cool.

The officer in this story has to learn this lesson the hard way.

Let’s see what happens.

You’re a Naval officer, and we will show you the respect you deserve? Yes sir!

A while back I was stationed in Pensacola Florida, as a trainee for learning to be an IT for the Navy.

Every morning our class would meet at the end of a long stretch of walkway where we would march as a unit down to our classrooms building.

Now this base is primarily manned by enlisted personnel.

For the un-initiated we are the lower ranking personnel and when we encounter an officer we are required to render a hand salute.

Most officers that set foot on this base know that they are outnumbered 1000 to 1 and as such, tend to avoid the enlisted mob, as not to draw unwanted attention as massive herds of people are forced to stop what they are doing, render a salute and greeting, and you have to do the same.

Meet the new, annoying Lieutenant.

Cue our brand new Lieutenant.

For naming anonymity, and because I like Forrest gump I’ll change his name to LT. Dan!

LT. Dan was a jerk, and would regularly park his car near where we were forming up, stroll by our formation, and cuss out any of the new folks that didn’t notice.

One time his exact words were “I am a Naval officer, and you will show me the respect I deserve by rendering a hand salute.”

Swear to god it was like he rehearsed this schpeil in the mirror before showing up that morning.

LT. Dan didn’t know everything.

What LT. Dan did not know, is that us lowly enlisted folks are petty.

What he also didn’t know is that sometimes on rare days where it was too hot in North Florida to safely march in formation, we would all be allowed to walk ourselves home down the long 1/2 mile stretch.

Well one summer day – with maximum humidity and heat so hot you could fry an egg on concrete we all were allowed to walk ourselves back to the barracks.

As we are walking in the distance my class see’s the all too familiar stride of LT. Dan coming our way.

They came up with a plan.

A plan is hatched as we begin spacing ourselves out several meters apart, and marching 1 by 1 down towards him.

I was one of the middle of the pack folks and I got to see the look on his face as the first salute and polite good afternoon was rendered, followed by another as soon as his arm went down, then another, by the time he got to me he was sweating.

He even shouted at us “You don’t need to salute!”

Try as he might though, our class decided that day that all 20 + students in my class, and a few others nearby would render him his proper salute during the sweltering 1/2 mile walk down the path.

LT. Dan changed his behavior after that.

I can’t confirm this or not, but apparently he was pretty upset at the end cussing pretty loudly .

His uniform was all stained from sweat.

All I know is from that moment on when we saw him park his car, he would get out.

Look at our class and walk well around our class out of “hand salute” range.

Gotta love the Military!

Serves him right! They certainly made their point!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

A Naval Officer shares his perspective.

Another military member weighs in.

Here’s a funny story from Air Force basic training.

An officer in the Marines shares his experience.

Why do they have to salute when it sounds annoying for everyone?

All for a few people’s egos.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.