They are great units, no doubt about it. The problem was we always got some yah-hoo who thought he knew what he was doing and would tip it over ( I believe they just enjoyed doing it ). The problem got so bad that the unit commander said who ever tipped the RT over again would "go before the mast" . That is serious !
I never even
heard of (much less witnessed) somebody tipping an RT. That thought is scary (it's a big piece of equipment), and I have been thinking about this and I think I got the picture:
- The active duty EO's I worked with were mostly fresh out of "A" school, and so I'm guessing played all the rules by the book (NO pushing the envelope on safety). Maybe more than they needed to, but that's never a bad way to start out.
- The EO's I worked with during my years in the Reserve were all (+/-) full-time EO's on the outside. This was actual; they were literally haulers. loader operators, etc, (some were actually straight from the West Virginia mines).
- Others were farmers from out of the Valley (Shenandoah), or Southern Maryland, and had long hard experience with equipment (can't tell you how many guys would be missing at least one knuckle, or a finger, or a part of a finger).
- I'm exaggerating some, but not much. We had a mix of guys in our Reserve unit from all over the MD/ VA/ WVA region. Lot of them also were in (to be kind), what you'd call "mature" stages of their careers.
These guys all had hard-earned long time respect for the machinery they operated. I wouldn't have called any of them that I knew a yah-hoo (one or two might have been close to by-god hillbillies; but not yah-hoos!).
But a lot of young(er) bucks, especially if all their training and experience is all restricted to relatively brief military tours, won't have that "seasoned" respect that only comes with time.
It's a sobering thought to me, but take my word for it: you don't want to be anywhere near a piece of heavy equipment operated by anyone even remotely describable as a yah-hoo. That is not a good picture.