The Law of Unintended Consequences

[Griff Murphey]

Our local dental society recently honored a man who was drafted during the Korean War. He had a Texas Tech degree in Zoology and had been working in a hospital lab in Amarillo (dental school would come after his Army service courtesy of VA). He was, and still is, a great shot. Having grown up with a gun in his hands at all times he had the best score on the range and was told he would be trained as a sniper, which was not to his liking! Fortunately for him the Army looked at that college biology degree and sent him to Brooke Army Medical Center for training as a medic.

I sometimes wondered why i was sent to the USMC as a dentist. Was it my previous Army ROTC commission? I recently found a 1975 letter I had forgotten about that the Navy Dental Corps Detailer sent me about my request to go to Pendleton after Okinawa. He recalled visiting the Baylor dental students in our senior year at a Navy Reserve Captain's house. I had brought a collection of 1:1200 waterline ship models similar to the WW2 ID models, to show my fellow dental students the relative size and types of different type ships. The Detailer said: "When I saw those ship models you brought, I knew you were the right man for the 3rd Marine Division!"

So I guess he figured if I was gung ho enough to have a ship model collection I should go to the Marine Corps? Actually as it turned out it was great, but as far as hobbies go, my shooting was a bigger asset at making USMC friends. I guess my point is that someone in charge can pick up on something and reach an illogical conclusion that can have far-reaching consequences for an entering individual.

What I am looking for is: did any of you have any oddball hobbies or educational factors that came to the attention of your superiors and somehow led the military to put you in an unexpected or shall we say an undesired job or duty station?

[alibi]

My major in college was criminology (usually called administration of justice now) that I had the course work but had not graduated because of an incomplete. It was originally my intention of making a career of the military however this was in the mid-1960s and by the time I was finishing college the military was no longer interesting for several reasons. When I was drafted in 1970 there was a "career counselor" at reception station that interviewed us apparently for the purpose of determining what MOS we were best suited for. I knew there were air-defense missiles along the West coast so thought I would put in for that MOS. During the interview I requested MOS 16F and after discussing what I had been doing the interviewer asked if I would prefer military police. My concept of military police was standing at the entrance of a base, in the cold and rain, checking the drivers and decals on the vehicles. I had also, as I later found out, scored high enough on the GT test to qualify for military police training. Well of course at the end of basic training I went to MP school at Ft. Gordon, GA.

When I declared criminology as a major I didn't intend to go into military police/police work. When I did as well as I could on the GT test I didn't intend to qualify for military police (which btw required a higher GT score than for officer candidates).

I didn't make a career in the active Army, but did commission through OCS in the National Guard and retired from the Army Reserve with 27 years service (except for the initial active enlisted period none was in military police). I also finished the criminology degree, retired after 30+ years in law enforcement, so the education, training and experience went to some purpose.