From the "strange things to lie about" files, comes this.

I swear, in the past six years, I've had enough stupid cross my path to last ten lifetimes. There is one thing that stands out to me above all others, though, and it came to my attention again today. Ever since Thak got promoted (and that's been a while, as most know), I find that people lie to me about their husbands' ranks. That's a dumb thing to do for a few reasons:

#1, Thak is not, by definition, high-ranking. Granted, his rank is worth more than the same rank in other specialties because he had to attain a nearly impossible standard to get it, and yes, I do tell people about this as a way of encouraging them to never give up (if he can make it, so can you!), but by definition, we sit in the top 1/3 enlisted rank-wise, but just. I'm not a Colonel's wife or something. (Insert cliche remark about how the enlisted work for a living.) I'm open about Thak's rank. I don't feel the need to hide it, as is fashionable with many wives these days, but I don't go treating other people like crap because of it or anything. I hang out with who I want to hang out with. In most cases, their husbands are within one rank of Thak, but not always. If I'm hanging out with you, the only way I would stop that on the basis of rank is if I found out you were his Commander's wife (and that's impossible because his Company and Battalion Commanders are both single), or that you were the wife of a lower ranking soldier within his platoon (again, impossible because most everyone's single here, and also because he's not in charge of anyone in his current position).

#2, This has got to be the most idiotic lie on the planet, because our husbands' rank is written all over everything, including them!! One girl told me her husband was the same rank as Thak, but when I went to pick something up from her house (she lives on post, and they put the soldiers' rank and name on the outside of the houses there) I saw that her husband was, in fact, two ranks lower! I wouldn't have minded that fact a bit, if not for the lie. (Yes, I'm sure it wasn't just an old sign.)

This same stupid garbage happened again today! This girl I've known since I got here has a husband two ranks below Thak. She's the one who just wouldn't let me have my credit for being instrumental in setting things up on a unit-level when we first got here, and always has to be up in everything as if she knows everything in the world about the Army. She's the one who I said I like quite well as a person, but cannot stand as an Army wife.

OK, anyhow, this girl told me a year ago that her husband was about to get promoted. In my world, that means you've been to the promotion board, and are working on accumulating enough points to make the cutoff score (or in the case of Senior NCO ranks, that you have made the list and are waiting for your sequence number to come up. It was points in this case.) I was actually friends with her at this point, and I told her that after he got promoted, I'd hand down some of Thak's old rank insignia, including his Class-A rank, which I'd sew onto her husband's Class-A jacket for him. That may sound weird to the civilians among us, but it's an Army tradition. It's good luck for someone who's newly pinned to any rank to receive hand-me-down rank insignia from someone who's done great things while in that rank, but has since gotten promoted. Thak's rank insignia is one hell of a gift, to be perfectly frank. Thak did more in that rank than most soldiers do in an entire career, including being awarded the Bronze Star during his third tour, which is a medal soldiers of that rank are pretty much never awarded while still alive. So basically, I offered generously to hand down Thak's rank insignia (he was great with that. He really wanted most of it out of here, and anyone who's a good honest NCO should receive it. Plus, Thak prefers to hand down his rank to Infantrymen, and this girl's husband is one.) Basically, the superstition is that being handed someone's rank insignia, and wearing that, will give you some attributes of that soldier. It's great to be gifted this from someone who's accomplished a lot.

Anyhow, I never heard another word about it from this girl, even though I would see her at least once a week in one context or another. I figured they'd run into problems with promotion points, like maybe they weren't promoting many this year, and her husband had no civilian education points (the hardest to get), and they were working on it, so I forgot all about it.

Well, that's actually incorrect. Turns out, he's going to the board next month. Really? Dude wasn't even promotable, and she told me he was? Screw that. Again, I wouldn't have had a problem with the fact that she was married to someone two ranks below Thak. I do not, for the life of me, understand the lie about his promotable status, though.

Oh, and this is rich. He's now going to be wearing the hand-me-down rank insignia of a total piece of crap NCO. Apparently, that NCO and his wife (yes, I know them very well, too) handed this rank down to them last year. THIS is why you don't do that. It's INCREDIBLY bad luck to hand down your old rank to somebody who's not been promoted to that rank yet. You hand it down AFTER the promotion is official. But yeah, anyhow, good luck with that juju.... you might wanna boil that rank before putting it on.... have fun.

Back on topic, though, why the hell do people lie to me about their husbands' ranks?!!!!!!! These are not the only two, just a couple recent examples..... crazy fools, the lot of you!!!