Sometimes the hardest drinking sailors and soldiers are the ones supposed to be keeping everyone else in check. Here are four times when officers led the barroom charge:
1. The guy in charge of 450 nukes got too drunk for the Russians in Moscow.
It takes a lot too be considered too drunk in Moscow, but Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael Carey took a trip there in Jul. 2013 and managed it. Among other incidents during the trip, he allegedly went to a Mexican restaurant to meet two suspicious foreign women, got extremely drunk, and tried to convince the restaurant band to let him play with them. Carey was later fired from his position.
2. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant (may have) drunkenly rode through Army camps.
The famously-alcoholic Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was in a steamship on the Yazoo River in 1863 when he ran into journalist Sylvanus Cadwallader. Cadwallader later described working with Grant’s security detail and aides to unsuccessfully stop his drinking by confining the general to his wardroom.
Grant reportedly escaped to the shore and then to another ship, finding alcohol in both locations. He later drunkenly led the newspaperman and others on a chase through a federal army encampment, kicking up campfires and strewing equipment in his wake. Historians have cast doubt on the story though, pointing to other accounts that said sickness confined Grant to his room on the trip.
3. A Confederate general got so drunk during a battle that he couldn’t attack.
Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Cheatham’s drunken escapades would be tame if it weren’t for the setting. He drank to excess and rode his horse, whooping and hollering until he fell off. Not a big deal, except that he did it in front of his men while he was supposed to be leading them into battle.
At Stone River, this resulted in Cheatham’s two brigades being late to the attack, allowing Union Forces on the run to regroup and re-establish their lines. The recovered Union forces later managed a stunning artillery barrage that caused 2,000-3,000 casualties in four hours.
4. A Navy admiral was fired for drunkenly wandering a Florida hotel naked.
Rear Adm. David Baucom was one of the Navy’s top logistics officers until he was fired for wandering around a Florida hotel naked and drunk on Apr. 7, 2015 during a conference.
Baucom had been drinking heavily the night before, continuing until he banged his head on a stool, peed his pants, and had to be escorted back to his room. He woke naked and attempted to enter his bathroom but used the wrong door, exiting the room and becoming trapped outside. Two female hotel guests spotted him looking for a towel to cover up with before a peer got him back to his room.