During an official dinner in a USAF base officers mess an old captain sat aloof. A young officer went over to him and asked Sir you seem to be pretty senior how come you are still a captain and not promoted. The captain said it's a long story but the youngster insisted on listening to it. Well the captain said I was posted to B52 strategic bombers squadron and we carried out alert drill every night. A siren would go and we were required to get dressed and rush to aircraft and settle in our seats. Then on the second siren we were to start the engines and if ever third siren would sound we were to take off, the mission details were to be given to us while we were airborne.
I have had a champanzi as my pet, very intelligent, he would follow me through the drills and had learnt to start the engines as well. One night I drank a lot and felt very lousy so I asked the champanzi to go through the drill as the first siren sounded and to my bad luck that night the third siren was also sounded and the champanzi took off that was the end of my carrier.
With his eyes wide open the youngster asked the old captain Sir what happened to the monkey ?
He is commanding a base these days, replied the captain.