BOSS Program Shut Down After Soldier Screams “Like a BAWSS” at Military Ball

FORT CAMPBELL, KY — The Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers program at Fort Campbell was suspended indefinitely Tuesday after a specialist representing the organization stood before the annual Dining Out, raised his glass during the formal toast sequence, and screamed “like a BAWSS” at a volume witnesses described as unnecessary in every conceivable context.

The room was silent for four seconds.

The Brigade Commander’s expression did not change. It did not need to.

“We had rehearsed the toasts,” said the BOSS president, a staff sergeant who submitted his resignation the following morning. “Three times. Full run-through. He was not at a single rehearsal.”

He was asked where the specialist had been during rehearsals.

The staff sergeant said he had assumed the specialist was handling something.

He was not handling something.

Investigators later determined the specialist, Spc. Tyler Grooms, 21, of Macon, Georgia, had watched a 2009 comedy video on his phone in the latrine approximately eleven minutes before the event began. The video, a digital short in which a man describes his morning routine in escalating fashion, ends with the phrase in question screamed directly into the camera.

Grooms found it relevant.

“The energy was right,” Grooms said, when reached for comment. “You had to be in my headspace.”

Nobody wanted to be in his headspace.

The formal investigation noted that Grooms had also, prior to entering the dining facility, consumed two and a half energy drinks, taken a photograph of himself in his dress uniform posted to Instagram with the caption “bout to go off,” and told two fellow specialists in the parking lot that he was going to, quote, change the vibe in there.

The vibe was changed.

The incident itself lasted approximately nine seconds from glass raise to escort. Witnesses described the dining facility as achieving a quality of silence that one lieutenant colonel said he had previously only experienced in a patrol base at night.

Col. Michael Trent did not speak for thirty-one seconds. His water glass remained untouched. His aide took one step backward.

Col. Trent’s wife, seated to his left, began laughing approximately eight seconds in and did not fully stop for the remainder of the evening, a development witnesses described as both deeply human and structurally destabilizing to the room’s recovery.

“Once the Colonel’s wife started laughing there was no putting it back,” said one major who asked not to be named. “You either laugh too or you stare forward and pray. The table was split about sixty-forty.”

Mrs. Trent later described the evening as the most entertainment she had gotten out of a Dining Out in fourteen years of marriage to an infantry officer and requested that Grooms be seated at her table for future events. That request was not granted. It was written down and then immediately destroyed.

The evening deteriorated further at approximately 2140 hours when the open bar portion began and the situation, which had briefly stabilized, became unstable again.

At 2200, the battalion XO was found in the coatroom attempting to call his mother to tell her he loved her. He was redirected to the ballroom.

At 2215, a captain from Headquarters Company challenged the battalion S4 to a formal dispute over a property book discrepancy dating to 2021, at the Dining Out, in front of the brigade commander and approximately 200 guests including spouses, and was removed from the ballroom by his wife, who witnesses said had been waiting for an opportunity to do exactly that for approximately forty-five minutes. She did not appear surprised by the property book dispute. She appeared to have prepared remarks.

At 2232, the spouse of a field grade officer who has not been identified approached the grog bowl, filled a glass, tasted it, handed it back to the mess officer, and said it needed more whiskey. She was correct. More whiskey was added. This was the only unambiguously successful outcome of the evening and is noted as such in the after action review.

At 2240, the battalion commander’s wife, Mrs. Krebs, was observed by three witnesses offering Specialist Grooms, who had been escorted from the ballroom but had not left the building, a drink through a side hallway door and telling him that what he had done was, quote, exactly what these things need and that her husband would never admit it but he had smiled for one second before he caught himself.

Grooms accepted the drink.

He should not have been in the hallway. The drink was not authorized. Mrs. Krebs is a spouse. She is married to a lieutenant colonel. The distinction, witnesses noted, did not appear to affect her operational confidence in any measurable way.

The after action review contained nineteen findings. Four were about Grooms. Two were about the side hallway. One was about the drink. One was about the property book dispute, which the investigating officer noted was actually a legitimate discrepancy the S4 had been avoiding for eight months and would now need to be resolved regardless of the circumstances under which it was raised. The remaining eleven findings covered what the investigating officer described as a cascading sequence of separate incidents that were individually manageable and collectively a different kind of evening than anyone had planned for.

Staff Sgt. Andre Williams submitted his resignation from the BOSS program at 0612 Wednesday morning in an email that contained one sentence: “I am resigning effective immediately and I want that on record before the AAR is published.”

His resignation was accepted.

“The video is from 2009,” Williams said. “He wasn’t even in high school in 2009.”

Grooms, reached outside the motor pool to which he had been reassigned, said he had no regrets and that the moment had connected with people.

He was asked which people.

He said the battalion commander’s wife had thought it was funny.

That was technically accurate and could not be denied.

At press time, the BOSS program had been placed under review pending new leadership and a revised guest vetting process. Grooms’ Instagram post from the parking lot had received 847 likes, which was 644 more than the brigade’s official Dining Out recap post. The brigade’s social media manager was aware of this. He had decided not to be the one to bring it up. Mrs. Krebs had liked both posts. She had liked Grooms’ post first. She had also commented on it. The comment was a single word. The word was “legendary.” The comment had 34 likes. Twelve of them were from people in the unit. Nobody has discussed this at any level of the chain of command. Nobody intends to.