The Wedge principle is a time-honored military mantra; while it may be present in a wide variety of career fields in the military, the high-visibility nature of the fighter pilot profession has made the Wedge principle a strong and lasting tradition.<\/p>\n
The Wedge principle has nothing to do with lever arms, inclined planes, or any other form of engineering.\u00a0 It is also not to be confused with the callsign<\/em> “Wedge,” which is given to those who resemble\u00a0the “simplest tool” ever invented.\u00a0 Instead, it is a time-honored, unwritten principle that basically says\u00a0 <\/p>\n The last person to screw up, or the one\u00a0who screws up the worst, gets all the attention.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Imagine, for example, a fighter pilot taxiing out for a mission who inadvertently scrapes his wingtip against another airplane.\u00a0 The damage isn’t significant, but his error causes much consternation.\u00a0 Taxiing near other aircraft becomes a high emphasis item, and every pilot mentions the fighter pilot’s error as an example of what not<\/em> to do.\u00a0 Everybody knows his name, and no one remembers anything else that has recently gone wrong (or anything that fighter pilot has done right<\/em>).\u00a0 He is the Wedge.<\/p>\n By screwing up, that fighter pilot has drawn all attention to himself, basically creating a bow wave behind him that “protects” others whose lesser mistakes are overshadowed by his.\u00a0 In that respect, the Wedge\u00a0is “out front,” making the initial blow\u00a0or “breaking the ice” with respect to public errors, and setting the tone (in a punitive way) for all that follows.<\/p>\n In another way of thinking about it, that fighter pilot’s foul up\u00a0causes him to be “wedged” at\u00a0the bottom\u00a0of the pile.\u00a0\u00a0His folly becomes the story of “did you hear what happened” around the unit.<\/p>\n Either way, that fighter pilot is the Wedge…until someone else<\/em> screws up.<\/p>\n You see, the Wedge is the person who has done the\u00a0worst<\/em> thing that has happened recently<\/em>.\u00a0 Once someone commits a greater foul (or a lesser foul, after enough time passes), they<\/em> will fall to the bottom of the stack…and “wedge” their way underneath the former victim.\u00a0 (And someone always will.)\u00a0 Once replaced,\u00a0the former wedge\u00a0is forgotten; “wedged,” if you will, from memory by this latest scrape.<\/p>\n Obviously, no one wants<\/em> to be the Wedge, nor does he necessarily wish it on others, but after a particularly public screw up, it is not uncommon for a pilot to take consolation in the knowledge that he probably doesn’t need to wait long in order to be “wedged” away from the bottom by someone else’s buffoonery.<\/p>\n Because there’s almost\u00a0always some foul-up to point at,\u00a0a Wedge\u00a0normally scrapes the last guy from the bottom and replaces him (much to his relief).\u00a0 It is possible, however, to have a pre-emptive<\/em> wedge.\u00a0 In the case of a pre-emptive wedge, someone at the beginning of a long mission, TDY,\u00a0deployment, or other discrete event\u00a0may screw up to such a level that, to a point, the rest of the unit is “immunized” from repercussions due to\u00a0minor indiscretions.\u00a0 To a point, they can “mess up”\u00a0so long as they don’t do so as badly\u00a0as\u00a0the Wedge.<\/p>\n A recent public example of a pre-emptive wedge occurred just prior to a NASA shuttle launch.\u00a0 After getting all the way to the top of the tower, at the end of the gantry, with a foot in\u00a0the door of the Space Shuttle (for the second time, following a scrubbed launch)…a crewmember realized he’d forgotten his mission binder<\/a>:<\/p>\n Monday morning’s countdown ended up being uneventful, except for a last-minute run to the launch pad. Astronaut Stephen Robinson forgot the binder holding all his flight data files, and the emergency red team had to rush it out to him, just before he climbed aboard. The launch team couldn’t resist some gentle teasing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n