By Dom Peppiatt Thursday, December 17, 2020 2:48 PM GMT
A soldier in the United States’ ever-controversial Space Force has been demoted for drill drills to obtain a PS5, a document shows.
Do you remember the USSF? That is the Space Force of the United States, the Trump-backed space branch of the United States Armed Forces that drew ridicule and parody when it was founded last December? Well, it’s making headlines again.
This time, it’s because a member of the armed forces showed up 30 minutes late for a fitness class after apparently looking for a PlayStation 5 console near Target stores.
Apparently the Airman 1st Class (who was promptly demoted from Senior Airman due to the offense) was contacted by his superior and told to go to class to which he simply replied, “Yolo, PS5> letters of discipline.”
“You were late for work and your supervisor insinuated that buying a PlayStation was more important to you than the disciplinary consequences of your actions,” said the letter, posted Tuesday on the Air Force’s Facebook page amn / nco / snco. (thanks, TaskAndPurpose). “Your actions are an extreme departure from the professionalism expected of you as a member of the armed forces.”
According to TaskAndPurpose, while a Space Delta 8 spokesperson could not outright confirm the document’s authenticity, it is noted that the formatting and style of the document matches official papers.
Whether or not the Space Force member was successful in acquiring a PS5 remains to be seen, but given that the current stock situation in the US, UK and Europe looks pretty bleak, he probably wasn’t.
Fellow Space Force members and the general public have not had much of a chance to see a massive surge in available stock anytime soon: Microsoft CFO Tim Stuart said there would likely be a shortage of supply for the Xbox Series X and Series S consoles until about April 2021 and we know there is “record-breaking demand” in the retail sector for new hardware for both Xbox and PlayStation machines.