[cruzizzle]

A friend of mine shipped out to Irag a few months ago. He emailed a bunch of people in our circle of friends on Christmas. I got a chuckle out of it because he describes things pretty well and you can picture what he is talking about. There isn't a real "story" here, just a chain of events that happened the other day. Enjoy...




I just thought that I would send something out so everyone could have a feel for how I am doing and what is going on here.

On Christmas Eve morning, I woke up to at 3am to my bunk-mate's phone. That day he was in-charge of the duty section. It was loud..."This is EO1... Fire? There's a fire? Ok, roger that. Out."
Immediately I awoke, put on my stuff to go find out what was on fire. You see folks, we live in wooden boxes...all wood...and they are VERY dry wooden boxes at that. Not only that, I am in-charge of camp maintenance. Every building in the camp is under my jurisdiction. However, before I could even go to the fire mother nature had an appointment with me.
On the sidetrack here...for whatever reason, the ferociousness with which my body decides to evacuate fluids is 10x that of anything I ever knew back home. That includes holding a hefty "beer p*ss". The only thing I cen think of, is that my cells constrict so much at night and squeeze out the fluids as opposed to the daytime when it's hot or warmer. So, doubled over, I scampered to the head doubled over slightly and waking quick but delicately. This too is a feat...to keep dust down, the camp has gravel poured over a bunch of areas...loose, huge, gravel...you look like a town drunkard walking on it anyway because the gravel is so big and shifts so much it constantly buckles your ankles.
So, as I was walking like a pidgeon with nuerological disorder, the glow of the fire was visible halfway across the camp. I quickly got into the head...but no lights. I figured the fire must have killed the power. So, there is nothing more fun than bumping into another guy in the dark as you think you are going to take a leak. I felt sorry for any poor b*stard who was sitting down to honk out a duece. Because let me tell you, when someone's gotta pee around here...they are past steps 1 and 2 by the time the stall door whips open, if you know what I mean.
Since it was dark, needless to say, the floors were all wet...wet with what I am sure you can imagine. I nearly cracked my head open slipping on the floor on the way out. I did however manage to soak up some of that nice nectar into my pantleg as I went down.
So now I race over to the fire, only with half my uniform on. It was the Officer's ward. It was obvious it was going to be a loss. The captain was just watching it burn. The equipment operators were already getting out the road equipment...they had a water truck. not for fires but to keep dust down. They were going to use that the best they could.
I noticed that the wind was picking up and carrying embers away...right over to the other buildings. I told the captain I was going to check on the lumberyard, he told me to have others check on the buildings. As I walked away, I realized just how hot it was where I was standing...I only had a t-shirt on and it had to be about 36 degrees F. Not to mention now I started to smell the odor of what was on my leg. Great! I thought, the captain probabily thought I p*ssed on myself.
I ran for a while and found two guys from my shop, and I told them to patrol the grounds. Just as I did that, I turned to see the ligt of the fire intenseify...the Chief's mess started to go up in flames. It too would be a complete loss.

Fortunately, the fire department from a nearby base arrived and contained the fire.

After it was all said and done, it turns out the officers started their own fire. They overloaded a circuit with two refridgerators, an outlawed space heater ( officers are above the rules of the camp, dontcha know?), a TV (which according to reports might have actually been on), and two computers...not to mention numerous daisy-chained multi-outlets linked together.
So you may ask, what happened? The answer? NOTHING. Not a thing. Even though troops are warned constantly not to overload circuits, and our spaces have saftey inspections all the time, it was the officers that burned the stuff down. I guarentee if it were an enlisted space, we would have all gotten our butts chewed out. The worst part of allof this? It wasn't even Seabee officers. It was fleeters ( regular sea-going Navy for those of you who don't know the term). These guys who are instructed all the time that a fire at sea is certain death...these guys came to our camp and burned down our place. Sad, really sad, the reason they were there? A lot of them are high ranking guys who just came in to spend the minimum amount of time in theater just so they can get their ribbon...nothing else.
That day, I had the duty section. That means I am in charge of all of the watches and the camp clean up. Obviously I didn't have to clean up the still smoldering weenie roast, but what I did have to mop-up was the Wee-Wee Coast. Every head in the camp (except the females...which, sorry ladies is always the nastiest) had whiz all over the floor. Nice.
So, there I was mopping it up on Christmas Eve, just loving it. Every four days it's "Pubi Pick-up Patrol", so I am kind of numb to it actually. The only thing that still amazes me is the fact that the women are alwyas the ones who clog up the bathrooms. Maybe they use too much TP, or maybe they eat too much fiber, but most likely, they just don't want to use the plunger. They probabily figure it's better to leave a king dookie floating in the pond rather than chance flushing it free, or touch an undesirable plunger handle.
After that, it was shower time. So I walked back to my hooch and hopped into my shorts and flipflops ( flip flops are a MUST in any military showering situation) and walked the 1/4 mile in the freezing wind back to the shower.
The shower stalls are small, and it takes skill and finesse not to rub ap against any of the walss as you shower. Although I had just cleaned these stalls, I was not fond to think of all the "man ass" that had bumped into them during the yers that they have been in service. Something I try not to think about when I am in a hotel.
As I showered,much to my horror, I discovered the shower backing up. Most likely due to the fact that the power was cut for a while and the pumping station was still trying to catch up with the sewage demand put on it. So now a pool of hairy "man gravy" was cresting over my toes. Soap-scummy, pueb filled shower backwash...teeming with god only knows what. Great. Just great. I knew athlete's foot was only an itch away...a few days later I turned out to be right.
The better portion of the day was a waste. We had a safety standown because ofthe fire, so we spent the day just cleaning up the work area in my woodworking shop and pulling nails out of trashed scrapwood.
That evening, they had a little Christmas party. The USO was nice enough to send us care packages. Good intent, it was nice. The command bought us "near beer". There is a strict no alchohol policy here because we are in a Muslim host country. The near beer was Budwieser. It was god awful. It tasted like warm carbonated liquid cornflakes. Again, good intentions, but missed the mark. One was enough for me.
After the party, I went to wait in line to use the phone. Phone calls are usually the highlight of my day. Sometimes, it is all the day is about. It was pretty busy, but I waited.
Then, it was time to turn-in. I peeled out of my uniform and went to lay down. I turned on my Christmas lights which I got in the mail from home ( which incidentally are outlawed because of fire risk now) and looked atthem for a little while and admired my tree. I took out a box of brownies-special brownies my wife made- and ate one, convincing myself that a sugar caoted snack before bed wouldn't really do anything to my teeth ( not to mention the fact that I didn't want to wak in the cold wind just to brush my teeth). Took some headache medicine and got the alarm set to wake up at 430 am for Christmas day watchstanding muster. HOORAH!

Well, that's a day in the life. Hopefully some of you got a laugh. I have to go now. Later.
-Jack

[NorCalDoug]

not a bad read.

to your buddy.

[alex e]

Like they say.....war is 90 boredom and 10% sheer terror.

[atoyot]

Originally Posted by cruzizzle

The command bought us "near beer". There is a strict no alchohol policy here because we are in a Muslim host country. The near beer was Budwieser. It was god awful. It tasted like warm carbonated liquid cornflakes. Again, good intentions, but missed the mark.

I still don't know how you can have the balls enough to invade a country, kill tens of thousands of people and still abide by their religious laws. Makes me nauseous just thinking about it. Are we not offending their Muslim beliefs just being there? Anyway awesome story! Those crazy officers with their crazy fires!

[redandtootall]

This was a good read. I hope the officers dont find it and chew out the poor grunt who wrote it. After all it's unpatriotic for us to talk about the real problems in Iraq (being sarcastic). It was interesting how the letter mentioned the officers who were just their to get their strips. It reminded me of a book I once read called the Thin Red Line. In the book the author reveals that the officers cares a lot more about protecting and advancing their career than the lives of the inlisted men. My grandfather who served in WW2 confirmed that is true.

[krzyabncanuck]

When i was in it was all about Officers and their one block rating on their OER. That was all they were worried about. All parts of the military does the 30 day thing though, not just the Navy boys. Granted the unit i retired from a bit ago is now back in Iraq for the third time.