Monday, February 9, 2009
Idle Hands are the Devil's...something
I have been collecting funny stories to describe how military members cope with a sometimes stressful and a sometimes monotonous environment. This story is from one of my work colleagues, and it describes one evening in Iraq. He is home now, and he gave me permission to post this story. I changed one name to protect the innocent. Enjoy.
Idle Hands are the Devil's...something
This story begins, as do most in which I get in trouble, with three simple words: I was bored.
The compound in which I live and work looks a lot like a prison because tall concrete walls encircle it. Even inside the compound, there are concrete walls everywhere one looks. These walls are actually made up of individual segments set in place with cranes. We call them t-walls because their profile resembles an upside-down capital letter T. While they are intended to shield us from flying shrapnel or other debris during an attack, they are an eyesore that I certainly will not miss when I leave.
...and I've always wondered what the view was like from atop the t-walls.
Some of you can see where this story is going already.
A few weeks ago, the schedule worked out in such a way that we found ourselves with a couple hours of down time in the middle of our shift. So what does one do when one has some unexpected free time? Call home? Do the laundry? Take a nap? Of course not! We wanted to climb one of the twenty-foot t-walls near where we work. Besides, it was nighttime and that's the perfect opportunity to go exploring, right?
Getting to the top of a wall was easy. If the Seabees didn't want us using one of their long ladders, they wouldn't have left it behind only one locked gate. So one of my compatriots (whom I shall call Q-hat) and I climbed a wall and perched on top. The view was pretty spectacular, especially since it was almost sunrise, the clouds were turning brilliant hues of red and orange, and we could watch the various combat aircraft out on the flight line.
After a few minutes, realizing that the DFAC was about to open for breakfast, Q-hat and I had the genius idea of getting breakfast in to-go boxes and eating on top of the wall. Why did we do this? Why not?
Halfway through breakfast, one of my coworkers on the ground decided it would be amusing to remove the ladder as quietly as she could so neither Q-hat nor I would notice it was missing. In her defense, our backs were to the ladder, and who could pass up such an opportunity? By the time she walked around to the other side of the wall to make fun of us, the ladder was tucked safely behind a nearby building.
And here comes the really funny part:
Somewhere off in the distance, Q-hat and I heard the faint, muffled fwump of a mortar being launched. Then there was a second. Now they certainly could have been friendly mortars being fired for practice, but those mortar batteries were somewhere to our left and the ones we heard were somewhere to our right.
Then the sirens started going off.
So there we were: the base was being attacked while we sat on top of a twenty-foot concrete t-wall with no way of getting down. Pretty funny, huh? We thought so too...much, much later, after the fact. Not at the time. It wasn't funny at all at the time.
It turns out we were in no danger. One of the rounds fell short and landed outside the base, and it wasn't even coming anywhere near us in the first place. Then we watched the base defense guns destroy the second round mid-air, which was pretty cool to see.
After the attack, the ladder was quickly put back against the wall. Q-hat and I finished breakfast, then climbed down and returned the ladder to where we found it. No harm, no foul.
The moral of the story: never turn your back on a ladder that is your only means of escape. Oh, and you probably shouldn't climb on top of the walls to check out the view.
The End
Idle Hands are the Devil's...something
This story begins, as do most in which I get in trouble, with three simple words: I was bored.
The compound in which I live and work looks a lot like a prison because tall concrete walls encircle it. Even inside the compound, there are concrete walls everywhere one looks. These walls are actually made up of individual segments set in place with cranes. We call them t-walls because their profile resembles an upside-down capital letter T. While they are intended to shield us from flying shrapnel or other debris during an attack, they are an eyesore that I certainly will not miss when I leave.
...and I've always wondered what the view was like from atop the t-walls.
Some of you can see where this story is going already.
A few weeks ago, the schedule worked out in such a way that we found ourselves with a couple hours of down time in the middle of our shift. So what does one do when one has some unexpected free time? Call home? Do the laundry? Take a nap? Of course not! We wanted to climb one of the twenty-foot t-walls near where we work. Besides, it was nighttime and that's the perfect opportunity to go exploring, right?
Getting to the top of a wall was easy. If the Seabees didn't want us using one of their long ladders, they wouldn't have left it behind only one locked gate. So one of my compatriots (whom I shall call Q-hat) and I climbed a wall and perched on top. The view was pretty spectacular, especially since it was almost sunrise, the clouds were turning brilliant hues of red and orange, and we could watch the various combat aircraft out on the flight line.
After a few minutes, realizing that the DFAC was about to open for breakfast, Q-hat and I had the genius idea of getting breakfast in to-go boxes and eating on top of the wall. Why did we do this? Why not?
Halfway through breakfast, one of my coworkers on the ground decided it would be amusing to remove the ladder as quietly as she could so neither Q-hat nor I would notice it was missing. In her defense, our backs were to the ladder, and who could pass up such an opportunity? By the time she walked around to the other side of the wall to make fun of us, the ladder was tucked safely behind a nearby building.
And here comes the really funny part:
Somewhere off in the distance, Q-hat and I heard the faint, muffled fwump of a mortar being launched. Then there was a second. Now they certainly could have been friendly mortars being fired for practice, but those mortar batteries were somewhere to our left and the ones we heard were somewhere to our right.
Then the sirens started going off.
So there we were: the base was being attacked while we sat on top of a twenty-foot concrete t-wall with no way of getting down. Pretty funny, huh? We thought so too...much, much later, after the fact. Not at the time. It wasn't funny at all at the time.
It turns out we were in no danger. One of the rounds fell short and landed outside the base, and it wasn't even coming anywhere near us in the first place. Then we watched the base defense guns destroy the second round mid-air, which was pretty cool to see.
After the attack, the ladder was quickly put back against the wall. Q-hat and I finished breakfast, then climbed down and returned the ladder to where we found it. No harm, no foul.
The moral of the story: never turn your back on a ladder that is your only means of escape. Oh, and you probably shouldn't climb on top of the walls to check out the view.
The End
# posted by Kima McCoy @ 6:58 PM 