Ich bin ein Berliner

A lot of people have been asking me what I’ve been doing lately, or what my unit does, and what I’ll be doing overseas. My unit will coordinate all the logistics in a section of Iraq, and we’ve spent the last few weeks setting up a command center area for a simulation of what we’ll be doing over there. We’ll be covering situations ranging from salmonella outbreak in the chow halls, convoys getting hit, or people dying. All in all there are around 30 some situations that we’re trying to prepare for. We have plans for how we’ll react and who we contact, what reports we need to generate and how to meet suspenses. My section, the Property Book section doesn’t have a very large part in what they’re doing for this exercise. We manage and track all the property that needs to be accounted for within the units that we oversee. So overseas we’ll be very busy with units coming and going home, transferring their property to new units or even sending it to Afghanistan if needed. But here, for this, all we’d say is “account for property, see if the unit can still accomplish their mission if they lose something, if they need it, we’ll try to find an extra one, if we don’t have extra, we’ll order one”. I’ve been practicing saying that for over a week, I’m pretty good at it now. I’ve also been practicing my blank stare for when people ask me the inevitable stupid questions.
The plan was to run operations 24 hours a day, just like we’ll be doing overseas. The plan was to start that Friday night. The plan, like all Army plans, was changed at the last minute on the whim of someone that it isn’t affected by it. The building that we’re holding this exercise in contains a good bit of Secret and Classified stuff, nothing too important looking (trust me, I’ve looked for the good stuff). But that being the case, we’re not allowed to have access to cell phones or internet sites other than military. So I’m typing this on a word document which I’m going to email to myself via my Army email account. And then erase all the evidence! Anyway, today my section all went to sit around in the building and stare at each other like we’ve done for the past week, when just after lunch, they decided to bump up the day that they were going to start running 24hr ops to tonight. I managed to find a ride home around 2pm, sent off some emails for work, and took an hour and a half nap, ate dinner, and failed to get any more sleep after that. Once I got back here, myself and one other guy were supposed to run the section tonight, but guess what? They’re not even doing anything with the simulation till at least 4am Friday morning! They don’t even have any of the information loaded on the computers yet! None of the key players are here! They’re all in bed asleep! Needless to say, I should have seen this coming. I sent the other guy home on the same van that took us over here so at least he could get some sleep.
I’m determined to somehow stage a protest of sorts to the stupidity of all this. So far all I’ve managed to do is wear a beanie while I’m typing this because the thermostat is stuck on 60. Wearing a hat indoors is very against military regulations. Instead of provoking awareness of how dumb all of us being here tonight is, I’m getting lots of thumbs up and people telling me that I’ve got a good idea. I need a new form of protest. I should have brought my sleeping bag and bundled up in it while I type this. I think that soon I’ll take my boots off too. My feet have already been in boots for 12 hours today, I know they’re not looking forward to being in them till 8 am when the change of shift gets here.
People ask me what I do for my “training” while I’m here. If you took all the time that I was actually doing something productive and worthwhile in the three weeks I’ve been here, you might have about five days worth. The rest of it I’ve spent eating, waiting in line, sleeping, reading, waiting in line, working out, trying not to sleep through pointless classes (including the suicide prevention class that made you want to kill yourself) waiting in line, trying to sleep through pointless briefings, waiting in line, and...playing on the internet. I need to be slightly more productive. Sadly, a lot of the things I’d like to do, or would consider productive; I can’t do during a normal day. It just wouldn’t look very good if there’s an office full of busy, important looking people and I’m sitting in the middle of them reading a book. So I sit there and stare at everyone and try to look like I have a clue about what’s going on.
I realized today that I’m a tradable commodity. One of the guys in my section is from China, he’s not a citizen, his parents are both either former or currently with the Chinese military, and for some reason he can’t get a Security clearance. Imagine that. Yeah, you have to have a Secret clearance in order to work in my section. So we had to kick him out, but now we’ve got two open spots in our section to fill. I’m sitting in a senior enlisted slot myself. My boss could easily trade a Warrant Officer for two younger enlisted Soldiers, and possibly a senior enlisted person too, if he included a few selections in next year’s draft to sweeten the deal. I’m already working outside of my career field, so why not switch me to something I know nothing about? I hope my boss doesn’t figure this out. Yeah, I’d trade one young wet behind the ears Warrant who has a “don’t mess with me or my people” attitude for two young trainable fearful enlisted people and possibly a senior enlisted who knows what they’re doing.
It’s easy to see where the importance is in my unit as well. We’re in an old WWII style gym, with an office space upstairs with windows that look out over the old basketball court. The whole floor is raised up via a wooden platform to allow access for wires and such. And about the last 10 feet of the platform, there’s a wall. A nice drab grey wall. On the far side of the wall they have flat screen tvs, projector screens, phones, a sound system, brand new computers with three screens, nice stadium seating and a sense of “I’m better than you are” (reminds me of provo…). On my side of the wall we have a shortage of paper and ink for our printers, cardboard boxes, old laptops (you can use the internet on the one I’m on, but not print, and visa versa for the other), wires running everywhere that we’ve tried to duct tape down, metal folding chairs, card tables for desks, a phone that isn’t hooked up, and me in my beanie trying to look tough. I’m pretty sure I saw someone starting a fire in a barrel in the back. I call this building Berlin, and I live in East Berlin. I used to go over to West Berlin to visit some friends, but they deported everyone who didn’t belong in there. I can still see over that wall though, and they give me dirty looks for doing so. OH! I forgot to tell you the best part! The wooden platform ends about 4 feet behind our desks, and it has a 1 inch lip that comes up to keep the one wheeled chair (which I’m sitting in!) from rolling off the edge. But I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen trip over that sucker, or step on it and roll an ankle and fall onto the walkway below. I tell ya, we East Berliners really know how to have a good time. As one of my friends once said, it’s ghetto with a capital GH.
I think for the most part I am actually having a good time; as much as is applicable anyway. My section is in good shape, though I’m going to need a translator for the Puerto Rican that I’ll be working with. I swear he speaks English, but he doesn’t understand it to save his life. He thought he had today off, so he didn’t show up for work. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated that. If I have to go sit in the freezing building and not have my cell phone, the he has to as well. I like my bosses; I’ve got three of them, my section boss, and then two others who run the section that we fall into. The big boss is great, he’s kinda high up on the food chain, so he can throw his rank around when we need it, and he’s got a southern drawl and cusses at things and situations that need to be cussed at. I’ve got a salty old Chief Warrant Officer 4 that most people are scared to death of but I can’t wait to learn everything he knows (the man ran several state’s worth of units till a few years ago), and then my boss is way relaxed. That’s probably a side effect of his civilian job, running the state of Utah’s Alcohol department for about a third of the state. He does taste testing at all the stores, so he gets to sip scotch at 9am. He has to spit it out or he’s be blitzed by noon everyday. That and the whole drinking on the job thing. I’ve got an NCO who is phenomenal, I told him that we were going to give a PT test to some of the guys, and in my mind, everything was taken care of. Well he went and mapped out the two mile run, got all the paperwork together, got all the required regulations, the man is on top of it. I know that whatever I tell him to do; he’s going to get it done. And the young guys are all pretty motivated and seem eager to do their jobs. It’s hard to keep them occupied; there usually isn’t a whole lot for them to do, so they’re bored out of their minds. But once we get overseas it’s going to pick up quite a bit.
Well I’ve talked your ear off, if you’ve even made it this far. It’s only 2am, and I’ve got to somehow stay awake for another 5 or 6 hours still. Yawn…. Thankfully I have Friday off.