Waking the Dead

            After a few days stay in the hospital following The Fall Doctor Feelgood decided I was able to go back home. Since my clothes had been cut off of me by the paramedics SSG C very thoughtfully brought in a set a NY Jets sweats from his home. The thing is SSG C is about 5’10 and 175 lbs. I am not. In short I looked like a spandex clad pickle preparing for high water conditions. Fortunately I was still drugged to the gills and didn’t give a shit. Nonetheless I didn’t want SSG C to see my apartment at that time as it only had a beanbag and my army issue sleeping bag to boast as furnishings. I would have been a bit ashamed to be revealed as a man living more like a homeless veteran than an active duty soldier. With this in mind I made him take me back to SGT Knuckles apartment where my car was parked and managed to drive myself home very slowly and with a large quantity of pain. He seemed rather amused by the whole affair and was very friendly and concerned with my well being. I still owe him for that.

            Following a few days of rest at home I went back to work. The company had already left for their first field problem in many years so my job was to stay in the orderly room and be the “Rear Detachment” (yes that is about as dignified as it sounds).

            It turns out that the field deployment had been dramatically scaled back due to the sheer stupidity of attempting it in the first place. Let me explain that the major component of a Guardrail system are 4 semi-trailers known as the Integrated Processing Facility (IPF). These trailers are just the same as any civilian trailer you have seen cruising the highways of the world. They are designed for nice, hard, level asphalt and smooth rides. They are *not* designed to go offroading. Well try as he might SSG C could not seem to get this concept across to our company Commander CPT Toothy. To illustrate the futility of trying to take the vans off road SSG C had to get dirty. By getting dirty I mean that he had SGT Bindme hook up the very lightest of the trailers (they range from around 25,000 lbs up to 55,000 lbs) and attempt to take it to the proposed “field site”. As soon as he took the first turn off of he asphalt the trailer dragged the entire truck into the ditch where it promptly became mired up to it’s axles. I am not sure that this accident would have convinced CPT Toothy of the project’s untenability if it were not the foresight of SGT Stein who took several great pictures of the stuck truck.

            Faced with abject failure, CPT Toothy “modified” the deployment plan and instead of taking the trucks and setting the IPF up in a different area they simply drove them around for a bit, brought them back to the original location, and set them back up again. To make this seem more “Hooah” he also had the entire company set up a bivouac site just down the road. I leave it to you, the gentle reader to determine the effectiveness of this exercise in simulating a combat environment.

            With me manning the orderly room, 1SG Gregarious used me as his touchstone for those few personnel were were not in the field. This led me into my first real contact with SGT Moroni who was the company training NCO at the time. He had recently re-enlisted for a college option meaning that he was given most of the day off to go to college. He simply had to show up for PT in the morning, go to school, and return in the afternoon to do a few office chores. He would be allowed to do this for about 6 months before returning to full time duty. The problem with this arrangement was that SGT Moroni had the reasoning capacity of a small gnat overdosed on Thorazine. Since I had returned to work he had not been to the company once, not even for PT. When 1SG Gregarious asked me what SGT Moroni was doing I had to tel him that I had no idea due to the aforementioned lack of contact. This did not sit well with the 1SG as Moroni was already on his shit-list for many and varied cock-ups in the past including but not limited to: stalking a female enlisted soldier, harassing multiple female soldiers sexually, never turning in his work on time, and losing vital soldier records from the training office. After hearing “Top” (that’s the unit 1SG for you civvies) deliver a most impressive and profane list of Moroni’ character flaws and possible lineage, I left Moroni a message on his answering machine instructing him to appear in the 1SG’s office the next day at 0630.

            That morning Top came in at 0600 with the unit clerk SPC O’Toole (Pseudosoldier) in tow. They caught up on some of the never ending administrative work that is necessary in any unit and waited for the arrival of Moroni. Moroni was late, strolling in at around 0700. Top took him in his office and closed the door. He needn’t have bother doing so as his voice quickly rose in volume until you could clearly hear every soul-flensing invective from the furthest reaches of the building. He ended the session with a but of advice for young SGT Moroni, “Why don’t you just go home and kill yourself you worthless fuck?”. I went in and commiserated with Top for a bit after SGT Moroni’s departure talking mainly about company business and listening to a few choice stories about other dumbasses he had led in the past.

            Later that night SGT Moroni had not come in after his classes yet again and did not answer his phone. I so informed Top during his nightly check in call :

Top :   “What? I just fucking told him when to be there tis goddamn morning!”

Me :     “Well, he never showed and no one answers his phone.”

Top :   “Shit, maybe he actually did kill himself. Goddamn it go find the strip map to his house and see if he’s dead.”

Me :     “No problem, should I kill him myself if he hasn’t done so?”

Top : (laughing)          “Only if you have somewhere to put the body.”

Me :     “Roger that.”

            Off I went into a very shitty part of Killeen to find this assclown. At this point it was around 2100 or so and I was not very happy at the length of the workday. I found his apartment in the dark with some difficulty but I was pleased I had not been mugged. After knocking several times on his door I was beginning to think that I was going to have to call the police to open the door and find his corpse. Right about then I saw a shadow move across the light from the door’s peephole. I beat on the door with renewed vigor. Finally after roughly 10 minutes of door hammering Moroni opens the door.

Me :     “Finally! What took so fucking long?”

Ass :   “I didn’t hear you.”

Me :     “Why didn’t you come to work after class?”

Ass :   “I didn’t know I had to.”

Me :     “Well Top is pissed. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

Ass :   “It never rang.”

Me :     “I need to call Top and let him know you are ok, can I use your phone?”

Ass :   “Ok”

            Entering his den of stupidity I found that the reason his phone didn’t ring was that it was not plugged in! He had unplugged it earlier to get online and never hooked it back up! I pointed this out and got a blank stare that would not have looked out of place on a lobotomized sheep for my trouble. With a sigh I dialed 1SG Gregarious’ cell phone, simply handed the phone to Moroni, and walked out. Unbeknownst to me, I had just secured my new job.

Next …. The Answer Man….