Apology : Ok so it has been 20 articles since I worked on Deadly Charisma. Sue me. 
I find that it takes me around 4 times as long to write these pieces as it does to do an "op-ed" or "news" piece so I will likely only have time for them on the weekends. Maybe I will get some done when I am in Maryland and Estrogen Lass is working. With that said…
The Answer Man
Following the incident with
SGT Moroni and The Fall, 1SG Gregarious had apparently decided that he liked my style and that he needed a new training NCO. (Just speculation here but another factor might have been that the Mission Operations Platoon (MOPS) didn’t need me down there disrupting things at this time) He promptly fired SGT Moroni and installed me in his place.
For those who don’t know, the company training NCO is responsible for publishing the weekly training schedules for the unit, making sure everyone takes a PT test when they are supposed to, keeps track of who is injured, and schedules classes etc…. In other words a job that requires a high level or organization and attention to detail. Anyone who has ever met me knows I have neither of those. I am compulsively disorganized if truth be told. I thrive on chaos and disorder functioning very poorly in highly regimented structures. (This of course begs the question, "Why join the Army then you shitheel?" Maybe I will go into that in another article later… you will just have to wait) Despite all this I resolved to try my best and not disappoint 1SG gregarious whom I held (and still hold) in the highest regard.
Assisting me in this endeavor was the Headquarters Platoon or as I liked to call them… Goof Troop. At the time I came in as training NCO our platoon consisted of :
Pseuodonym Job My assessment at the time
SPC O’Toole : The Orderly Room clerk. Nice Kid just had a weight and PT problem
SSG Mumbles: "Platoon Sergeant" Knew him from Korea, more interested in playing
Everquest than in working.
PVT Johnny Roo:
Dogsbody Hard worker, never complained, smoked a
lot of weed.
PVT Airhead: Pissing me off. Supposed to be our Commo girl, but
wouldn’t know a radio from a toaster if you
held a gun to her head.
SPC Criminale: Supply Clerk Would work if he liked you, shady beyond
anything I could muster, had a problem
staying out of trouble.
SPC Lowkee
NBC NCO Held to the theory that if he stayed out of
sight and under everyone’s radar he
wouldn’t have to work very much.
SSG Farrakhan Not-getting-you-any- Complete asshelmet who cried racism every
Supplies-Sergeant time one of her egregious fuck-ups came to
light.
(note : This list may be incomplete or wrong just like my memory. Pseudosoldier can correct me if he wishes)
With this cast of characters I settled into my new office (the first one I ever had by the way (man I would die without parentheticals)) and set about "organizing" what was in there. I came to realize that as bad as my sorting and filing skills were that SGT Moroni’s were even worse. Training records were lost or incomplete and everything was just jammed into whatever was handy. All of this really didn’t mean much to me other than a few long days at work though.
The long days got longer and longer as I came to realize that I was unable to resist the impulse to answer the questions of every person who came into the O room during the course of the day. My schedule eventually settled out to 8 or 9 hours of answering various military (or non) related questions, referring those folks who needed paperwork done to SPC O’Toole, or sending those whose concerns were not appropriate for the O room packing. In between all this I would chat with O’Toole, banter with Calangelo, complete whatever semi-random tasks the 1SG had to get done, and then stay few a few hours after work so I could actually do the training work I had. I was rendered completely unable to concentrate on my own work if there were any other soldiers in the area as their issues always caught my interest. Make no mistake, not only did I not resent these people for taking up my time, I enjoyed it. The entire day was a series of problems to be solved and Jeopardy type question to be answered. It was a very good thing that I had nothing else to do at this time as I was usually spending 13-15 hours a day in the office. If I would have had a wife or girlfriend at the time they would have been quite livid.
As I was taking this position over the unit was still "
in the field". I would stay late every day and wait for the 1SG or whomever to come back in and deal with whatever issues had sprung up during the day (female soldiers coming back from the field due to severe neck and scalp burns they had given themselves with a home-perm kit the day before the field problem and such) and provide liason service from them to the rest of the battalion.
During one of these late watches
SSG Calangelo had come back early in the day for some reason and was waiting for the 1SG to come back that night to give him a ride out to the site. We sat and talked politics and world-views for a long time (I don’t recall the details so don’t bother asking), he seemed exhausted and mentally fatigued from dealing with Military Intelligence soldiers in the field for the first time (he was infantry until recently if you will recall). The conversation became a bit giddy as he slipped into sleep deprivation and when whipped into a froth over some ridiculous bit of crap the current commander, (CPT Toothy), had spouted he found a urinalysis cup in the O room drawer, uncapped it and pissed in it to show his disdain. In the process he also found time to piss on the O room counter (that’s why I never touched it there). It was at this point that I realized that he might not be totally sane and it also marked the point where he became convinced I was a "good guy". How right I was, how right he was I leave to you the gentle reader).