21.JAN.2012; Forward Operating Base [Bravo]

Posted by Jack on Feb 10, 2012 in The.Dispatches | 0 comments

[From Max]  It was freezing when I stepped off the back of the chopper.  There was no snow, but mountains loomed in every direction.  If it was cold when we left, an few thousand more feet weren’t helping.

It took two trips to move my gear through an ancient looking gate in a dilapidated HESCO wall.  Our side of the base was a courtyard the size of a football field.  It was filled with piles of boards and jumbles of fuck.

My platoon sergeant came strolling up to me.  He had a leisurely expression on his face.  It was the same expression he always wore, minus the headphones and laptop that had seemed permanently attached the whole month prior.

“Where’re we at?” I asked.

“Uhh, I’m over in the last green building on the left.”

I looked past the detritus in the direction he was pointing.

“I think First Sergeant said he’s got a room for you up on the other side.”

He gestured toward the inner wall.

“Oh,” I muttered.  “. . . That’s how it is.”

I looked him straight in the eye.  He didn’t seem to register the comment.

It took a while to get a straight answer out of anyone about where I was supposed to be sleeping.  A few guys avoided eye-contact altogether.  Fucking rumor-mill.

Goddamn Joe News Network.

My Contego box was heavy even as a two-man lift.  I left it sitting in the middle of the courtyard and shouldered my bags.  Eventually someone pointed me to a long white building on the other side of the base.  Most of the Chigo heaters had been ripped off the walls, and twisted metal brackets jutted out of the concrete.

I dragged my shit inside and took the first room with electricity. There was nothing else in it, except a few crooked shelves built into the wall.  There were no windows.  The floor was concrete, and splattered with paint.  The walls had once been white.  A lone cot was overturned in the middle of the room.

I ran into the FOB mayor in the hallway.  He was the building’s only other occupant.  He had the room with heat.

“There’s no heat in that room, man . . . ” he said, pointing to my door.

“I don’t give a fuck . . . ” I muttered.  I didn’t even look at him.

My Contego box was still sitting in the courtyard.  It weighed as much as I did out of kit.  It was unweildy as fuck, and took several tries to shoulder it.  I had to turn it on its side and get it on my knees first.

The strain was awful.

I had to shuffle just to walk.  I passed a few of my Joes, who looked at me in confusion.

“Uhhh . . . you need a hand . . . sir?”

None of them had offered when they saw me trying to pick the motherfucker up.

“No,” I wheezed.

I reported to the CO later that night.  I waited outside of his room, off the backside of the tactical operations center.  It was a crumbling building packed with plywood and wires, and guarded by a cypher-lock door that no one ever shut.  The CO occupied one small corner of it, with his mountains of paperwork and piles of manila folders.

He put his hand on my shoulder and tried to talk to me like a son.  I wasn’t buying it.  I sat quietly, jaw firmly clenched, and dug my fingers into my knees.  I pulled a pen out, clicked it, and waited patiently for him to finish talking.

He didn’t have anything ready for me to sign.

He told me I wasn’t really getting a “fair shake”, but it was still his recommendation to transfer me.  I kept thinking about all of the bullshit he dumped in my lap.  Unfixable bullshit.  Brigade problems dumped down on Battalion.  Battalion oversights dumped down on Company.

I was still trying to figure out what any of it had to do with my actual job.  The one with the guns and bullets.  Not one logistics officer was sitting in that room.

“It’s not necessarily a reflection on you.  Sometimes you just need a fresh start.” he told  me.

“Yeah,” I muttered

He asked if I needed anything as I stood in the doorway.

“No,” I muttered.

I had no report time in the morning.  I hadn’t slept more than three hours straight in weeks.  I skipped chow and went to bed early.  I didn’t crawl out of my bag until noon.