Inanity 1

The mission was to jump in a vehicle. Ride shotgun. Direct the driver to the passenger arrival zone of the air strip. Grab a couple of fellow soldiers and their gear and drive off. Off to the other side of the air strip. Drop the soldiers and the gear off and get out of there. On a base this size, you’d think it’d take 20 minutes. It took 3 hours.

I thought the day was over, my class on computer forensics had ended, everyone was sitting around pointlessly, and I was itching to go to the gym. The gym and some salsa dancing later. I was already sitting in the van waiting for a driver to jump in so that we could drive off and begin the night. But G-Money came to the heavy sliding door and told me it wasn’t to be, I was to help out Tyrone in picking up some soldiers.

So I jumped in shotgun and wondered, why am I needed when I’m not driving, not in charge, and not necessary? But Tyrone wanted to check out the lost H6 Rec center, a fabled entertainment plaza thought to belong to the Air Force, thought to be super-standard, thought to contain the legendary salsa night on Wednesdays. The salsa night which gathered tens of people to dance and enjoy themselves. Tyrone needed my help finding it.

Our first stop included missing a turn, ending up at a dead end, and debating if the truck would make it through a chain link fence. Fixing that error, we went to the Red something or other. Directly next to the flight line, and in view of the airport, but with a few minutes to still spare on the flight arrival.

We walked in, and asked for directions. On the wall was a poster of some Communications Battalion, two shots of them in formation and then a “G.I. Joe” action figure package of each of them, complete with nicknames and crudely drawn pastel faces. The clerk at the desk gave us some directions, drawing a map on a post-it note and pointing us back in the direction we came.

Tyrone and I jumped in the truck, nearly backing over an anti-tank device, and turned it around. But when we got to the entrance to the Air Force compound we were mystified.