I don't ask for much, but enough room to spread my wings
And a world fittin' to know my name
- "The Seed 2.0", The Roots
It’s hard for me to write about my job here. Not in the mentally or emotionally hard sense, it isn’t a trying experience to document what I do and how I do it. It isn’t even hard in the sensitivity and security aspect, though that will be addressed later. I simply do not find myself with the time to sit down and script out how my days have advanced.
As the title (hopefully I remember to put the right one there) suggests, I have only a few more months left in this tour of duty. I’ve been relocated to COB (the same thing as a FOB, but named differently for politically correct purposes) Speicher, named after a missing helicopter pilot from the Gulf War. Correct me if I’m wrong. About the name, not where I am - I know that much.
Anyway, I’ve been split off of MFT 3 to come do a Counter-Intelligence Foreign Source something or other. I really forget the acronym, what it stands for, and what it means. Me and a few other Counter Intelligence Agents have been “spooled up”, and I’ll be using as some military terminology for fun, into an MCC team, which stands for Military Counter-Intelligence Collection. I think. The players are as follows…
Living with me in the rectangular metal crate (another CHU) is Chanatee, so aptly named because he made the mistake of getting drunk back in Texas and notifying the world that when children wanted to be mean to him, they simply retarded his first name towards that of a manatee. He’s one of those large people, who seem to reek of strange odors and always seem slightly greasy. His abundant weight seems to shift his frame down and forward, the hint of motion always about him like some great monstrous creature. You know it cannot move quickly, but when it starts its path of rage and destruction all will suffer. Currently I believe that is me. His work ethic is paltry, his demeanor is dull. He and I are the only true subordinates on this team. Sadly, Chanatee is my only “friend” in this place.
Place. Let me digress into that realm. Picture, which isn’t hard if you look at this, the Roman numeral 2, shown here as “II”. Actually, that’s a terrible example which I pictured wrong in my head this whole time. But we’ll use it anyway. Each of the vertical lines is a flight line, where planes and helicopters zoom around trying to land and take off. Clearly, I am not allowed to drive or run there. Don’t ask why, this is what I was told.
So on the outsides of the two lines are living areas, complete with dining facilities and gymnasiums and recreational areas. They, like two warring factions, mirror each other and generally stick to themselves. The left eat on the left, and the right eat on the right. I live in the middle, sandwiched between two impassable lanes I have to detour around. Problem? Not a bit, except the distance needing to be transversed is massive. I’m not talking meters, I’m talking miles.
So to get to breakfast, or any meal, I have the choice of going 4 miles in either direction. But, without a vehicle. I could try the bus, whose schedule is as indecipherable as Braille to me, or bum a ride from my office mates. These rides are pitiful and headache-bringing (how’s that for a subtle teen novel reference?) because no one speaks. In the car, no one speaks. There is no conversation. No one says anything, not to each other, and not to the things I try and bring up as topics. Chanatee and I will engage one another in inane nonsense with the hopes that someone will chime in with anything. Even a “shut up” at this point would be nice. But no, nothing.
So basic necessities are distant. Directly next to my CHU however, is a broken down gym. It has collected enough dust to qualify as dirt at this point, and since no military members live in the area I reside in, no one is ever there. My one experience with it so far was pleasant, as the gym was peaceful. Yet the weights had no partners, and the machines looked ready to rise up and revolt against mankind. I know, as do they, that I would be the first victim for disturbing their grim and grimy slumber.
As Chanatee and I dorm together, so do our immediate supervisors, Quiet and L-Word across the way from us. The 4 of us make up the entire Army residence structure in this hundred room “pad”. I’ve seen maybe 10 other rooms occupied by contractors. No one wants to live in the middle of nowhere, especially not me.
L-Word will be my supervisor, and I worked with him in Europe. I think I did anyway. I know he and I attended some training course, and then saw each other at Fort Hood one day and had a drink. But who is he really? I don’t recall, and since he is currently on R&R (See: 2307/190/9/2/1) I won’t get a chance to remind myself for another couple of weeks.
In the meantime, I’m creatively stifled underneath Quiet, who speed whispers/mumbles everything he says. Chanatee believes he might have a speech pathology issue, or be mentally challenged. Quiet, upon being asked to repeat himself, will go from a 1 volume setting to a 9 immediately, bringing back wistful memories of Saturday Night Live’s Admiral Stockdale during the 1992 elections. His work mentality is sloth-like in its lethargy, and he has the social skills of a potato. A heavily tattooed potato that will either whisper or shout at you.
In charge of us 4 are Cleft, an NCO similar in rank to Mr. Pringles, and Sloth, a warrant officer like Skitzo. Cleft is an ugly little man with what I can only call “nerd” skirting all over him like ants on honey. His every comment strikes me as better placed in an in-no-way-cool Comic Con. My interaction with him is limited, as Quiet has taken it upon himself to torture me to no end with dull droning dealing with daily tasks and pointless things. Sloth speaks with the deliberate effort of a hapless Samaritan trying to speak to a foreigner who obviously has no concern for slower and louder enunciation. His topics of choice are also placed more in a Revenge of the Nerds marathon, which isn’t to say they’re bad. But they’re dull. They are all dull. Except Chanatee, who shares my pains in day to day attempts at conversing. And Susanna, who is our new interpreter. Or rather, she is my new interpreter, but the normal interpreter of the office. She is pleasant, and nice, and one hundred steps up from Worthless and Bezorg. But that is a tale for another time.
Stay tuned for, “What happens at lunch stays at lunch, when nothing happens” and “What are we doing out here in the middle of the god damn desert?”
[Is this Speicher? No, it's the spray painted windows in Mosul. My camera is broken, so no new shots yet.]
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