About two years ago I ended up on a six month tour of duty in the somewhere in the MiddleEast. I can’t give too many details about whom, what, and where. The only clue I can give is…that it was hot and there was a lot of sand.
It was the first time I worked in a “joint” capacity (Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines working together). I was in the Air Force at the time and had to get use to the other forces “ways of doing things”. One of our differences of course was in our terminology. For example, we slept in tents. We worked in tents. Yet navy guys had a hard time adjusting their jargon. It would always crack me up when one of the navy guys would shout “Attention on the deck” when a visiting officer would enter our TENT. I tried not to chuckle as I looked down at the plywood floor that was always covered in a thin layer of sand. We all got a long on the most part though. It was hard being away from our families and so we kind of adopted each other. We also adopted a “family” mutt. She was a very sweet dog and she really brought us all together as we pooled our money, time, and food to take care of her. I called her Lea but she had many names.
We were not really allowed to adopt indigenous animals, but most of our leaders looked the other way believing that morale was probably more important than adherence to a regulation. But there were those who were sticklers for the rules and they did not approve of Lea. We had a couple of those that worked with us but luckily I worked the mid shift and they normally worked during the days. Lea seemed to know who to avoid and pretty much only came to visit us at night. She liked our tent the best and usually stayed most of the night sleeping at our feet. She even made a secret back entrance in our tent (in the commanding officer’s (CO) area) so she could avoid most human interaction. (There was a plywood wall that divided the “communications operations center” where I worked and the “CO area”. It also had a door so the CO could have “closed door” meetings. We normally hid Lea there when needed.)
One evening around shift change, our site lost power and most of our networks were down. The guys responsible for the local site communications were running around trying to get a good handle on the situation. The day crew would not be relieved of duty until the situation was under control. Once they got a satisfactory status though, one of the guys (a chief petty officer) was responsible for briefing the CO (who also remained). The Chief gathered his thoughts and then proceeded through the door. The next thing we heard was the CO’s voice shouting “Get the hell out of here” and the Chief came out running as if his arse was on fire, goose-stepping all the way. Our jaws dropped. Our CO was usually pretty cool and we never heard him speak like this before, especially to his crew. We were all working in senior positions so most of us had our act together. The CO’s attitude didn’t jive.
So we asked the Chief what he had said to the CO to piss him off. The Chief replied that he didn’t have a chance to say anything. The CO started yelling again but this time he shouted “How in the hell did this damned mutt get in here.” It was Lea, the poor thing was making her nightly visit and didn’t realize that the day crew hadn’t left yet.
We all laughed our arses off. The CO had wondered why our Chief had beaten a path out of there without giving his report. He didn’t realize that the Chief thought he was given a direct order and felt like a dog. As for Lea? Well we eventually pitched in and bought her an all expense paid trip back to the states where she now lives happily ever after with one of the army officers from our team. I will always fondly remember her and how she livened up my time away from home.