Souvenir

People like to keep 105mm brass as a souvenir.  Sometimes it has special meaning whether it be from a first shoot, an important op, or just a significant day.  Dakota requested that three shells be set aside after a flight and after they were brought in she taped the tops of them and wrote her name on them so that once they made it back home she could claim them.  A few days later they went missing.  She asked everyone if they had seen them and no one had.  Surely there was a mistake...Surely someone wouldn't take something that doesn't belong to them that is labeled with someone else's name! SIGH. 

 

Fast forward three weeks and here we sit in our planning area.  Dakota is at her desk and I am at mine watching South Park with Tracy.  The Captain who I like to refer to as Captain Douche (he isn't checked out on any airframe and he doesn't even know the simplest of terms that we use daily, but by God he is very important... Just looking at him you can tell he thinks so) comes into our area holding a 105mm shell.  Fortunately for him I did not here the following conversation. 

 

Captain Douche "Hey do you have any duct tape?"

Dakota "No, is that one of my shells you stole?" (she was kidding because honestly what are the odds)

Captain Douche "Oh well, I did take your shells but this isn't one of them."

Dakota "What?"

Captain Douche "yeah i took your shells but i mean you can have this one if you want it"

Dakota "No! I got them to get me more....thanks."

Captain Douche "oh ok soooo do you really not have any duct tape?"

Dakota "no we don't!" 

 

Again Tracy and I can't hear this conversation

 

Me "We don't like that guy, he's a douche"

Tracy "Ok.  Who is he?"

Me "The ops retard that sits in the JOC"

 

Captain Douche then walks out of the room.  Dakota walks back to my desk.

 

Dakota "Did y'all hear that guy?!"

Me "No what did he say?"

Dakota then tells me the conversation written out above. 

Me "What the fuck?! You should have told us what he was saying!"

Dakota "I didn't know if y'all could hear and i was just so shocked"

 

Brett and Jimmy walk in

 

Me "Hey, Y'all remember the shells Dakota was looking for?! Captain Douche took 'em and just told her he did it."

 

After some talk of his douchiness Brett walks to the JOC to confront Captain Douche.  He comes back and says that Captain Douche now proclaims innocence because one of our own, Keith, told him to take them.  We openly complain about and mock them both and Captain Douche informs Keith that he has been found out. Keith enters our area, walks right by Dakota's desk to mine and begins to explain his actions.

 

Keith "Ok look here's what happened, I told Captain Douche he could have her shells so don't be mad at him."

Me "Why would you take her shells?"

Keith "It's not a big deal, an O-6 came by and so everyone was like (does bowing motion like "we're not worthy" from "Wayne's World") and they couldn't find the shells they were going to give him so i told Captain Douche that he could take hers"

Me "SO YOU TAKE THE SHELLS THAT ARE MARKED WITH THE NAME OF SOMEONE WHO WORKS WITH US AND SUPPORTS US AND YOU GIVE THEM TO SOMEONE WE DON'T EVEN LIKE (right as i say "them" Captain Douche walks in the door and i point to him while saying "someone we don't even like" at which point he immediately turns around and walks out of the room) WHO THEN GIVES THEM TO SOME COLONEL WHO WE DON'T KNOW, DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT US, AND WON'T EVEN REMEMBER WHO GAVE THEM TO HIM IF THEY EVEN MAKE IT BACK WITH HIM!!! AND THEN YOU DON'T EVEN SAY ANYTHING FOR THREE FUCKING WEEKS!"

Keith "Fine shoot me, an O-6 came in and you can't just not give him anything."

Me "You make me sick, I just want you to be aware, i'm sickened with the amount of dick sucking around here,"

Brett "Hey Captain Weber, My name is on the door to my room so i guess you can feel free to go in there and take anything you want out and just give it away."

Keith "Maybe I will."

Me "Maybe you need to shut the fuck up.  Why don't you go back to the JOC and hang out w/ Captain Douche because the planning area is for crewmembers"

Keith "I'm sorry ok!"

Me "Don't apologize to me.  You weren't dumb enough to give my shit away. Tell Dakota you're sorry that you have no respect for her or her property."

 

Keith said he was sorry and went back to the JOC

Sad Facebook Story

A few days ago I became annoyed with the goings on on Facebook and simply posted that I was going to be taking a break until I get back home in February.  Several people asked why or said that I would be back before then and I didn't respond but I wasn't going to fall for those cheap tricks that easily and I maintained my silence.  A couple days later I had to wake up early for work so at some point during the day when things slowed down I went to take a nap.  After my nap I came back into the planning area and checked my email.  I had an email from Dakota saying that while I was sleeping our SDO (enlisted guy in charge of the running of this place, rooms, medals, and other day to day problems) pulled her aside to say that someone from Iraq had contacted someone here to say that they were concerned about what I had put on my Facebook page, I seemed sad and they were worried about me.  He wanted to know if she had noticed that I was sad, she said that she didn't know what the person was referring to on my wall and that I am in fact okay.  So this person who is my Facebook friend, works with me, and is currently in Iraq thinks that me trying to take a hiatus from Facebook is a sign of my mental instability and they are soooo concerned that they don't speak to me about it, they decide to send it up the chain.  Thanks guy! Trust me if I'm sad I have several people I will discuss it with and you and our management are not on the list! Fuck you very much... 

  Smooches and happy faces,

    Ashley

Repost

I took off my blouse as I do a lot of days b/c it's warm in the room.  As I'm laying stuff out for the crews...

Guy: "You know you're wearing the wrong color shirt."

Me: "You know we've been here for 22 days?"

Guy: "I'm just sayin...your tactics confuse me."

Me: "I don't even own a name tag for this uniform and you think I care if my shirt is brown instead of sand?"

Guy:  "No"

Me "Good talk"

Yeah I'm a fast burner...I've got upper management written all over me. 

In case the IT guy is a follower

 This is just a short story to pass the time before the next good long one... It's humorous.

 

We have a chat program and when I logged on this morning I couldn't connect.  My intel guy is better with the chat than I am so he takes a look and says i have no connectivity at all so after i get some other stuff done I restart the computer and go to the bathroom.  Before I had left I told Keith that it wasn't working and I'd let him know if/when I get it back up.  I come back from the bathroom and the comm guy (IT) is in here and the computer is at the log in page. 

 

IT guy: "I don't have a log in for this kind of system can you log in and show me what's wrong?"

 

Me: "Oh well I just restarted but yeah."

 

I try really hard not to ask for help from the comm guys unless I have exhausted the limited number of fixes I am capable of because I know how annoying it must be to deal with idiots all day who don't realize a computer needs to be plugged in to work.  The chat fired right up like a champ...Thanks Keith for rushing to get me help...FML

Please be joking

I started not to write this one, but it's one of the things that set me off today that I can actually post online so here it is.  I'm sitting here at my desk with about six guys in the room.  I'm waiting for my bedtime to roll around and they are pretending to like each other.  The oldest of the group begins telling what I can assume he finds to be a bad ass story about being a loud American at a foreign chow hall on base.  He says there was a debate about the new policy of repealing "don't ask don't tell" (keep in mind that when we watch the show Modern Family he refuses to stay in the room because it has a gay couple)  and someone pointed out that no other country has that kind of rule so we shouldn't either.  He says that he responded with "YEAH BUT ALL THE OTHER COUNTRIES SUCK!!!"Apparently this got the attention of some of the other patrons.  Someone pointed out that he was lucky that the people weren't more prone to fighting.  Of course he is quite the manly man and says he doesn't care.  

One of our new co-pilot's says "So you think you'd be alright if it had been a big group of well trained Israeli's?"

Idiot says "Pfft, whatever, Jews."

I assume he's joking but stop looking at my computer and now focus my attention on the conversation.

Guy 1 "you know 'so and so' is Jewish."

Guy 2 "He's half Jewish and he's from Texas so he doesn't even count."

Idiot "I don't give a shit who walks in here..."

At this point I interrupt and say "Hold on 'idiot' are you kidding or are you serious right now?"

I am answered with silence from all of them so I continue

Me: "OK if you're serious i don't understand why you hate Jewish people, or why if you're going to chose a group of people to discriminate against (side note real quick please do not message me either here or on fb to say which groups you do hate more) you would pick the Jews."

Idiot "uhhh I have an amazing reason."

Me "ok"

Idiot "How about they killed Jesus Christ?!" 

Me "Wow, ok I'm going to give this one more try here.  You're kidding right?"

Idiot "UH NO! They did."

Me "ok so by 'they' you mean a group of people that have been dead for almost two thousand years.  Who wanted someone executed who was Christ and 'they' happen to share the same religion as this group of people that you hate who are alive today? And this is assuming that it is all true and in no way embellished or fabricated" 

Idiot "It's in the Bible!"

Me "ok sure I still don't see what that has to do with hating the people who are alive today even if you think you need to avenge Jesus with hate."

Idiot "That's in the Bible too!" 

And this is where he began quoting scripture.  You want me to stop taking you seriously? Start quoting scripture because that's great I'm glad you can memorize a book but are you going to hope I'm turned into a pillar of salt? Once he was finished rambling about stars and empty wombs blah blah blah.

Me "See I thought you would at least be able to have an actual conversation with me about this."

Idiot "I Did! I JUST WENT DEUTERONOMY ON YOUR ASS!" 

Me "Seriously? Do you really think that was impressive? I mean you're right I am rendered speechless with what an idiot you are but quoting something that God knows who actually wrote and saying 'Because it says so' is not an argument.  I'm done with this conversation." 

No one in the room said anything at all for a few minutes.  The only noise was the idiot proudly laughing to himself until someone forced a new topic. 

Well there's one less person for me to speak to out here. 

Really?

We have the only sipr (secret) printer in the building next to my desk....A guy comes in to get something he printed

To me: "Is this tray 1?"

Me: "Uh i dunno, it's the only tray it prints from." 

I look at the tray from where i'm sitting and he has put so much paper on there it's actually stacked higher than the opening where the paper is fed into the machine

Me: "You might want to try taking some of that paper out."

He stares at me like i'm an idiot while trying to push the paper towards the machine as if that will help

Me: "Ya know or not" 

Guy: "Take paper out?"

Me: "Yes, you put almost a whole package of paper on there."

He takes some off (obviously just to placate me) and it immediately starts printing

Guy: "Oh, huh it worked" 

Even after he took some off and his job was done I can see where the lip of the tray still has several sheets of paper over it

Field trip

So for whatever reason I can't sleep here.  The flight doc is only open for an hour a day, it's the one hour i have to do the most work during, and he will only give two pills at a time.  Thanks guy.  So, I get some Tylenol PM from one of the guys here and take one after I take my shower and get ready for bed.  While I'm chatting in the morale room (side note gmail chat is the only online chat we have access to here b/c Fuck us that's why) my friend Dakota comes in and asks if I'm tired.

Me "Of course not, why?"

Dakota "Well I was hoping you would go w/ me to the Bazaar. Plllllllllleeeeeeaaaaaassssseeee?!"

Me "You know I have a strict no Bazaar rule."

Dakota "But please I don't want to go w/ the comm guys b/c i don't know them.  It'll be quick and it's already 0555 and it opens at like 0630"

On most days I wake up at 1300 and then stay at work until 0200 or later. 

Me "Fine, it's not like I'm going to sleep."

I go change into my pt gear b/c every night it is at or below freezing so now that I'm going to be up w/ the "day walkers" I would like to enjoy the comfortable day time temperatures by wearing a long sleeve T-shirt and shorts.  Then Dakota needed to smoke, then she had to go to her room and get her camera and cover, then she had to go to the bathroom, and then we were ready to steal a vehicle.  We walk out to where all the vehicles are parked only knowing that we're looking for a van, luckily there were only two options, we chose the dirtier of the two and it started.  Let me take a moment to tell you about our sweet ride.  It's a white 14 passenger van completely covered in dirt with some amazing art work drawn in it, to include a face with a cock and balls pointed at it's mouth and "SAVE ME BABY JESUS" written above it.  The inside is as dusty as the outside, shifter is on the steering column and doesn't actually indicate what gear it's in.  Our journey begins and we are happy.  We drive the 30 mins to the other side of base and figure out where the Bazaar actually is so we start looking for parking.  As I drive down the narrow street with my passenger side mirror a few inches from a wall of T-barriers breaking for random army bitches that think it's ok to walk in the street w/o looking an F-250 is coming from the opposite direction and considering the speed limit on this little road is 5KPH I'd say he was speeding. 

Me "He's going to hit at least our mirror"

Dakota "Ohhhhhh"

Me "He's gonna hit us"

Dakota "Shit"

Me "AT LEAST SLOW DOWN YOU DICK!"

I come to almost a complete stop and he does slow down.  We passed each other with our mirrors literally centimeters apart.....dick. We find a place to park and happily start walking towards our destination.  We get to the entrance, show our IDs, and walk through the gate.

Army guy "Excuse me Ma'am, you can't wear shorts in here."

Me "HA what?!"

Army guy "umm I'm sorry but you can't wear shorts in the Bazaar"

Me "Seriously?!"

Army guy "Yes"

Me "FOR FUCK'S SAKE!"

We turn and walk back out.

Dakota "If you were going to do something bad wouldn't you wear pants?"

Me "No it's because they don't want me to offend the fucking Mooj! FUCK THE MOOJ! COME IN HERE AND WANT OUR MONEY BUT WE MIGHT OFFEND THEM SO WE'D BETTER WEAR WHAT THEY WANT! GOD FORBID THEY JUST DEAL WITH IT OR HAVE THE BALLS TO TELL ME THEY WON'T DO BUSINESS WITH AN EVIL AMERICAN WHORE!!"

Dakota "We're not leaving...I'm buying you pants!"

We begin our walk to the BX.  15ish minutes later we get to what is referred to as the board walk b/c it's on the way to the BX and we both needed to go to the alterations shop there b/c well i don't own a name tape for my uniform (I am the epitome of an amazing officer) and Dakota wants to have some bag tags made.  We'd been in this shop a week before.  We can't find the shop.  We spent ten minutes walking up and down this part of the boardwalk looking for this stupid freakin shop until we just decide we're either stupid or the place closed/moved.  (In re-telling this story we've been told we're stupid and that the shop is exactly where we were looking)  We continue on to the BX for my pants.  Dakota then spends 20+ mins digging through shelves and shelves of XXXL to find the only remaining pair of small pants.  We grab some other stuff and make our way to the check out line.  I pay for my items and go stand outside the exit to wait for Dakota. And wait. And wait. And wait. WTF. I start to walk back into the exit when she emerges.

Me "What the hell?"

Dakota "OH MY GOD! So the only pair of pants that would fit you of course didn't have a tag and the slowest guy on the planet went to get the price check and he had to stop every few feet to shake hands and give high fives to all of his friends. Asshole, not like i was obviously waiting on him or anything."

We walk back through the board walk and Dakota decides she wants to stop at the gyro shop (yeah i know war's hell...i wanted to go to TGIFriday's...next time) so she orders and we proceed to wait for 30 mins for her to get her lamb gyro.  It's huge so she breaks it in half and we scarf it down.  It was edible...totally should have gone to Friday's.  We continue our walk back to the bazaar (i'm wearing my new fancy pants) and of course we're not allowed to bring bags in sooooo back to the van we go.

Me "It's a good thing i'm used to only getting 4 hours of sleep a night, every night."

Dakota "I'm sorry"

Drop off our bags and yet again back to the bazaar.  We show our IDs and walk in.

Army guy #2 "Hey you got pants! What took so long?"

Me "Apparently small isn't a common size here"

Army guy #2 "Uh ok, well this thing closes in 10 mins."

Me "OH GOD DAMN IT!"

Dakota "Seriously?"

Army guy #2 "Yeah, sorry."

Me "FUCKING MOOJ!"

Dakota "Shhh"

Me "What are they going to do? Stone me?"

We walk around for our allotted ten mins, Dakota got ripped off buying a couple things, and we left.  Walking out the gate we see 'Chompers' (see previous story) walking just a few feet in front of us. Now there's something you should know about Dakota, she's a very soft talker.  She has to repeat herself probably ten times a day just for me much less the rest of the deaf C-130 community she works with. 

Dakota "HEY LOOK IT'S CHOMPERS!"

Me "Ya know she doesn't know we have given her a hurtful nickname referring to her facial deformity so it's going to be awkward if you keep yelling Chompers where she can hear you."

Dakota "I don't know why I do that.  If i don't want someone to hear me i yell for some reason."

Me "Awesome, well i'll keep that in mind."

Then we went to Tim Hortins.  For my southern friends Tim Hortins is an amazing piece of heaven that is in the form of a donut shop.  A donut shop...where you buy DONUTS. Unless you get there after 11 local...which we did.  Which we found out about after standing in line, although standing in line actually wasn't much of a chore because of the nice British boys standing behind us.   

Me "SERIOUSLY!?! FUCK IT, it's three and a half hours before i have to wake up, I'm getting a muffin then.  Douche bags."

Back to the van, wait for Dakota to smoke, put the van in reverse (it was a gamble, either i was backing into traffic or going forward into a concrete wall since i had no idea what gear i was in...it worked out) This was the point we realized we hadn't signed out or taken a phone with us. Captain McLain strikes again...I am all that is awesome. 

We get back two hours before time for me to wake up.  After my two hour nap I drag myself out of bed to go to work.  Brett brings me a rip it (energy drink) because he can tell I'm holding on by a thread.

Keith "Hey can you do me a favor?"

Me "Do I look like I can do you a favor right now? I will kill you if something stupid or menial is about to come out of your mouth."

Brett "You might want to go away, she's still waking up."

To be honest i don't know what he asked me but it must not have been THAT bad because he's still breathing. 

My "No Bazaar Policy" is back in affect.