Today was another day running missions, at 4 in the morning. Luckily, I have a chunk of the day off- I'm thinking about just using it to sleep, then run evening missions. They take a little longer, but that's ok. The missions consist of delivering fuel and supplies to the artillery batteries in the field. Exciting? Well, sometimes. Also very demanding, which is ok too. It looks like we're tasked out on this for the next two weeks, which I can live with. The search for an apartment continues, although eventually I'll be getting divorced, then be eligible to move back into the barracks. This is hunky dory, yet I find myself asking the question- do I really want to? I'm staying with a friend now who was kind enough to sublet to me, and things are going very well. We have most of the platoon wondering, as our occasional casual references to the "meth lab" seem a little too deadpan to be jokes. Here we see the fine art of BSing- making people believe the most outrageous statements, if you say them with a straight face. Just for the record, I don't know how to make meth, and probably wouldn't if I did- I hear it's not only extremely toxic, but also tends to explode. Generally stuff exploding in my immediate vicinity I like to avoid if at all possible.
So at any rate, there I was, energy drink in hand, tooling down scenic Ft. Sill Boulevard, not far from the Artillery Museum. On a side note, I highly recommend it if you happen to be in the Fort Sill area- it's very interesting, with some pretty impressive pieces. And be sure to stop and say hello to Atomic Annie, one of the largest guns in the museum. But back to the road. There I was, waiting at a traffic light. On Fort Sill, this is a common practice enjoyed by many, often for long stretches of time. I was headed to the library, to write this, among other things, when who should appear but one of the civilian police. Said civilian police (not to be confused with Lawton PD- these guys are on-post only) pulled halfway into the four-way intersection, blocking the two lanes of oncoming traffic, but leaving my own lane and the lane next to me open. Okay, I thought., is the light not working? Surely this guy's there for a reason. So out steps one of Fort Sill's less-than-finest, and wanders off behind the truck. If you haven't guessed yet, I have little respect for Department of Defense-employed civilians, but I'll get to that in a minute. He appeared to be (unsucessfully and unnecessarily) directing the movement of a large truck, on the back of which was a ponderous piece of artillery. It was a big gun, designed to fire a big shell over a big distance, and in fact one of the pieces from the artillery museum- truly a sight, this. However, something appeared to be amiss- either that or the light had turned red, as the truck stopped at (not in) the intersection, the driver and passenger dismounted and moved back to both sides of the trailer, apparently with the aim of securing or re-securing the gun. So there we sat, waiting for something to happen, or for the cop to give us some traffic direction, seeing as he saw fit to block the intersection. Generally when there's a police vehicle sitting in the intersection with lights flashing, experience tells us there's likely a policeman there to direct traffic. No such luck this time, I'm afraid. So, after sitting through a cycle of the light with no clear indication of what we were supposed to do, and the price of gas being what it is, the driver in the lane next to me looked over- we exchanged a blank look, a shrug, and proceeded through the intersection on the next green light. This sent the until-recently absent cop running back to his radio. But by this time we were long up the road. Did we break the law? Perhaps, though in our defense we evaluated the situation and proceeded as best as could be determined.
But this is why I have little respect for the Fort Sill PD, (not the MPs, or Military Police- they are an Army-wide organization charged with keeping law and order on a military post, and making sure the laws are obeyed.) The Fort Sill PD excels at two things, as demonstrated above- writing tickets and wasting our time. Now, I wouldn't mind this, except they seem to share the same mentality prevalent among many DOD civilian employees of treating soldiers like dirt, despite our frankly much more advanced qualifications. Range control, central equipment issue, police... the list goes on. Why, you may ask, don't we mind the MPs? Because they are soldiers, and show other soldiers respect. I'm not saying let's get into that whole patriotism and support-our-troops can of worms, but a little common courtesy, notably lacking among our civilian personnel, seems strangely lacking.
Actually, contrast this with the chow hall personnel. Some are civilians, some are cooks. It depends where on post you go, and with the gas station cashiers. Also civilians, also technically DOD employees. They are generally very agreeable people, and that fact is not lost on me- I've been in discussions about everything from chili recipes to atomic fission, and found that it's only natural to grow in respect and cooperation with these people.
But anyway, the ineffectual cop was funny as hell.
No comments:
Post a Comment