Opps

It has been an interesting last few days here on base. For one, we had Veteran day Celebrations. I didn’t get out to see what was going on at the MWRs, but they had amazing food at the DFACs. Lobster, Cake, Ribeye, Shrimp Cocktail. It was a pretty cool day all and all. They had a giant American Flag set up by the outdoor pool held up by two Wreches (big connex moving machines). It was pretty impressive, I have a picture below.

Another interesting part of that day happened toward nightfall. The Power Generation department was trying to move a connex sized generator on the back of a flat bed tractor-trailer which is all in good except they didn’t properly strap the bad boy down. Two 2’’ sized straps trying to hold 26,000lbs of generator goodness. Needless to say, there efforts were quickly rewarded after going around their first turn. While going around one of the main round-a-bouts the straps snapped like fishing line and the whole deal fell off blocking the road perfectly. This event brought everyone and there mom out in a hurry. Some to take statements, some to help clean up, and some to just take pictures of this glorious PowerGen screw up. I, of course, was called out to make sure no oil or of fuel spilled out of the generator, and of course they did. So I sat back, took pictures, and waited for them to move it. It was a pretty impressive ordeal. I am sure someone is on there way back to the states right now over this fiasco.

The day before was my day of bad luck. I got a call out with JG to go look at a tanker truck that had bad diesel fuel in it. It was parked in the trucking lanes and needed to be emptied. As JG talked to the point of contact I decided to climb up and see exactly how much fuel was in this tanker truck. I opened the soft ball sized hole in the top of the tanker and saw there was about three 55 gallon drums worth of fuel in it. While doing the math in my head, my business card holder, which happened to be in my top pock, came sliding out and fell directly into the dark hole. I don’t thing I could have made that shot if my life depended on it. This card holder was a one off, and a gift from a really good friend back home.

I got to the bottom of the ladder just as JG was telling the POC that he needed to do this job himself. I quickly butted in and said, “J, I think we better handle this one, I….. um…. Need to work on this one personally…yeah” as I motioned him with a slight head movement. The last thing I wan this POC to know is I may have just clogged a 100,000 dollar tanker truck in the middle of a warzone. With a confused look on JG face we walked back to our truck. I explained what happened and JG though the situation was a lot funnier then I.

Needless to say I was determined to get that damn thing out there before this tanker was to be moved to another base. I tried everything, little sucking cups, mop handles and little magnets on a string (damn Aluminum). At one point the POC came out and asked me what I was doing, “Um...Um…Doing official Hazmat slash Environmental diesel tank inspections…” He replied with a confused look, “With magnets?” The only thing I could thing of was, “Yeah magnets, what else do you think I should be doing this with? You want to come up here and do this Environmental testing thing?” Luckily he had no idea what the word Environmental meant so he didn’t call my bluff. I eventually brought over the big ass vacuum truck with a two inch hose and used that to suck onto it and pull it out. An hour later the tank was on its way to another part of base to be hauled to another camp. Not only did I stop that tank from getting clogged but I got back my business card holder which is in my top pocket right now. Amazingly my cards in side were intact, which would have really sucked if I had left it in there. Within a week a Mechanic would have been pulling it out the disassembled back end of that tank saying, “Who the F*#K is ‘Andrew Bentley.’ O wait, here is his phone number and address.”

Anyway, it has been an interesting few days, I hope the next few are a little easier. I wouldn’t mind a quiet day.