Hurry Up And
Wait
And there I was… is the beginning of almost every funny
military story told in barracks worldwide and every language. The concept of waiting is ubiquitous. Having recently retired from civil service
and being retired from the United States Air Force, I am well acquainted with
the advanced concept of waiting. We waited for everything on active duty. We waited
in the early days for the paymaster to bring the strongbox to hand out the
payments while we were in basic training. That same paymaster handed out our
checks at our 1st assignment back in the day. After we transitioned to electronic payment, we
had to wait for everything else, albeit medical care, mail on deployment, and a
lot of other things. However, these things listed above pale in comparison to
the waiting at two notable times in my career.
The first was the time immediately after the eruption
of Mt Pinatubo in the Republic of the Philippines. We were called on to drop everything, grab our
personal bags, draw bags from the supply for the area of deployment, and wait. While
we waited, we prepared equipment in the form of Generators. Forklifts tools
tent packs potable water containers and tons of the things that a Civil
Engineering Squadron takes to build a tent city and start recovery operations. We
sat there from 0600 In the morning until almost 2300 hrs (11:PM) and was told
to return to our homes. We had to unpack and store the equipment, as we were
not going. They sent another base Yokota AB Japan to the recovery effort as the
lead unit. We did send support units later (I didn't get to go), but they got
the first call.
Years later, in 1996, I was in
another unit that got the call to go to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to relocate
units from Khobar Towers to Prince Sultan AB after the Barracks were bombed. We
had built a tent city from the ground up. When we arrived, we were housed in a warehouse
until we put up our tents and set up the electrical grid. That was my area of
responsibility. So, it was pulling cable
in the desert heat and set up the power to get the AC, water, sewer, and
airfield lighting all functional. At the
end of all that which took approximately 60+ days, it was time to depart. We were told to relocate to a staging
area from where we would be hitching a ride on a C130 cargo aircraft. We
waited, and waited, this adventure started about 0900 in the morning until 1800
in the evening. We were provided with box lunches hot bottled water in abundance,
and we waited. Some slept on bags, and some milled around waiting for an aircraft
that would never come. We came to understand the IFF (identification friend or
foe) unit had failed, and the pilots were not coming to pick up some GI's that
so happened to need a ride. I do not blame them. I saw plenty of Patriot air defense
missile batteries that ringed about the base, let alone the country or region. It all worked out for the best as we were
later taken out of the country on a leased commercial aircraft. After one momentous
announcement, "ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that we are
no longer in Saudi airspace" carts full of beer rolled down the center aisle
we were on our way home. We had a stop in Ramstein AB, Germany, for a charter flight
back to the United States. We were not
the lucky ones. The Lucky ones flew to Camp New Amsterdam for a couple of days
before they headed back to the United States. Waiting, yea, I have done it. It has benefited
me greatly over the years. I seldom get impatient waiting in line, waiting on
hold, and just waiting in general. All I have to do is remember that day when the temperature reached 112-degrees
outside waiting on an airplane that was not coming, and I know it's going
to be all right… Eventually.
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