Just another day

I've decided to dramatize one of my old camp stories to kickstart my imagination. On another note, I just finished writing up Act 1!! So excited :D

"Dude, get the hell up. We're leaving in about 5 mikes."

Those were the first words uttered bat the start of Operation Midnight Laundry. After hours of tedious planning, our operation had no room for failure. It was either Oscar Mike, or stand down. Wiser operators would have stood down, and waited for daylight before moving out. Unfortunately, we were not those kind of people. See, our graduation parade was in less than ten hours from H-Hour, and we needed all our shit before then. Why ten hours before then? That information's classified. I cannot tell you.

There was a strong distrust between the Frenchies and the Anglos on base. Each joint exercise always turned into a mini Plains of Abraham. Though neither side won more often, we still perceived our own side as superior to the other. This rivalry extended beyond just exercises. Washing machines, washrooms, bivouac sites, food, supplies; everything was a competition. The Anglos shared with the Anglos. The Frenchies shared with the Frenchies. Tensions reached a climax when our biathlon team beat their top team by over ten minutes. And in a way, I just explained why we needed our shit before daybreak.

We started planning for the operation two days before, as a contingency plan. Sierra had come up to me and asked "what the fuck do we do if one of them French gypsies jack our shit?" Knowing full well that no one gets near my impeccable dress shirt and pants, I immediately contacted Tango to initiate the procedures that led up to that fateful night. By the end of the day, we had come up with the plan. We kept it dark from higher up for obvious reasons, and we needed to "skillfully obtain" some pieces of equipment to help us facilitate this kind of mission. Obviously, we thought we weren't ever going to need to follow this plan, but the next day showed the kind of OpFor we were up against.

The next day (Tuesday, I believe), we were given close to no time to prepare our uniforms. We had spent the whole day marching up and down the base, and performing the necessary drill over and over again to minimize screwups during the graduation parade. Rehearsals were held after every chow we had. The Herc, a giant warehouse that served as a sort of "common room" and as a canteen, was closed "for logistic purposes"-but they still sold you shoe polish and cloths if you asked. Basically, command was trying to tell us to quit stalling and get the hell to work.

This message was heeded by everyone. Remember when I wrote about the rivalry for the washing machines? It hit its peak that day, when everyone wanted to get hold of one. This created long-ass lines of Frenchies and Anglos fighting for a spot to wash their clothes. I'm pretty sure every wash was way over the load limit. This coupled with the intense drilling resulted in us being sweat stained uniforms the day before the final parade unable to wash our uniforms for the whole day. My fireteam (Sierra and Tango) managed to secure a washing machine for our own usage some time around twenty fourty five hours. Note: that was just the washing machine. Not the dryer. The washing. Machine.

How was that a bad thing? Well, each load takes about thirty to fourty mikes to go through the entire process, depending on your load. Us being sweaty teenage dudes, we had sackloads of laundry to do. Consistent tumbling of the washing machines resulted in us sitting on top of them. Since sitting around for fourty minutes was a huge waste of time for us, we brought in our boots to polish up (even though it's prohibited... Why? I have no idea).

Some time around twentyone twenty hours, some French flight sergeant walks in and tells us to scram. Feigning ignorance of the French language, we just ignored him. Seeing how he's unable to kick us out, he took one of Sierra's boot and threw it out the door onto the gritty pavement (what a dick). I could see Sierra fuming underneath, since he could not do anything about it without being subjected to a court marshal, demoted, and subsequently unable to graduate. He told us to put our stuff in the dryer immediately, as he went outside with the FSGT to retrieve his boot.

We soon found out that none of the driers were empty. So we changed it. Finding a dryer with a French name tag, we immediately switched out the contents with our now-empty washing machine. Both machines were cranked up to the top, and they started whirring as we walked away, feeling only slightly justified. That French kid's going to wake up and find all his crap soaked in ice cold water. Our mission was now to make sure our machine keeps working, and keep the French dude from finding out.

And now we're back at where we started. We immediately swung into our contingency plan. Everyone knew each others' roles like the bodies of our favourite porn stars. Equipment was distributed throughout the fireteam. Our barrack wished us luck, as we told them our plan. Oh, I had forgotten to mention that the dryer we had decided to use were on the other side of the damn base.

A brief illustration of where the fuck we were. The distance is about a klick, give or take two hundred mikes. Number of buildings is not to scale. There were a fuckload.

We managed to sneak to within a building or two of the washing machine area. There were no lights on, but luckily the moonlight was able to shine through the windows. On the way there, we had seen about two or three guys walking around. I'm not quite sure if they were MPs, or if they were just Frenchies that just drank too much water. Either way, they didn't see us. Things were looking great, when Tango discovered the door was locked. Up until this point, we had never realized this possibility. Fortunately for us, the windows were open. Unfortunately for us, the windows were like New York's rent rates: too damn high. What else could we do but to push Sierra (the smallest of us) through that opening? As we pushed him through, we heard a whole lotta commotion. Apparently he tumbled and almost cracked his head open on one of the dryers. We prayed for sweet Jesus, Buddha, Athe, and any deity out there that nobody heard the racket Sierra made.

As we cleaned house, I heard footsteps approaching our position. Our fireteam quickly dispersed, just as the Sergeant opened up the door. In an attempt to bluff us, he said (in his worst English accent ever) "'eeh, cahdetts. I kno you arr een heer". Taking a short stroll around the area, looking through each crevice and spot on the ground, he failed to find us. I was hiding under the cupboard of the sink, Tango was hiding in the lost and found pile disguised as a pillow, and Sierra was hiding in a dryer. Now to his credit, even I would not have looked in a dryer. The other places? Pretty obvious hiding spots, if I may say so myself. I was slightly surprised he didn't see us.

After the Sergeant left, we still waited a few minutes to make sure he's really gone. We quickly took our stuff and walked as calmly out of the laundry room as possible. As we were walking, we encountered some guys dressed in the uniform of a Basic cadet. Trying to bluff them, we questioned them on why they were out so late. Turns out they were WO2s, on patrol. We were far way enough to book it. The urban environment allowed us to lose them quickly. On returning back to our barrack, Sierra had this brilliant idea of knocking on all the barrack doors within the general area. Shitting bricks, we ran back inside as quickly as we could, to the applause of the entire barrack.

We thought we were as quiet as a mouse in a sound proof room. November was kind enough to tell us that they were able to hear Sierra falling through the window onto the washing machine (which was on the other side of the base). I went straight to my bunk amid the hand shaking, picture taking, and news reporting by the other members of 404 Barracks. I watched as Sierra recounted the tale, and jumped into his bed only to find operator Juliet in his bed.

Shortly afterward, a group of suspiciously-clad Basic cadets entered our barrack. Everyone kept quiet until they left. High fives went around once more.