The prank of the year

I guess I can talk about it now since it is done with. One of the other E-7's went on leave last month and his guys wanted to pull a prank on him. And what a prank it was. I was asked to build him a new door for his room as part of the deal. We have been saving the water bottles after drinking them. Everyone was chipping in under the guise that we are going to recycle them. As it turned out, all those tens of thousands of empty bottles were used to fill his room to the top of the wall. That is where the door came into play. His original door opened inward and thus it would not work for the gag. I had to make a new door and make sure that it was set to open out into the hallway.
After he left to go on leave, we started filling the room with the bottles. It was a huge surprise to find out that even thought we had several big black trash bags full of bottles, once we had emptied all the bags into the room it was less than half way up the door. We had been saving these bottles for 3 months and now we had only 2 weeks to get twice as much to accomplish the mission. It was obvious that is going to have to do something. Failure is not an option.
I called in some favors from some of my contacts. I went to the Gym and talk to the guys there and had them save all the bottles from the people that were working out. I called a few other offices that asked them to do the same thing. Within a week we were filling the room to its peak. I do not have the video of him going into his room yet, but, I will get it and try to post it once I do.

Today was yet another rather pleasant day.

The weather here has been pretty nice the last few days. It has not gotten over the 110 mark in a while. Since the "mandatory uniform", when in, ACU's, is full dress, (Another words, I have to have the ACU coat on at all times) I was told that I could work in my PT (Physical Training) uniform.

It was great in the beginning, I had two sets of PT uniforms, so while one was in the laundry, I wore the other. Well, that was until Murphy came to visit. The Laundry service lost my bag with all my clothes in it. So now I have only one outfit to wear. Makes it kind of difficult to wash it while I am working in it. I have ordered 7 sets of PT uniforms, but, they are on back order. Luckily, I know the lady that runs the facility here on Camp Dragon. She has been taking my laundry directly into the facility and getting it done overnight. She brings it in with her in the morning at 0730 and I pick it up on the way back to the hut from the showers. She is optimistic that they will find my bag before too long. I, on the other hand, am not so sure of that. But, I will be waiting, none the less, for it to show up someday.


It seems that someone has noticed all the things that have been accomplished since I became "Bob the Builder" or "Bob Villa" as I am sometimes called. I was told to report to a 1600 (4 PM) formation today for an award ceremony. There were three of us that received AAM’s (Army Achievement Medals). It was an Impact Award. That means that it was based on a specific event, as opposed to a time range.


We received it for the work we did back in April, the wall and the tables we built for one of the sections that was relocating to the Battalion area. I was told of the task at around 1400 hrs (2 PM) and once I said that I could do it, they dropped the bomb on me. It needed to be ready by 0800 hrs (8 AM) the next day. I was not so sure I could get it done that quickly,but, I started anyway. It looked like a 2 day job, at least.

I asked them to provide me with one or two people for some assistance and they did. We finished the job at 0530 hrs. We worked through the night without a break because they team that we were building it for was to move in immediately. The two guys kind of complained at first, but, they continued to work, so it was all good. It was nice to get some sort of recognition for all the work that has been done here in the last few months.


Well, it looks like I am going down range after all. In fact, I am going down a little sooner than even I thought I would. I am, however, not going to where I was originally supposed to go. It seems that I am wanted by one of the other 1SG’s that needs some office space set up. This time the plan is to get me to Solerno and convert an open bay hardened structure into individual offices. I am not sure of what all is available there. As it is right now, there is not even any electricity for me to use. I am going to be using a generator to power my tools.

Not sure when my next post will be, but, I will take my laptop with me in case there is a USO there. If there is, it might have Wi-Fi that I can get on the web with. I like the USO, they are very good to us. If ever there was an organization that took care of the troops, it is the USO. Well any way, I will write again when I can.