More Stupidity Part 1

Camp Lejeune
January 7, 2010
18:34

I entitled this "Part 1" because I know that without a doubt, more are going to follow in the future.

Today was a very long say. We didn't get off work till nearly 6PM whereas yesterday we were released a little after 2. Today was a little more eventful to say the least.

Since TMO never came, I was expecting it to happen today, which was not the case. It wasn't even mentioned until the end of the day.

Instead, after our morning accountability I had to go to the S1 office to get my Missing Gear Statement signed by a "Counseling Officer" (any officer outside of my immediate chain of command. I walked into S1 and some PFC got out the Certified True Copy stamp and stamped both sheets. He then told me that I needed to get an officer to sign it and 2ndLt Gauss was not in the office, and I was kind of counting on her to be there. It turns out she's on advance party to Afghanistan and is probably there already. So, I had to awkwardly walk around the CLB-6 Headquarters deck for about ten minutes like a fool.

Finally I encountered a 2nd Lieutenant and a Gunnery Sergeant. I pulled him aside awkwardly and asked if he'd do me a favor and sign the counseling officer line on my sheet. He asked if all he had to do was sign it (2nd Lieutenants are oblivious to most things that go on in the military) and the Gunnery Sergeant interrupted with "No, he has to get counseled," after which he turned to me and said "Go to the S3 and find Lieutenant Graff!"

"Ooh-rah, Gunnery Sergeant," I answered and walked away to the S3 office and then asked another GySgt at a desk where I could get an officer to sign the spot he needed to sign. He pointed me in the direction of a 2ndLt standing nearby having a conversation with a few other NCOs, so I stood and waited silently, which was awkward like the rest of the morning had been. Finally I was able to get his attention and he looked over my statement.

"Wow, looks like you really need this stuff. You can't wear the main pack without the waste belt," he said, stating the obvious of course. "I'll sign this so you can get it done."

He signed it and I was finally able to leave, returning to Gibson's van parked in the parking lot. He was listening to an iPod and another guy, Smith, had been sleeping in the back of the van the whole time (and continued to do so until about 10:30). We returned to the barracks at about 8:30 with word that we'd need to be at "Building 308" at 11:30.

At 9:30 a text woke me up in my room saying that we had to be at 308 at 10:30 instead. I went out to the van and got a ride over to 308 which was near the CLB-6 headquarters a few buildings down. We were told we needed to be there "for a brain scan" which no one really believed. Since we've gotten back from leave, a piss test has not yet been administered. Usually when we're sent to some area to do something out of the ordinary, we take it as false pretenses for urinalysis administration. Well, the weird thing was that it really was a brain scan, but first we needed to get an H1N1 vaccination shot, which kept us waiting in line for at least an hour and a half.

While we were waiting in a large and mostly empty office area, Corporal Cardec, one of the three Corporals in my platoon, entered the room with some envelopes and was followed by Cpl Boddy, who was carrying a larger stack. Wouldn't you know it? They were all mine. Now I was stuck with a big stack of envelopes and two magazines from October.

Finally, our platoon was up for the shots, and then we gathered 25 people into a tiny office in the corner and waited for about twenty minutes until this civilian female entered and said our brief would be in ten minutes. After ten minutes she returned and started up this worthless power point presentation that appeared to be running automatically. The projector was too close to the wall for there to be a big enough picture for everyone to see. A different female then entered the room and told us not to pay attention to it and to listen to her instead.

She told us what we were about to do, which was sit at a computer, enter a bunch of our own information and then take this strange test. It started by asking me a series of questions about my mood and asking me to rate how close I was to that emotion on a scale of 0 to 6. After that I had to click whenever a white asterisk appeared on the blue screen. After that I had this code which matched a symbol with a number from 1 through 9 and I had to decide if they were properly matching the symbol with the number below the large key on the top of the screen. After that a strange rubicks cube picture popped up and disappeared and then two reappeared and I had to pick the one which was previously on the screen. I fell asleep during this part a few times. Then the symbol/number combinations popped back up again, but without the key, so I had to decide if they were right or wrong based on my memory of the previous scenario. After that there were more asterisks and it was finished.

That took up a large portion of the day, till at least 14:15 I'd say. So, now I had to go to the S1 shop with Sgt Bognar, who'd forgotten about it and seemed a little flustered when I reminded him. Cpl Cardec accompanied the two of us while we walked down the parking lot back to the CLB6 HQ building that I was at in the morning. We went to the S1 shop and spoke to Sgt Wang I believe and she told us that the Certified True Copy stamps needed to be signed by an officer as well, so we searched the building for an officer and eventually found one in the 2D MLG Comptroller's Office or something like that. I stood outside in the hall and listened to Sgt Bognar try and convince and explain to the officer what was going on, eventually he got the signature and we took the papers back to S1 and they held on to them and I have no idea when I'm going to get them but it's either got to be tomorrow or Monday and possibly Tuesday but that's the day I'm leaving.

After this, we were supposed to be back outside the company office for bravo company at FC 413, so I tagged along with Sgt Bognar and Cpl Cardec and managed to get free Burger King because one of them had a gift card and spent it on us, which was cool because the shots and brain studying examination went through lunch time.

After that we returned to the company office parking lot and were told to leave and come back at 1600 (4PM), so I rode back to my barracks with the NCOs and went to my room for about 45 minutes before walking back at 1600. We didn't end up starting the promotion ceremony till around 1800 and it was only for two people. Apparently we were waiting for other sections to finish up at the shots/brains thing before we could start, so we froze while waiting for them, since there's no place to go inside.

The promotions finally ended, we recieved a brief from 2ndLt Copes and GySgt Goodreau and were told we have the day off tomorrow.

Of course I have to stay in my room because the TMO people are apparently coming around at 8AM to get my stuff, which I think is probably a 40% chance of actually happening.

And Sgt Bognar flipped out for some reason because apparently he asked for a volunteer and no one answered. Pena raised his hand but Sgt Bognar considered it too late and told us we all needed to be in a formation tomorrow, but then the Corporals changed his mind I guess because now we don't have to have a formation and people can go out of town.

Either way, I'm sure tomorrow will be just as pointless as yesterday.