Sunday, July 10, 2011

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Too stupid to not be true (EDIT: Mystery now solved)

As related to me by another LT on shift at the TTB: "Last night at 2:30 am, Major Greg Kinnear came in and woke us all up. He said he needed two lieutenants, so me and Menelaus went up to the TOC, but we didn't know what for. Apparently they had seen someone stealing from the dumpster - so we had to guard the dumpsters. I stood in front of the dumpster from 3 am until 7 am."

To the probing mind, a few irrepressible questions present themselves:

-Why would anyone want to explore a TTB dumpster, whose most valuable contents are moldy cardboard boxes and expended MRE heaters?

-Who, for God's sake, could be the figures sighted looting the dumpster? A cadet who decided to sacrifice his sleep during training and wake up in the middle of the night to sift through garbage? A homeless guy (we've got a great selection in the Seattle/Tacoma area) who trekked miles into the middle of nowhere, to a training site most people don't know exist, because he heard we have good trash?

The mind boggles. For now, I can only vow to get to the bottom of this, and promise that whatever the consequences may be, my team will not pull dumpster guard.

EDIT: Upon further reflection, I'd say the most likely explanation is that our culprits, if they even exist, were two cadets looking to score a little personal time somewhere inconspicuous. If they only knew what madness they had unleashed...

EDIT 9JUL: The truth is even stupider than I thought. I was driving somewhere with MAJ Greg Kinnear, and asked him to elaborate. He had just finished cranking the second of the TTB's two dumpsters closed, but he could still hear a cranking noise. He thought he was going crazy, until he looked around and realized that somebody was cranking the other dumpster open. He ran across the TTB (300-400m) to second dumpster, and discovered cadets putting trash in the overloaded dumpster. The Major yelled at them and they scattered. As he was cranking the dumpster's lid closed again, he heard cranking coming from the first dumpster again. In his absence, more cadets had snuck in to try to secretly dispose of their trash. The regiment had to dispose of all of its trash before they left the TTB the next morning, but the dumpsters were so full that they had been closed to prevent being overloaded.

Tragically, my first (joke) hypothesis was correct: Cadets were sneaking out in the middle of the night to secretly dispose of garbage. I love Cadet Command.