Misadventures from Andy's May Drill, or "It burns, IT BUR-HURRRNS!!!!"

Andy Moynihan

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Hadn't much to say about March Drill as it was mainly me stuck for 2 days in a classroom environment finishing MASG recruit school and going out of my mind memorizing rank structures, customs and performing facing movements/drill and ceremony in boots a size too big on carpet.
April I was on vacation.
That brings us up to date to this last weekend's May Drill.
Did you know that driving from the North Shore to Cape Cod during rush hour on a Friday is no ****ing way to spend an evening?
And I do mean "evening"-I'd already confirmed I'd be attending drill before i knew it would be at Camp Edwards down the Cape, so it was too late to say no now, so with my hair and mustache freshly mowed, my boots shined and BDUs ready, I loaded my sleeping bag(i'd said I was attending Saturday only, but who knew what the barracks beds were gonna be like there Fri nite) and my duffel bag into my truck, and with my CD Player belting out US Army Infantry running cadences and my mind saying to myself "I must be ****in' retarded", off I start on my trek down to the Cape armed only with my mapquest printout.
Left my house at 4:30, and arrived on site at Camp Edwards around 8:30.

And that was with NO mistakes and not getting lost on the way even once.
It was only once I got ONTO Edwards I started getting lost. Place is huge.It shames me to admit I committed a Guy Code Violation and stopped for directions 3 times.but i get myself there.
Not a moment too soon for they were just unlocking our barracks to get in, I ain't been outta my truck in 4 hours and if I don't take a piss soon I'm gonna bust.
Not long after most anybody who's coming has shown up and they actually wanna go out to drink before they turn in. Piss on that. I been up since 05:30 and worked till 3:30, haven't had but half an hour's rest all day and I'm sacking out.
Riiiiiiight.
I wasn't expecting barracks beds to be any kind of comfortable but you just could not get into a sleep-worthy position on this thing. Of course as my luck would have it by this time I'm on a sheetless bed, in my t shirt, dog tags and skivvies, halfway out cold and in no mood to get up even to retrieve my sleeping bag out from my truck(one more thing I'dve had to stop and pack back up anyway).
As it happens leaving it would have been the wise choice anyway since trying to use the thing would have been a fruitless exercise.
See it was about 9 PM when I was trying unsuccessfully to sack out when I got my next lucky break ( I didn't say it was GOOD luck, mind you--this is, after all, ME we're talking about).
Voices in the hallway approach and yank me unceremonious-like from my hard-won half-doze and one of the platoon sergeants peeks in and goes "Ok, there's Moynihan--you've got Fire Watch from 3 to 4".
That's made my ****in' night, it really has.
For the uninitiated among you, lemme 'splain you about Fire Watch.
Back in the way-back-when, in Colonial times, Minutemen and soldiers would have a system of watches at night when the only sources of illumination available were those from fire( campfires, torches, lanterns and such).Therefore, since the fire also had to be kept burning for warmth and light, this period of sentry duty was called the Fire Watch, and out of tradition, it is still called the Fire Watch to this day, whether there is a fire or not.
Anyway , within the MASG( Massachusetts State Guard) It is apparently standing policy that no drill or activity where the MASG remains overnight goes without a Fire Watch, and so a few soldiers gat picked at random to stand sentry for a random hour that night up till 0500 when the last one on watch bangs on everybody's door or shouts "0500, Everybody Up!" or otherwise wakes everyone.
So I try to sleep and for the most part fail, until 0200 when my bunk buddy gets woken for his hour on Fire Watch, catch maybe 20 minutes, then start getting into my uniform and boots at 0245-ish ( you're to be in full uniform when on guard duty, one of the few times under US military custom you are to wear your headgear indoors).get out, take the flashlight from my bunk buddy and do my hour, strangely awake and without a problem, pass the light to my relief when he wakes up without my having to wake him, and go back to trying and failing to sleep the last hour , only taking off my BDU top and patrol cap and not even bothering to take off my pants or boots, and spend the last hour staring at the top bunk while my bunk buddy off to my left is out cold, happily sawin' away, the mother****er.
So i throw my uniform back on again at 0500, the next hour and a half is people getting up, cleaning, changing and figuring out exactly what field gear we need to bring for whatever this day's mission is.
With that figured out, we're outside for first formation by 0645, whereupon we are given disposable civilian clothing to change into for that day's mission( we were to assist the National Guard's CERFP Team(not sure exactly what hooks up with what to make that acronym but basically anytime there's an explosion, terrorist attack, accident or anything chemical or biohazard related they're the team that goes in and deals with/decontaminates it). To complete the training they needed in this exercise, they needed "corpses" and we were it.
So on we go to the bus which takes us another hour and a half during which time we change out of our BDUs and into our Zombie Rags and breakfast on the finest MREs (They're Grrrrr-ROSS!).
Bus drops us at Truro Naval Air Station, which is a very cool piece of Cold-War memorabilia by this time.If i woulda had a camera and friggin' time to use it i'd definitely have taken pics(not sure if it woulda been a security issue too). We get off and are told to blouse out civvies into our boots or tape/tuck them into our socks if wearing civvie footwear. apparently the place hasn't been landscaped or fixed in 25 years and the place is tick-ridden.
So there's Andy,in his fresh Army-grooming-standard flat top/mustache, in tattered night-of-the-day-of-the-dawn-of-the-son-of-the-bride-of-the-return-of-the-revenge-of-the-terror-of-the-attack-of-the-zombie rags, tucked into gleaming black combat boots.
So after the Lt.Col in charge of the unit briefs us on where and where not to go in the ramshackle 50's-era mini-town-that-time-forgot that they take us to, we're told we are all considered "dead" since we were right in the radius of the "explosion", and it's been about 8 hours since the "incident" when the CERFP team "arrives".
Thus briefed, we eat our lunchtime MREs and each grab another water bottle 'cause its gonna be a long day, we all stake out the areas on the ground we're gonna "croak" on, making sure to pick areas with shade. I pick me a nice tree spot that will stay shady despite the sun's passage, take my gear bag for a pillow, splay out and do my goodbye-cruel-world act.
Down comes the investigation team and it's like I'm trapped in my own personal remake of Plan 9 From Outer Space, but in color: The run down 50's setting, the team guys coming down with the mini Number-Five kinda robots that take the pics without the team guys having to risk contamination, running these tricorder things over me in their brightly colored friggin' space-mummy HAZMAT suits with like the respirators and the Darth Vader breathing and the big orange rubber boots and everything.

The team departs and now the problems happen.

Between the number of ticks people have been spotting and now people have been freaking out over a couple of snakes in the too tall grass, we're now all ordered out onto the road.
Bad enough lyin' down on old 50's black top which is only that little bit of tar and like 90% spiky unfriendly rock and quartz pieces.
But see, there's no shade on the streets.
It's my first prolonged day outside.
Its sunny.
It's May.
I'm splayed out like a dead body in it.
I'm 90-plus percent Irish-Scot.
I'm ****ed in every orifice.
See, the single and only bad thing about Irish genes is your pale skin which holds up only slightly better than the stereotypical Hollywood vampire in terms of exposure to sunlight. I either freckle or fry. There is no middle ground, and the scales are decidedly tipped toward "fry".
Come time they wait another hour and a half to come get us(whiule we get a break and walk around a bit) there's no question I'm gonna end up frying.( I guess they wanted to do an after action evaluation of the investigation phase before they did the extraction. Hell, no rush, we're dead, right?)
So down we go again as the extraction tream shows.
You would think playing a corpse would be the easiest acting job in the world, right? Nope. For one thing you still gotta breathe. For another, your nerves all still work and you are gonna itch and slap bugs and get uncomfortable real quick, for a third, YOU try and keep your eyes shut while there's space mummies rustling all around ytou and lifting people up onto gurneys and movin' trucks and mini Number Fives all over the place , sometimes feet from you.
for another thing you have to stay completely limp, and you can't help them when they move you or pick you up. You are dead. Try it sometime and see if you find that pleasant.
So we get lifted out and rolled uphill to the D-con line, where our "Remains" will be decontaminated before disposal( even if dead no sense leaving the agent/fumes around to reach other people in any way, shape or fashion, and they'll need to practice anyway in the event they have to D-con still living survivors). More waiting and more frying while me and the other private next to me wait our turns as the Sergeant-Major and the Captain precede us. We make a few jokes about being dead and almost, but not quite, get to humming "Always look on the Bright side of Life" From Life of Brian while we wait, to lighten the tone some. He goes first and i say "See you on the other side" while I wait my turn.
Then my turn comes. I'm lifted by my litter from the tarmac, onto a gurney, and I come alive for just a second to tell them that my T shirt is part of my uniform so please don't cut it.
They peel off my boots and I can't help, peel off my socks and take the weird spoon-scissors thing and cut everything off my "remains" but my T shirt and swim trunks which I wore precisely for this exercise. (if i were dead it would have been everything).
And it's down the D-con line we go. I'm rolled throiugh this tunnel of tarps and I'll tell you: Playing dead is hard enough. It's May but it's still Massachusetts, and though it's sunny, the wind is chilly at this high place. I'm strapped into a gurney in my swim trunks and T shirt and nothing else, the wind is on me, I'm starting to shiver before the water even hits me.
Then the water hits me.
They take turns with the whole "one-two-THREE-" and lift me to one side and spray me all up and down with these spray nozzle hoses which are scalding hot one second, and nut-numbing cold the next, "one-two-THREE" and put me down flat, and spray me all up and down with these spray nozzle hoses which are scalding hot one second, and nut-numbing cold the next, "one-two-THREE" to my other side and spray me all up and down with these spray nozzle hoses which are scalding hot one second, and nut-numbing cold the next, then lay me down and hoist me up on another gurney and I can't help them or move through any of this, remember-the LTC's explicit instructions were" Until you reach the end of the D-con line, you're dead".
I get rolled to another place where i get wiped down and then the medic looks down and says, "OK you're dead, get up". If I were dead this is where I'd be burned or otherwise disposed of. They give me my glasses, boots and other stuff back in the "evidence bag" which corresponds to the number on my Dead Guy Bracelet they put on me after stripping( were this an actual outbreak everything they take off everyone would technically be "evidence"). I get let out and go marching back to the bus with my stuff, in my shorts and soaked t shirt, didn't wear the paper suit they gave me, but did use the plastic kind of shower-cap booties they gave me and I go get back in uniform on the bus. ( i was actually grateful for the booties since they kept my feet from being cut on pavement or eaten by bugs on the way back to the bus).
I had already begun to fry by this time. I felt the burning skin, I felt the pain of making any sort of face. I knew I'd pay for this tonight/tomorrow.
But come time for us to leave by about 530 that afternoon( okay, fine, I was on duty in uniform so I'll say 1730)., before we left, the Lt. Colonel jumped on the bus and made it a point to thank us for coming out, because according to him, they had been planning this training exercise for a little over a year and they were able to do it because we volunteered( they had no one to call for "victims" and the team got the training they needed to get because we were there to step in) , so we had filled a very important void for them.
I was very glad to hear that because I, and everyone else in MASG, have been trying very hard to do everything as professionally as we can, since we're finally gaining enough respect we have several National Guard units begging us to help them out (In fact, next month might just be another support mission playing Opposing Forces with the 181st Infantry battalion). Apparently not too long before I joined there was an attitude of the State Guard being "Boy Scouts" of not being ":real soldiers", but I have yet to encounter any show of disrespect from ANY soldier since I joined. I took a chance when I first saw the Lt. Colonel walk down in our area and once I actually recognized his insignia as an officer rank I saluted him as he walked by and talked to me( As a general rule, military personnel are not required/supposed to salute if not in uniform, but we had been told, if we saw officers from Nat'l Guard to do so, so I did, and it must not have been a bad thing to do since he continued saying thanks for coming out today, smiled and saluted back.
Once we touched back down at Edwards and I signed out at 1900 to go home, I passed by another regular NG soldier on the way to my truck and because I wasn't sure what his rank was( no one wears rank stripes on their sleeves anymore ant that subdued black rank is a pain in the *** to see against the digital ACU pattern) because I was in doubt , I saluted on the way by, and just got a "Don't salute"- turns out he was a Sergeant. Still, I'd rather make that mistake than fail to salute and miss an officer, because at this point in the MASG's growth, we can do 101 things right, and none of it will matter if we do one thing wrong, we're right at that threshold of gaining respect from the regular forces, and if we keep trying our best they'll keep using us for high-speed low-drag support missions.
I'm home now takin' one last day to heal and peel. Quite a trip, it was.

But you know, if that helps the CERFP Team to get more people decontaminated and an incident contained if something DOES happen here, ansd I helped them train for it, I'm very proud to have been a part of helping them get ready for that mission.
 

crushing

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Great story. Had me rolling. Thank you for sharing your experience. When you first starting talking about sack time I thought of 'fire watch'. We called it fire guard.

EDIT:

One more thing: those d-con units can be rigged to heat up shower water when you are out in the middle of nowhere. ;)
 

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