By Sebastian Bae
Best Defense directorate of troops memories
In 2009, my battalion crew was one of a few units left in brazen handling bases (FOBs) opposite Iraq — mostly lost by aloft authority and insurgents alike. Days mostly valid indistinguishable, a kaleidoscope of patrols and station post in a tiny appurtenance gun nest. The fun was that a youth enlisted Marines ran on nipping tobacco and a Command Operations Center (COC), inhabited by comparison enlisted and officers, ran on coffee — a life blood of a Marine Corps fighting machine.
One night, we admirably remember being mixed watchful as a misty figure barked that a COC indispensable me ASAP. When we arrived, we was greeted by both my crew commander and crew sergeant, grave faced and crossed armed. My sleep-deprived enlisted mind now cycled by several scenarios: Was we ostensible to be on radio watch? Did we forget to record a daily report? Where was my rifle? However, before we could confess to anything, my major (LT) leaned in and said, “Bae, we need we to repair a coffee machine.” Patting me on a back, he reassured me that we had all a skills and collection required for a job, gesturing towards a list where a gone Mr. Coffee sat accompanied by a switchblade knife, a hurl of channel tape, 6 feet of 550 cord, used coffee filters, and other diverse objects best characterized as “junk a LT kept in his desk.” Before leaving, a LT added, “Oh, we also need coffee filters, Bae.” My crew sergeant, a bear in tellurian form, simply nodded and grumbled, “Get it done.”
Every Marine has gifted being saddled with an unfit charge by a superior. But this charge was legitimately a many weird of my Marine career. Using pointless objects collected adult in a COC, we was approaching to repair a coffee builder that was many approaching released behind in a initial Gulf War. And there was no doubt in my mind that both a LT and a crew sergeant entirely approaching a hot, bubbling crater of coffee in 8 hours when their change started.
So, like any good Marine, we improvised. Using a switchblade knife, we bribed my approach onto a supply procession to Camp Ramadi. From there, we traded a can of Copenhagen Straight nipping tobacco, a singular commodity in Iraq, with a municipal executive for a float over to a Army side of a base. For roughly dual hours, we wandered around aimlessly, peering by windows looking for a coffee machine. After a good understanding of effort, we finally speckled a primitive Mr. Coffee in a backroom of a Army supply shop. Sneaking by a window, we fast exchanged a hoary coffee appurtenance with a Army’s, while shoving as many coffee filters in my load pockets as they could handle. And like a bandit, we ran for my life. Now, suppose a immature Marine, load pockets ripping during a seams, coffee appurtenance cradled in his arms, frantically using off into a distance.
By a time LT was behind on duty, my unit was scheming for a daily unit into a city. The “fixed” Mr. Coffee was humming divided in a COC. All was right in a world, proof loyal a aged Marine Corps adage: Gear adrift is a gift.
Sebastian Bae is now totally legit.