Yesterday was one of the most physically gruelling days of my life. I have no idea how I did it, nor do I actually want to do it again.
On the 7th, we had a briefing. Everyone in our unit is going to have this weekly wednsday detail, where one of us at a time is set to go and work on area beautification, lasting from 8:30 to 10:30. First Sergeant chose me. I don’t know why. Well, I thought to myself it shouldn’t be too bad, it’s only a 2 hour detail. Maybe cut the grass or mow the lawn (wait isn’t that the same thing?) or throw seeds… I don’t know. Well, I found the place alright after a bit of difficulty, and 20 of us there found out what we were to do. We’ll be heading to warehouse 10, and using 2 5-ton trucks, move 160 wall-lockers from there to the other side of the base in Barracks I. Well… At first I thought he was joking. But after a while, I found myself lifting 80 pound wall lockers onto these 5 ton trucks. One fit 16, the other fit 18. But man, even these 5 tons were taller than me. Well, that’s all fine and dandy. Then came the hard part. We lifted, well, it took 2 of us to lift those suckers, all 160 wall-lockers onto the 3rd floor of the barracks. Oh my gosh. I never thought it would ever end. We kept going up and down, up and down, carrying these heavy wall lockers upstairs, and wondering what we ever did to deserve this treatment. The first half, or the first 80 was alright, though. I mean, there was no one there, and we just pretty much set it up for people to come and occupy. Now the second 80 set on the other side of the building, people had already moved in. I mean, these are enlisted people, refreshed, relaxed, in civilian clothes, telling us where to put them wall-lockers. “Hey, we need one here, you missed a spot here.” I mean, it got to a point where I thought we were freaken room service. I said we should just leave it downstairs in the sand and advertise that if they want a wall locker, they should just come downstairs and get one themselves. I swear, my arm was cut in at least 4 different places (it still looks bad today), and I was so tired I went to sleep at 2300. At least that was the good part, being able to sleep so well so fast. But man, the chaos. People getting their hands ripped off (we weren’t told to bring gloves), people getting lockers on their feet, their hands, people collapsing, dehydrated and tired, people unable to move but just taking the stairs one step at a time. It sucked. I think this is probably going to be the detail to live up to. There was only 17 of us working (3 people had profiles) and one of them was nowhere to be found afterwards. So each of us must have carried at least 16, since it takes 2 of us carry each one. Took 6 different trips getting that done, loading, unloading. I’m still sore after that detail.
On other note, Contreras came back from California on R&R leave. It’s been about 20 days, so it’s about time. It’s good to see him back. Turns out he got married while he was on leave, with the same woman that has his kid. I’m real happy for him, and I wish him the best of everything to come.