48 cases of booze on the bird

Take one down pass it around. If it were only that easy. As I have said before nothing really surprises me in my line of work and with my current unit. I got a chuckle and shook my head at yet another "surprise" here at work. Every month or so we have a resupply flight or "bird" as I call it fly in from Fort Bragg. This flight has all kinds of stuff on it from HUMVs to ammunition. This resupply bird was different. Prior to leaving 48 cases of booze were discovered in a conex (military speak for a really big box that stores stuff in it). The inspectors at Pope Air Force Base must not have have taken or passed an eye exam in a long time. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective these 48 cases did not make it into country so someone here in Afghanistan is likely going to go thirsty for the next couple of months. I would also like to think that my workload may go down slightly. That is to be seen. These 48 cases did not make it Afghanistan but the "Quality Control" as I like to call them (a group of concerned SGMs) inspected a random sample of care packages that were placed on the re-supply bird as a result of the 48 cases of other booze.

Not to be outdone, a couple of my Soldiers wanted in on the action. The Two Soldiers in my unit were sent three mini kegs of very good German Beer. These packages were wrapped in the same material and only contained these Soldier's first name and no return address. My unit commander called me into his office. Sitting on his coffee table were the three kegs of German beer. He announced that that holes would be poked into them and the beer drained. After wiping the drool off my mouth and tears off my cheeks, I said okay but made a suggestion that we did not know if this was alcohol and perhaps a human field test might be in order. Being who I am, I volunteered to be the tester. My unit commander politely yet firmly disagreed with my proposed human field test and the kegs were destroyed. When my two Soldiers (after having their rights read of course) were confronted with the information that they were sent booze, the common responses were: " I don't know who would do such a thing." and " I did not even know there was a resupply bird coming over here." In any event this place is never a dull moment and my time is getting short before I bid it a fond farewell.