Hazardously Wasted Jumper – An Ode to Military Humor

If you have read some of my most recent posts, you know that I have been writing about my experiences after leaving the Logistics Executive Development Course at Fort Lee, Virginia.  Well, I graduated from the Logistics Executive Development Course in due course, and my family and I headed for Fort Huachuca, Arizona.  Thus, I am left the Logistics Executive Development Course and Fort Lee, Virginia, behind.  If you want to know more about those subjects, you will just have to go back and revisit the posts on those subjects.  If you have been reading my most recent posts about my adventures after moving to Arizona, you found out what happened when I initially signed in at Fort Huachuca, Arizona.  I subsequently revealed to you that I had been assigned to the Joint Interoperability Test Center (JITC) at Fort Huachuca.  JITC is a subordinate command of the Defense Information Systems Agency.  You may have read about an interesting situation with a temporary guard.  In that same post, I also talked about securing housing for my family.  That secured post housing and how spiders rained from the ceilings.  Oh yeah.  That was quite entertaining.  Not.  I then switched gears to talk about some of my volunteer work on Fort Huachuca.  Oh yeah.  That was quite fun and interesting too.  I was volunteered by my unit to be a tax officer to help soldiers and their families prepare their taxes.  Yay.  I discussed how I helped my Master Gunnery Sergeant and his dependapotamus spouse prepare their personal income taxes.  I talked about where my quarters were located on Fort Huachuca and how I was introduced to the local chapter of the Hash House Harriers.  I talked about an incident that happened soon after I assumed my tour of duty at the Joint Interoperability Test Center (JITC) at Fort Huachuca.  This particular incident occurred one Monday morning soon after I arrived at work.  For more on that particular incident and my first NCOIC, Master Gunnery Sergeant Orr, please visit that post.  In still another of my most recent posts, I wrote about my efforts to secure a farewell award for my NCOIC, Master Gunnery Sergeant Orr.  I wrote in that post that there would be two farewell posts about Master Gunnery Sergeant Orr.  Well, since the first post was about his farewell award, obviously, my most recent post had to be about his actual farewell and his plans after life in the military.   In a recent post, I talked about a strange spectacle that I beheld as I arrived for work one morning.  However, in my most recent posts, I shifted gears and talked about a couple natural phenomena that occur at Fort Huachuca during the summer months.  I talked about the wind in one and I talked about the phenomenon for which the Huachuca Mountains and Fort Huachuca are named in the other.  Previously, I mentioned that the summer thunderstorms that gave the Huachuca Mountains their name are loosely referred to as monsoons.  Which led into my talk about said summer weather phenomenon and a somewhat dubious hash house Harriers run.  Then, I talked about how my son received his hash name.  In my most recent post, I talked about another local Southern Arizona phenomenon.  However, this particular phenomenon is man-made and it primarily exists only in the southeastern corner of Arizona down around Sierra Vista, Bisbee, and Tombstone.  Today, I am going to talk about an inspection and a subsequent road trip to Phoenix that my NCOIC, Marine Master Sergeant Hammond, and I had to suffer through as a result of the failures of our predecessors.  Allow me to explain.  Early one Monday morning while I was working out at the Fort Huachuca gym, Master Sergeant Hammond came in to look for me.  When he spied me lifting weights, he whispered urgently to me, “Sir, get dressed quickly.  We have a surprise inspection from the post Environmental Maintenance and Hazardous Waste Department.”  I asked, “What in the hell do they want?”  “Well, it seems this is a surprise inspection.  Cuz JITC failed the last seven years in a row.”  “Really?!?  How is that our fault?”  “I don’t know Sir.  But you better come quick.”  “Okay.  Okay.  Let me take a quick shower and I’ll be right there.”  Well, the long and short of it was that we failed inspection number eight.  Surprise, surprise.  One of the major deficiencies found was that neither Master Sergeant Hammond nor I was certified in hazardous waste disposal.  I had taken hazardous cargo classes and I held those certifications.  But I had never dealt with hazardous waste.  As a result, Master Sergeant Hammond and I were scheduled to take an eight hour class on hazardous waste in Phoenix, Arizona.  In order to get up to Phoenix in time for the class to start at 8:00 AM on the scheduled date, we had to leave Sierra Vista at 4:30 AM.  Master Sergeant Hammond drove the government vehicle, and I rode shotgun.  The drive up to Phoenix was uneventful.  The eight-hour class seemed longer and more boring than it needed to be.  Especially since the instructor that was teaching it couldn’t teach worth a damn.  But finally, the seminar concluded, and we were given our certificates of completion or attendance; can’t tell which, however, you would like to look at it.  All we needed was the piece of paper that would give us the rubber stamp on an inspection form.  We also had to get those certificates in order to be able to turn in hazardous waste.  And we had at least two or three truckloads of that shit that the previous regime had stockpiled in shipping containers and Conex boxes.  We left Phoenix just in time to hit rush-hour traffic headed out of Phoenix toward Tucson.  Traffic was bumper-to-bumper.  That was just our luck.  It took us forty-five minutes just to travel as far as Chandler, Arizona.  We made a pit stop to grab some snacks.  When we jumped back on the freeway, we approached a billboard that was being updated by some dude.  The dude was standing on a little wooden ledge about forty or fifty feet off of the ground pasting shit onto the billboard.  Every so often, he had to stop to clutch the billboard when gusts of wind picked up.  I just couldn’t resist the urge.  I rolled down my window and yelled, “JUMP!”  As loud as I could.  I must’ve scared the living shit out of the billboard dude because he damn near fell off of the billboard.  Master Sergeant Hammond looked at me and said, “Jesus Christ, Sir!  Were you trying to get him killed?”  “Hey, I wanted to see if he would actually do it.”  “Do what Sir?”  “Well, I should think that would be obvious.  I wanted to see if he would actually jump.  I guess not.  I guess he just didn’t have it in him.”  “Have what in him, Sir?  You mean the desire to kill himself?”  “I wouldn’t call it a desire.  I would call it more like an urge.  You know.  The same kind of urge that depressed people get.  I mean, why else would he walk way out in the desert and climb way the hell up on a billboard?  Obviously he wanted to off himself.  I was just trying to help him along.”  After the incident with the wannabe billboard jumper, our trip home was slow but uneventful and traffic aside we experienced no other exercises in futility.

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