It’s been a while since I’ve shared a good ol’ military story!
Turkey – 2001
The shop I worked in was responsible for hooking buildings up to the base network (among many other things that have nothing to do with this story). Agent Double-Oh Awesome entered the scene when we got word that they just finished building a new *drum roll* building that had to be wired up to the network.
We looked at the floor plans and decided that we would need to use the dusty, hardly ever used radios that sat in the corner in our shop in order to communicate with each other to get everything connected properly.
Two of us went out assuming that our dusty radios were just simple two way devices. When we got to the site and found that we were the only ones there, well…put two young adults with radios together, and you get the adventures of Double-Oh Awesome fighting the Taliban and their evil laser sheep.
I can’t remember exactly what was said, but our game went something like this:
“Qsssshhh! Qssssshhh! Double-Oh Awesome, I got a bad guy by the truck!”
“Roger! I’m on my way *fake fighting noises* Hold on, I’m busy kicking a**!”
“Ahhhh! They have wild sheep! Sheep with lasers!”
*Karate sounds*
And so forth….This went on for a good ten minutes until a third voice joined the foray:
“WHO IS USING THE SQUADRON RADIOS? I DEMAND YOUR NAMES.”
I remember exchanging expressions of horror and utter shock with my coworker. We had no idea the simple radios were connected to the rest of the squadron (they had always been turned off, and there were only two of them). After giving each other sheepish looks, we held our radios out at arm’s length, turned them off, put them in the bed of the truck, and continued our work.
How did we finish the job? We popped our heads out of the building’s windows to shout numbers and instructions to each other. When we got back to the shop, we said nothing of the radios and returned them to their corner. Not a word or a reprimand was spoken, and we decided to never mention Double-Oh Awesome.
