Story Market Day

Thank you.

But you are talking Cherokee, must be an old full size rig.

ComCamGuy said:

A little edit update to yesterdays post #2828. The wife got done with the edit sooner than normal

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I thought it might be his beloved guitar... thank you

ted said:

But you are talking Cherokee, must be an old full size rig.

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1979 Cherokee Chief as referred to way up in page two or three

Back when Cherokee was 2 door and Waggoner was 4 door! Interesting dual exhaust.

When Henrik pulled up outside the store where he left Sabine, she came out with a grin on her face, a big bag of stuff and two cases. She seemed to almost float to the SUV. Henrik and Sabine quickly loaded her purchases into the other drawer. This would keep them out of the way and safe while they shopped. When they got to the Big Box store, each got a flat cart. They split the list in half, each collecting stuff by the box and the bushel. It was mostly food they got. Henrik made sure Sabine’s list had the beans on it. He could eat them, he could cook them, but ……not yet.

Sabine went through the health isles like a cyclone through a trailer park. Several cases of toothpaste, check. A flat of aspirin, check. Cold meds, check. And so on and so forth. She hit the spice isle pretty heavy as well as baking supplies, foil, parchment paper and so forth. She read the list from Henrik again, a crap ton of the biggest ziplock bags they had was next.

In addition to food, Henrik was also the one getting batteries of all kinds, automotive fluids, filters, and general cleaning supplies. He tossed a bunch of multi-packs of socks onto the cart as well, because they were on sale and they could always use more socks.

Once the carts were full, they met back up to pay for the stuff. Henrik noticed something he didn’t expect on the top of Sabine’s cart.

“Not that I’m objecting, but why do you have a dozen frozen lobster tails on the cart?”

“Because I won’t kill the live ones.” Came Sabine’s quick answer. She also surprised Henrik by offering to pay for this run.

“Are you sure?” He was hesitant. He had come and shopped thinking he was paying for it and wasn’t sure he would feel right. It kind of rubbed the poor kid in the back of his mind wrong, like ‘what does she think? Does she think I’m too poor to pay for this?’ The other part of his mind, he could hear his mother telling him it would be rude to get upset.

“Hey, your getting the wood, doing the driving and you can get the next load. You guys have helped me so much. This is another way I can help. We have a long way to go I’m afraid, and the four of us need to help each other when we can.”

Henrik saw the logic in this. He also hear his mother’s voice in his head. ‘Be an adult. Accept, and thank her for the gesture, and then, most importantly, let it drop”

“Sure, I’ll get the next one.”

As they drove home Sabine started to think more about the guitar. Henrik was deep in his own thoughts so she took the opportunity to find something on the radio. She happened upon one her favorites she had not heard in a while, John Denver’s “Eagle and The Hawk”.

She closed eyes while her fingers danced a crossed the imaginary neck of her new guitar to the song something occurred to her about the price. She immediately looked at the receipt. She was sure the old man had made a mistake. The guitar was worth far more than what she paid. She would have to go back and talk to him about this but for now she would enjoy the gift he had given her.

Grew up in a Grand Cheorkee 4-door with wood panelling. The roof would hold a dozen kids plus for a Santa Claus parade and the tail down was perfect for tailgating. The only problem was that the floors rusted out fast in an Ontario winter and the circular lock mechanism that you key turned to lower the back window rusted out fast too. The best part about driving them was that there were almost no blind spots. Awesome truck. Got ours in 1976 and it survived 20+ years. Would love another...

Lake Lili said:

Grew up in a Grand Cheorkee 4-door with wood panelling. The roof would hold a dozen kids plus for a Santa Claus parade and the tail down was perfect for tailgating. The only problem was that the floors rusted out fast in an Ontario winter and the circular lock mechanism that you key turned to lower the back window rusted out fast too. The best part about driving them was that there were almost no blind spots. Awesome truck. Got ours in 1976 and it survived 20+ years. Would love another...

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My father's was 79 grey, with Quadrotrac. That thing would bull its way through snow, claw its way up ice, swim through mud all day long. It was one of the things I learned to drive on. It's turning radius was impressive too

Thank you. Please don't make us wait too long before she has that discussion with the guitar man!

Thank you!

Just a man who saw a great player, and decided she needed the guitar.

Chapulin said:

Back when Cherokee was 2 door and Wagoneer was 4 door! Interesting dual exhaust.

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Ahhh! 401 CID & QuadraTrac!

Griz3752 said:

Ahhh! 401 CID & QuadraTrac!

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actually the 360

Monday morning came early. The four of them were standing in the Commanders office along with the Sergeant Major. The Commander welcomed Paige back, expressed his concern and congratulated her on her promotion. He then went into a snapshot of what he was expecting from her. Once he was done, the group moved over to the Sergeant Major’s office, leaving the Commander to his duties.

“Alright guys, He told you the pie in the sky view of what’s next. I have the nuts and bolts for each of you.” The Sergeant Major looked at Paige. “OK, all the arms rooms are on lockdown currently. You are going to end up with all of it in your possession except for the standard duty weapons of the base cops. Everything else, whole, parts, supplies, nuts, bolts, pamphlets, posters, anything weapon related is to be pulled here, inventoried and segregated. The secure storage here is now yours to deal with the volume of stuff. I want the bare minimum to fulfill the written inventories segregated into their groups. If there is broken stuff we can turn in to clear stuff off of the books, strip it down to the smallest possible part needed to clear the line item.” He paused before he went on.

“You’re also getting the other sensitive items except radios. You get the NVGs and all the other stuff except radios. Same rules apply.” He looked over at Andrea. “You are going to go over all the radios here at our compound, and I also need you to review the list your old boss is supposed to be building. I intend for you to find out what he’s sandbagging on. You know what extras they have, and I will request them. I want this compound to have all the extras that are off the books. This is going to be like the E-4 Mafia writ large. When the powers that be decide things need to be turned in or shipped out, I don’t intend to lose capability. We will keep ordering and requesting like we should, but I refuse to be caught unable to do the mission.”

“Sabine, I need you to do a deep review of all the stockpiled medical connexes. These have been neglected by the Base Clinic who is responsible for their inventory and upkeep. I need a no shit appraisal, not block filling on the checklist. If any of it needs replaced, it will be on the top of the list. I refuse to skimp on keeping our people healthy. You are the Commanders medical advisor, not the doc at the clinic. Any of the guys at the clinic give you shit, remind them you are working directly for the Commander on this. Let’s make sure what we have is right.”

“Henrik, your old boss is doing a great job getting a handle on things the way we want. Right now I need you to lead a detail to help Paige and Sabine in their endeavors. You and Sgt. Jenson will be the two primary leaders of these groups. Basically I’m forming a Brute squad, and you guys will be the ringleaders for me. You will meet Sgt. Jenson in about an hour. He is rounding up some warm bodies to help.”

He turned to look at the entire group.

“You guys are my core group of agents, my four musketeers. Let’s get things done.”

The next week was a blur of spreadsheets, connexes, cases, and serial numbers. Each day was hot, sweaty work. They would show up, the people in charge of the sections would begrudgingly allow them in, dig out the stuff on the sheets, then watch helplessly as they carted everything off, then scour the places for any leftover items. This didn’t make them popular with most of the people. There were a few who didn’t mind being relieved of the responsibility of all the stuff.

This all rubbed Paige a little wrong. She was used to being liked and the one people were friendly with. She had always been that way. She was always one of the popular ones at school. Not the most popular click but one of the friendly ones no one had a problem with. She was even a cheerleader for a year after a friend convinced her to try out. Not the Captain of the squad, just one of the worker bees.

Paige remembered being the one people wanted to hang out with in school. Not the social climbers, but the real people. She was the one helping in shop class, fixing someone’s car in the parking lot, and sitting around with friends at lunch. Others told her she was cute. She didn’t see it. She always thought she looked plain. She wasn’t threatening to the ‘beautiful people’ crowd, so they were always friendly.

She guessed this was why the whole hatred thing from Frickel was so different and foreign to her. Now she was seeing some hostility and resentment towards her. Didn’t they know she was just doing her job?

Thank you.

And no they didn't know or felt a loss of power.

Life's lessons sure aren't always easy. Thank you.

Now she was seeing some hostility and resentment towards her. Didn’t they know she was just doing her job?

Doesn't matter to many for they feel threatened and powerless by those that have to carry out and enforce orders.

Thanks CCG for all of the effort you use to bring us what potentially will happen in the future.

Texican....

The next week followed a similar pattern. After a weekend of stocking and such, the four worked all week at gathering and inventorying. At this point, most people were resigned to them coming in and taking over things. The Sergeant Major was hard at work putting everyone to resetting and re-evaluating what classes they could hold and how to set up for them. All of this was in spite of his belief they would get no new students until at least the start of the New Year. The rumblings he got from friends in Washington boded worse things than that, but he could only prepare for what he could.

While the Sergeant Major was working the base into a frenzy prepping for the resumption of classes, the Commander was working his contacts up the chain to be allowed to do those classes. He was trying to save the capability and knowledge base of the Mountain Warfare Center. He was a student of military history. After many conflicts, drawdowns created informational vacuums in operational capabilities. These lessons had to be paid for in blood to rebuild. He didn’t want that to happen here. Even if he could salvage the core of the school and keep a small portion going with reduced volume of classes, it could survive. He had a bad feeling the money counters would win and Marines would die relearning lessons under fire he could have taught them here.

Once Paige had everything secured, she was able to slow down somewhat. She still had the suppressed rifle program she was working with the TDY team on. She didn’t know when they were going back to their home base. She felt it would be soon and didn’t want to leave it half finished. The two guys working on the project with her had been helping her gather and sort the other weapons for the last two weeks and a great working relationship had developed. She knew she would spend at least half her time the next week working on it with them. She would tweak things, they would test them. While they were testing, she could continue working on the other parts of the Sergeant Major’s project. Paige found she felt better and more relaxed knowing she didn’t have to go out and strip stuff from the other units anymore. She was back within her bundle of familiar people. She also found more comfort than she wanted to admit in carrying her concealed pistol still. It was kind of like being deployed. She went nowhere without it. She also could not sit with her back towards an unguarded opening. She didn’t want to set herself up that way ever again.

Henrik was working with Sgt. Jenson. He liked him. They got along quite well and Paige though highly of Jenson, which helped. After all the weapons and sensitive items were transferred to the secure Spec Ops compound, the two of them spearheaded going through all the elements, finding what was really broken, what was only somewhat broken to justify buying new stuff, and what really worked. The first project they tackled was a whole mismatched pile of night vision goggles, monoculars and scopes. They knew this could take the whole week to do right, so they didn’t rush it. All over the base, others were working on such specialized missions. Henrik knew a friend of his was working with a detail going over every inch of the leather gear for the horses and mules, saddle by saddle, bridle by bridle, inspecting, cleaning and oiling every part. The whole base was head down, working hard.

Thank you CCG!

Thank you.

Thank you.

ComCamGuy said:

Henrik knew a friend of his was working with a detail going over every inch of the leather gear for the horses and mules, saddle by saddle, bridal by bridal, inspecting, cleaning and oiling every part. The whole base was head down, working hard.

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Didn't know the military still had and used gear for horses and mules. This hit a little piece of family history. My Uncle was a WWII Army cook in North Africa and Italy. Said the Missouri Mules worked, local ones were useless. (Paraphrasing, Uncle Tommy's descriptions were more descriptive). Also had a neighbor years back who swore her mother was named after a mule used by Merrill's Marauders.

Old Gray Mare said:

Didn't know the military still had and used gear for horses and mules. This hit a little piece of family history. My Uncle was a WWII Army cook in North Africa and Italy. Said the Missouri Mules worked, local ones were useless. (Paraphrasing, Uncle Tommy's descriptions were more descriptive). Also had a neighbor years back who swore her mother was named after a mule used by Merrill's Marauders.

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Some was for parades and such. Also they have learned that there are places that have to be traveled on foot, two or four. A good trained mule will carry a lot more than a mule headed Marine, for a lot less food and care. Just wonder if there will be a fifth, four footed member, traveling north with a couple of guitar cases strapped on top.

Only the CCG knows!! Bruhahaha!!!

Thanks for the updates CCG!

Some of the most fun I had was running around the base in an Adverse Terrain forklift doing whatever I needed in order to reclaim our USAF 463L cargo pallets

Sabine’s job over these two weeks was a little easier for the most part. She used her two helpers from before and went through the inventories and loadouts at the Mountain Medicine department. They had a great handle on their stuff. With Sabine and some more help, they got the student bags and supplies packed, reset and squared away quickly. The next focus was the bins of obsolete and cast off gear.

Every unit usually has someplace where the stuff that just didn’t work, or was replaced got stuffed and forgotten. In the bins were also several older medical load out bags that were either bought to test and didn’t get adopted or they didn’t get enough of them to use. These were off the books and leftovers. When she pulled some of them out, the Mountain Medicine guys and her two helpers started pawing through them. One of the big issues in the earlier bins was old gear left in the bags. These were no different. Some had been filled and later just thrown into the connex and forgotten, others were still new in the plastic.

There were some gems, and some real trash. A lot of it was bought and tried in the early days of the war. Everyone was trying to find the best solution and not all of them worked. Some of the stuff hadn’t seen the light of day in over ten years. After rummaging through them, they all came to the collective decision to distribute some of the choice items among themselves for use at their respective shops. It was like Christmas came early.

The next task was a little more unpleasant. The Clinic supply section was less than pleased at their arrival. Worse, Sabine was armed with insider knowledge. One of the Mountain Medicine guys had been assigned to the base clinic before moving to the schoolhouse.

“This is my section. You have no authority or jurisdiction in here! So you can just go somewhere else with your clipboard.” The Sergeant was not going to yield. Sabine tried another tactic.

“What’s the telephone number for that desk right there?” She pointed at the one she saw him stand up from when they first got there. He gave her the number. What harm could there be in that?

Sabine walked a few steps away from him, back to where her two TDY helpers were.

“Keep an eye on him. He is to go nowhere but that office he is standing in right now. I have to make a phone call.”

Ten minutes later, Sabine returned and walked straight up to the Sergeant.

“Look, here are your three options. One, pull your head out of your fourth point of contact, comply with the orders we have been given, and we all drive on as if this mostly didn’t happen. Two,” She held up a hand in the universal stop sign when he started to speak. “Two, You don’t comply with the verbal and written” she held out the clipboard again. “Order of the installation and unit Commander, but you don’t try to physically interfere with us as we go around you and still do what we need to do, in which case, by the end of this afternoon you will find yourself driving a truck load of supplies to our TDY personnel at 29 Palms. Then, there’s option three. Option three, you try to physically impede us from doing what we have been ordered to do. If you do that, the officers pulling up outside the building will take you away in cuffs and you will get to sit in the brig as you contemplate your fate.” The phone on the desk started ringing. “You better answer it. That is the clinic commander calling to find out your decision so he knows if he needs a new supply NCO.”

Ten minutes later, he was opening doors and helping them inventory.

Thank you.

Their are those in the military and public life that have some power and do not realize that this power is bestowed upon them by those with more power that can end their rule at anytime if they do not comply with orders from above. Has been this way from the beginning of time.

The sarge choose the correct option.

Thanks CCG.

Texican....

Thank you.

Lol good one, choice's yep, thank you.

Paige was happy as a ….well, she didn’t know what to compare it to. After the frustration and friction of the preceding weeks, here she was, prowling through piles of gun parts and accessories, helping evaluate new weapons and having a grand old time. The two guys working with her would take what she worked, go do a bunch of user level stuff, and come back with feedback. She would go through them, see what was wearing, what broke, what function as advertised, and they did it all over again. In between these, she went through the boxes and boxes of firearms, parts of firearms and all the loose accessories

During this, she found quite a few inconsistencies. She was barely a quarter of the way through and she had some weird finds. Some of them were just neat to her geeky brain. Others worried her because they spoke of some lax documentation and maybe even some missing weapons. She took very detailed notes. She needed to research the older transfer forms and records to see where some stuff slid off the books. She didn’t want someone coming back and hemming her up for missing stuff she had nothing to do with.

She had such an eclectic mix it made her head hurt. She was going to see what she could do to streamline the stacks, once she had a better inventory.

She sat down at the end of the week with the two guys and laid out her results of the rifle test.

“OK, guys, the two main ones we tested with the most promise,” she pointed to them on the bench. “Company one’s examples are the most effective and durable, but harder to maintain in the field long term without more effort. Company two’s model is a little noisier, but more field maintainable. Keep in mind, this is sliding scale. Both passed the benchmarks by a wide margin, it’s just splitting hairs at this point.”

“That’s what we were thinking, too. It’s just as well. We couldn’t get the ones from company one anyway.”

Paige was confused. All the entries were marked ‘1’ or ‘2’, so no manufacturer bias would be apparent.

“Why couldn’t you guys get company one’s products?”

“The company building and most of its key people are missing after the quake. Hell, with the possible cuts, we probably won’t see these for ten years anyway.” He shuffled his feet some and then continued. “We really appreciate all your help in this. If there is anything else we can do for you, let us know. We will be doing some training with the Company two set next week, and then probably packing to leave. They are looking for airlift for us. They want us back home.” We will swing in Monday morning to get the ‘twos’ for the training.”

Everyone stood, shook hands, then, Paige couldn’t leave it at that. These two pulled Frickel off of her in this very room. She pulled them both into a tight hug.

“You guys better not slip out of here without saying goodbye. I owe you my life.”

Everyone was choked up for a few.

“Paige, anytime, anywhere. We have your back.”

Thank you,

Thank you.

Thank you CCG!

“You guys better not slip out of here without saying goodbye. I owe you my life.”

Everyone was choked up for a few.

“Paige, anytime, anywhere. We have your back.”

Spoken truly.

Thanks CCG.

Texican....

Thank you. Starting to get withdrawal symptoms here.

You folks relax. He always takes the weekend to recharge so he can WOW us some more all week.
Thanks ComCamGuy.