Christmas, Afghanistan, 2007

"It is now 5 minutes before midnight—the end of Christmas day…today was a very interesting one…it started for me yesterday around 1pm…I got up to do nothing…and the rest is in the letter I wrote yesterday…anyhoo…I knew I had ECP this morning so I tried to go to bed early but that wasn’t working because I just wasn’t tired and people were making a lot of noise and there were just random happenings keeping me awake…so I emailed and IMed a few people and got my Merry Christmas’ out and received quite a few of them too…I went out to have a smoke here and there and heard people being loud and thought it was just people being hyper and happy because it was Christmas Eve and they had no work the next morning or whatever…so around 0530 xmas day I walked back into the barracks and saw the commander and the infantry NCO walking down the hall and knock on someone’s door…I had no idea what they were doing there so early, so me being me, I said “Merry Christmas”…they didn’t respond…apparently they were not in a good mood…they walked into the room and turned the lights on and asked if anyone had been drinking…uh oh…trouble…I quickly slid into my room to get out of their business…apparently this guy went to the bathrooms around 0430ish to puke up his alcohol spins…as he was in there one of the Sgt. Majors on the FOB happened to see him and figured out why he was puking…the Sgt. Maj. woke up our commander and the cat was out of the bag…not sure who or where or any specifics, but apparently there was quite a bit of alcohol usage in the area…just rumors—I don’t know anything for sure…so, everyone in the barracks was rudely awakened and a “Health and Wellness Inspection” was conducted…this is the Army’s term for room inspection or “Operation Booze Bust”…"
Desert Consciousness