My_Military_Experience

Joe Blow Mrs. Dog English 101 A Rude Awakening My name is Joe Blow. I will be sharing with you one of my many experiences that took place during my 10 years of service in the United States Air Force. In January of 1925 I was deployed to Eglin AFB, Fl. Upon our arrival we were put up in very nice hotels about five miles from the base. I and all my comrades were very happy with these accommodations as it was not the norm for deployments. Just as we all dreaded, only days after arriving we were told we’d be moving into our new accommodations, 20 man tents. Needless to say we were all super disappointed, but we all knew the nice hotels probably weren’t permanent. I was assigned to the night shift during this deployment. We were all on 12 hour shifts, and if I remember correctly, it was 0700 to 1900 for the day shift and 1900 to 0700 for the night shift. Those shift hours were the standard format for training exercises as well as real world operations such as this. We were given 1 day off a week which isn’t much when you consider laundry, grocery shopping and some relaxation time. The switch from the nice hotels to our new temporary homes wasn’t easy, but we managed. January was apparently a very wet time of year for this area of Florida. It seemed to rain all day and night for several weeks. It was also very cold and just all around miserable for those first few weeks. For heat in our tents we were given 2 diesel burning heaters. These heaters must have been from the 60’s or 70’s because they were not easy to work like the plug in heaters today. They literally ran off diesel fuel that we had to bring to the tent in 5 gallon fuel canisters. In order for the heaters to run the whole time we slept we had to keep it on a pretty low setting which wasn’t all that warm. If someone decided they wanted to actually be warm and set it too high the heaters would run out of fuel and it was not much fun having to get up in the middle of the night and relight these monsters. It would take literally 30 minutes to get it going again. One uneventful, usual day, the whole tent was asleep after a long, cold, and rainy night of hard work. Then, I was suddenly awakened by a feeling of not being able to breathe. I fiddled for my flashlight and finally flipped it on to find a smoke filled tent with all occupants still sleeping. I quickly woke everyone up, evacuated the tent and we all then opened it up to air out. Once the air had cleared enough to find the source of the smoke it became very obvious what had happened. One of our not so bright comrades decided it would be a good idea to sit his boots on one of our ancient heaters to try and dry them out. He apparently didn’t realize that a hot surface would burn whatever you put on it. Needless to say, he wasn’t the most popular guy with most everyone from that night on. In conclusion, if I find myself in a situation that calls for quick action in order to help or save others, I will not hesitate. For all I know, after a long hard day like those we had there, we could have all slept right through whatever would have happened if it had gone unnoticed. Also, remember boots do burn if placed on a heat source and, they will at the least create a lot of smoke, if nothing else.