Anthrax Chapel

One of my co-workers back in PA asked for a photo of The Anthrax Chapel. It's not much more than a name painted on the wall above the door of a rectangular room in a military barracks. I guess about 20 by 50 feet. As noted before, this classroom also serves as the chapel for our unit. And according to one of our intelligence sergeants, the same room is where soldiers here got shots for anthrax immunization during the anthrax alert following September 11, 2001. So someone had the bright idea of calling the place The Anthrax Chapel.

This is a camera phone shot and I could not save it rotated 90 degrees. So turn your computer to the right if you want to see the photo correctly.

All Day Cleaning

Today most of the company was in convoy training or sleeping in after midnight fueling training. The few of us that were left had little to do so we cleaned and reorganized the stuff we are using while we are here in Oklahoma. So I volunteered to clean the latrine. With one platoon training all night and other people out in the field, the latrine looked bad, so I decided to clean it rather than wait for something to happen.

The other soldiers were surprised I would volunteer for that, but they weren't running after me saying, "Can I clean the latrine too?" So I spent the morning cleaning the walls and floors and restocking the supplies. One of the officers paid for real cleaning supplies (Clorox and Clorox spray cleaners) because we only have Simple Green and with all those guys, I wanted to clean with real chlorine.

In the afternoon I saw one of the sergeants in the headquarters company picking up trash behind the barracks building, so I told her I had a few soldiers killing time and we would get the front. When I got back to the motor pool, the idle soldiers were cleaning Humvees and the shop. So I got a bag and spent an hour picking up trash, mostly cigarette butts.

At the end of the day, the motor sergeant said the tool van for deployment would not be leaving for another three weeks so I could take the fixed-gear bike out of the van and ride it till then. He didn't hare to say it twice. I rode 10 miles after final formation yesterday. Riding a bike here MUCH harder than in PA. More on that later.


We have partitions--but I have been in barracks that looked like this and may be again.

Multi-Use Rooms

On Sunday the main classroom in the barracks is also the Chapel and the movie room. In fact the room has "Anthrax Chapel" painted above the doors on the inside. This morning there was a sign on the right door listing chapel services at 0830, 1000, 1800 and 1900--two Catholic and two Protestant services. On the left door was a photocopied sign for tonight's movie which starts at 2000 hours, right after the last chapel service. The Sunday night movie: Righteous Kill

Mob Cafe--Intellectual Corner

Seated near the drinks in the far corner of the Mob Cafe are the soldiers with some college who hang together and make jokes almost devoid of 4-letter words. If the Mob Cafe is a high school cafeteria, these are the smart ass kids that don't like the jocks.

Tonight I was doing my laundry when one of this group walked into the laundry room to take his stuff from the dryer. He is an ex-Marine with a shaved head in his late 20s. He was talking on a cell phone as he emptied the dryer. He was also carrying a cup he found that says, "Retired Navy." As he walked by, I noticed he was wearing a red CCCP t-shirt (the Cyrillic alphabet letters for Soviet Socialist Republic), blue sweat pants, shower shoes, and carrying an M16 rifle. An ensemble you just don't see everywhere.

Mobilization Cafe, Part 2

I got several comments back on the Mobilization Cafe. A co-worker who is also a Sopranos fan loved the idea that everyone calls it the (long O) Mob Cafe, but it looks like the Mob Cafe--like Tony, Silvio, Paulie, Bobby, et al would be sipping espresso and planning revenge hits.

Alas, there is no repose and no barista. In fact, the coffee is a good instant, but it's instant. And while the food is fairly good and there is lots of it, three meals per day more than 1,000 soldiers eat in just two hours.

At any given time there are more than 100 people in line. At a recent lunch I counted as follows: 50 people outside the door in line, 25 people between the door and the sign-in desk, 50 more between the desk and the serving line. It took 12 minutes to get to the sign-in desk, then 12 more minutes to get to the servers. Two minutes later I got the hot foot, dessert and went through the salad bar. Two more minutes to get drinks. Usually, I come to chow alone because of checking something on line or talking to someone. So while I am waiting, I look for someone who is 20 or 30 people ahead I can eat half of lunch with them. Typically, we eat in 10 to 15 minutes, so if you sit with someone who got their food 10 minutes before, they are done two minutes after you sit down. There are also a few of the older enlisted men who get to chow early and eat slow, so I can sit with them even if they have been eating for 15 minutes.

Today, the dinner choices were spaghetti with meat sauce, baked or fried chicken, and lasagna. Squash, baked or mashed potatoes and corn on the cob for vegetables. The fast foods tonight were corn dogs and grilled cheese sandwiches. A salad bar with fruit and about five dessert choices are available at every meal. The food really is pretty good. The plates and cups are styrofoam, the silverware is white plastic.

Weapons 24/7

In my room with my M16A4. We just pulled out all of our field equipment for a platoon inspection.



Tonight at 6pm (1800 hours) we drew our weapons from the arms room--permanently. We will have our weapons with us for all training until we leave. And it makes everything we do some part of weapons training. Because if it rains, our weapon gets wet along with us. And we have to clean them. The smart soldiers clean their weapons THEN themselves. I hope that neither me nor any member of my team is the first one to forget, misplace, or God Forbid, lose their weapon.

Sleep in a Building , Eat in a Tent

For the two months or so we are in stateside training, we are living in three-story concrete buildings more than 600 feet long with four entrances on each side. The two main buildings our unit lives in are side by side and together are almost 1/4-mile long. In front of the buildings is a 100-foot wide paved area with parking near the buildings. On the far side of paved strip, more or less centered between the buildings is a 200-foot-long, 100-foot-wide pair of tents with shipping container-sized enclosures in between. The tents are our dining facility called The Mobilization Cafe.

If you are curious this Web site has photos of the Mob (long O) Cafe, our barracks and other local landmarks.

Each side of the Mob Cafe seats 288 soldiers at tables that seat 16. I'll say more about the food and the service in my next post, but the seating is definitely high school cafeteria with uniforms. Junior officers sit with junior officers, pilots with pilots, fuelers with fuelers, sergeants with sergeants (also junior with junior, senior with senior), enlisted soldiers divide by age and sex, above and below 25 years old. For all the dividing up by age and sex and rank and job, almost no one divides by race. When I first joined in 1972 I was surprised how integrated the military was compared to civilian life. It's even more so now. But if all mechanics of all races sit together and talk shop, they don't generally sit with clerks and fuelers. I don't think that will ever change.