Dueces. Day two

I was almost asleep last night, about 2200 lights were out, all was quite. My night was interrupted by a Marine Corps tradition. Moving people without taking into account the consequences of uprooting a group of Marines after lights.
Apparently the S-4, supply, who had been living in Weapons barracks was voluntold to move into the H&S Co. Squad Bay. They said that since the LAR(Light Armored Recon) Marines were back they were told to move.
The result was a bunch of Marines carrying all their gear tromping around the squad bay at 2200 in the dark looking for open racks and wall lockers. Unfortunately, wall lockers were in very short supply and open racks were scattered throughout all the sections. Lights were turned on, Marines cursed, swore and dropped gear, and we tried to get some sleep before morning lights.
In the morning we got up at 0600 or so, shaved, dressed and headed off to a formation. Every name in the company was painstakingly called. Naturally, many of the augments, including all the Regiment Marines were not on that list. Thankfully, we were on the 1st Sergeants roster, and avoided the disaster that presented itself during AT when the Battalion had no idea who we were or why we were attached to them.
We headed up to the CP, Command Post in the S-2's white 12 passenger Ford van, and began the process of moving back in and resuming operations. We had some new gear this time around, our own laminator. You have no idea how valuable a laminator is to the S-2. Without it we were always running up to 1 MEF's Topo to use their laminator for our maps. 1 MEF is the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, and Topo is Topographical Intelligence (map makers). We rearanged the office, and the vault a little and started to cleanup some of the mess from AT. Cleaning up basically meant trying to shred messed up maps we tried to print.
Funny thing about shredders. The Marine Corps' shredders are always old, and under lubricated, and ours for some reason has no reverse. So there I sit, shredding maps I had to tear into pieces to shred, when I encounter a little setback. The shredder jammed. So I pulled out my Leatherman multitool.
The Leatherman multitool is one of the most essential pieces of equipment a Marine carries. It is not issued, but it sure should be. This device is a compact set of needle nosed pliars, knife, screwdrives and other miscilaneous tools all in one perfect little package. With my leatherman I have unjammed shredders, fixed cupholders, worked on vehicles, cut string, fixed furniture and just about anything else you can imagine. The Leatherman is the Marine's best friend.
Meanwhile back at the CP I flipped out the Leatherman's knife and began trying to pick out the paper jam. After a few minutes it became obvious I was not going to be succesful so easily. I removed the top of the shredder and tried to figure out a way to unjam it. It became obvious pretty quickly I was going to have to operate. I switched to the phillips screwdriver in my Leatherman and set to work removing the motor and blad assembly. Long story short I put it back together after pulling more paper out of it and it still didn't work.
Staff Sergeant Barnes joined my in the vault a few minute later and decided to try his hand at unjamming the shredder. I whipped my Leatherman back out and we dissasembled it again. This time we broke it down further, and we managed to turn the blades and clear the jam. After about an hour of screwing around with it we put it back together and tried it out. Still nothing. A little more screwing around with it pushing buttons and tweaking things we were clueless about and we tried again. This time we were victorious. A Leatherman, a Staff NCO, a Lance Corporal and a little adapt and overcome and the shredder was back in action. Its still jankity and the reverse doesn't work but it shreds. Thank God for Leathermans.
I wanted to get out of the Vault, it is rediculously hot in there, no airconditiong or windows in a small room with a coffee pot and a hot laminator filled with Marines makes for one really hot room. I ended up making an Sign in and Out log for Classified Material, and a Classified Material Inventory logbook. My handwriting sucks and Ssgnt probably won't ever have me make a logbook again. Oh well.
Today we were trying to send off some harddrives and computers to get changed over to SECRET from UNCLASSIFIED. To transport classified material requires a ton of paperwork. Remember that we are aa Reserve unit that has been uprooted and sent halfway across the coutnry and is set up in what was essentially a deserted lower floor of a building. We aren't exacatly swimming in a plethera of forms and equipment. Turns out we had none of the forms we needed. Sgnt Corpuz sent me an a mission upstairs to the MLG that inhabbited the second floor of our building for a form. Turns out they had sent pretty much everybody home, so the S-2 wasn't around. The S-3 Captain had access to the Vault though, and she was willing to give me a hand snooping around for it. Unfortunately they didn't have the form, but I did get the number of their higher command's S-2 shop which was just down the road, and found out we could get some Courier Cards from them. (Courier Cards are pretty much a hall pass for the individual actually transporting the classified material.) I returned to the shop to learn we had figured out a way to get around the form I had been sent to get, and that I should have asked for the Courier Cards. So I headed back up to ask the Captain for the cards. She was extremely helpful and after a quick phone call she was able to give me a whole stack of them. No small feat as they are a little difficult to come by. I returned victorious to the shop and was told I was going to get a NAM by Sgnt Corpuz.
Not too long after we headed back to 22 area and the squad bay. We changed back into civies and headed to chow. After chow the real fun began. After last nights upheavel in the squad bay and our influx of the S-1 and S-4 shops, their was a shortage of racks and wall lockers. Now, a few of the wall lockers that had been extra before our new residents showed up were being used by some of us as community wall lockers. As a result one of the Ssgnts was inspecting us to figure out which wall lockers were really available. After his inspection, chaos began. Marines began moving wall lockers and racks and carrying gear all over the squad bay back and forth and up and down... Shops were split up and reunited and Marines moved from one side to the other and back again. Basically it was a classic case of doing anything in the Marine Corps. During all this chaos I set out to get myself a shelf of some sort to put inside my wall locker to give it some sort of organization.
Earlier that evening I had spotted a candidate, an old rusting office desk that had a set of drawers that were falling off the desk. I pulled out my Leatherman again and tried to unscrew it, but eventually utilized a swift kick to separate the drawers from the desk. I then proceeded to bend it back into shape and fix the drawers so they would slide in and out again with my folded up Leatherman and a large rock. I then cut out a piece of a thick cardboard shipping crate as a top and returned to the squad bay. It was a perfect example of Marine Coprs ingenuity and the usefullness of a Leatherman.
And so ends another day in the life of Reservist POG's. We are getting ready for battle, repairing shredders, moving wall lockers and printing maps. Right now its hard to see the purpose in it all, but we are Marines. We have a job to do, and after all the chaos settles down and we hit the sand in Iraq we will do it, and do it well. We are the best, even though sometimes, we have no idea why. God brought us through another day, and I will rely on Him again tomorrow.
Tomorrow has another challenge. Tomorrow I fight off boredom. 24 hour duty. My next entry may be a little late.