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Disclaimer: All generalizations in this article of the United States Military are just that. I know plenty of intelligent, thoughtful, well-spoken and all around great people in the military who are not deserving of the epithets I'm about to generally throw in their direction. Therefore, if you're one of those, this doesn't apply to you.
My cousin Mitch is finished with his year-long stint in Iraq, and he arrived back in the US this Thursday. We're all really glad he's home, and we're also all really glad then when he proposed to my friend and roommate Amy, she said yes. However, though I'm really excited that he's finally back safe, this story isn't as much about him as it is about the adventure that ensued up to the point at which we finally got to welcome him home.
It all started Wednesday evening when we left for Savannah, GA. Mitch was actually coming in on Thursday afternoon to Fort Stewart, GA, about 40 minutes away, but that first night we were staying in Savannah. To start the trip off right, the car we were traveling in experienced a broken serpentine belt in the quaint area of St. George, SC, at around 2 A.M. That wasn't fun, to say the least, but it wasn't awful because Amy had AAA and we got towed - all the way to Savannah.
The fun REALLY started the next day when we arrived at Fort Stewart a while before Mitch's scheduled arrival. We didn't know where anything was on the base, so we wanted to make sure we were in the right place plenty early. Keep in mind, now, that this is basically like a small city. It has grocery stores, roads, neighborhoods, etc. It's miles in diameter, not some small little base. When we first entered the base, we went to the information center to ask where his unit would be arriving and to make sure the time was correct. They informed us that he was indeed arriving at 4 p.m. at a specific gymnasium on the base. They gave us directions, and we headed that way.
Problem 1: The directions were incorrect. I was following my dad, who actually had the directions, and it became obvious pretty early on that he was having trouble following them. So, we stopped to ask someone else for directions. No big deal - the guy we asked was a security guard, and he told us to just follow him; he'd show us where we needed to go.
Problem 2: Where the security guard dropped us off was not the location we had been told to go to. It was the wrong building on the wrong part of the base. Therefore, we had to call Mitch on his cell phone and ask if he knew where they'd be, because he was on a bus headed towards the proposed location. He didn't know. Why can't he just ask the bus driver where they were going?
Problem 3: His bus driver said he didn't know either. Apparently the military is so good at secret missions that they can send homecoming troops on a bus with a bus driver who hasn't been told where on the base to stop driving, but they'll somehow end up in the correct location. I tell you, spending more money on the military than education and health care combined REALLY does some good for this country. When he finally found out from the bus driver where they were supposedly going, we asked someone how to get there.
Problem 4: The place Mitch told us he'd be going was too small for a welcome home ceremony, our direction-givers informed us. However, they were going that way, so they'd lead us there anyway just in case. It was just a small little building, though, and surely Mitch was misinformed. We should call him again or call someone else and make sure we were going to the correct place, but in the mean time, let's head that way.
Problem 5: It wasn't the wrong place. It was the right place. However, we had to convince the guys leading us that it was the right place, then we had to find someone at that building to confirm that Mitch's unit was indeed going to end up here. We were assured that this was our final destination, and there wouldn't be any more problems. However, the annoyance of this whole situation was allayed, because there came the bus, and Mitch was indeed on it. Everyone rejoiced, Mitch proposed to Amy, and everyone was happy that it was all over.
However, I had a few questions still, because I guess I'm just an asshole and I like to find significance in insignificant situations.
The whole thing finally became clear to me during this mess of shenanigans. Is it any fucking surprise to anyone reading this that we're in such a god damned awful quagmire in Iraq? I mean, these people can't find their way around their own base! How are they expected to invade and take over a foreign country?
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