‘Prepare your family’: Marine Reserve commander gives warlike safety brief
Reading through this article brought up some memories from my days in the Air Force and some of the things I experienced while having to process through a deployment line with all my gear.
When I was stationed at Plattsburgh AFB in beautiful Plattsburgh, NY, our base went through one of the many readiness evaluations the military enjoys tormenting the troops with. I was called up to go process through the line. As an enlisted man, I had to have all my gear physically with me while going through the line. 4 sets of uniforms, with t-shirts and tidy whities, 4 pairs of socks. rain gear, cold weather gear, shot records, ID, passport, driver’s license, etc, etc, etc….I had to have all of it.
Officers were allowed to simulate their gear as long as they had proper documentation and signatures from other officers.
Most times when we went through the lines, we would go sit in a hanger or on a bus for 8 to 12 hours and all our gear would be palletized and sit in a loading area. We would be released after all the criteria was checked and we could go home or back to our duty sections.
One specific time I recall, I was going through the line behind one of our maintenance officers. It was winter time and all he had with him was the uniform he was wearing and a field coat. Everything else was simulated. We processed through the line, loaded up on a bus, they drove us to a waiting C-130. We loaded onto the 130, took off and flew to a base in Canada. We set up shop in Canada for two weeks and all he had with him were the clothes on his back.
If anyone has a processing line story to share, by all means, lay it on us.