For anyone who owns the “Drinks After Work,” you know this
song. Well, if you have the deluxe edition, anyway. In keeping with the
wrapped-around-the-flag image he’s cultivated so well, Toby Keith sings this cutesy
song about how, if you’re in trouble, it’s handy to have a Marine nearby who
can bail you out. In the lyric (and I think this was co-authored by Scotty
Emerick, but it doesn’t say in the liner notes), they’re built to “improvise,
adapt and overcome.”
I have Marines. Most posts do, although mine didn’t until
they moved into a new building. I haven’t met them all yet, but I did figure out which one is from Florida.
They live in a compound at the office. From what I can tell,
it’s one building and an outside area with a basketball hoop, although I’m not
entirely sure. I knew they lived in the city, but I had no idea they were on
the premises. From what I understand, they rotate out after a year.
On Friday, I went to my first Marine promotion. Normally
these are big, impressive events, with everyone in the battalion (and I hope
that’s the right term) in attendance. In this case,
there aren't all that many, so some of the people from the
office came and watched it. It’s a big deal to the person being promoted, and
it really was a formal ceremony. Small and impressive as opposed to big and
impressive. The head guy has everyone in line, and the “officer to be promoted!”
stands in back. After the head guy informed us of the protocol and importance,
he called up the corporal, who then stood at attention as the higher up read
the declaration (I’m sure there’s a technical term) of his promotion to
sergeant.
It didn’t take all that long, and after it’s over everyone
in the room congratulated him. I hadn’t met him before, at least that I know
of. They guard the doors, but sit behind this glass that has a horrible glare
and I can’t tell who’s in there. Not that I have the names down or anything. I
think I know two of the names. They have their individual pictures posted
on the door to their main office and I tried to memorize that.
The names are going to kill me. I have about 120 people in
my department and I’ve probably gotten down 10 percent of the names. I am just
so bad with names. I have one of the sub-department’s bio sheets bookmarked and
when someone comes by I try to match up the name and face. It doesn’t work all
that often, and the photos don’t show size. One guy came in and said he was
Eddy and I thought he was Ben. Ben is about six inches shorter, but they look
similar in the photo.
There’s a lot of local staff, too, and man, it’s rough. I
went with a group of three to do a daily paperwork exchange with S, Ben (a
different Ben) and Ken. Then I switched and joined another group and promptly
forgot all those names. I think the one woman went by initials. I’m really not
good for more than two new names a day. I had already figured out S, so
Ben and Ken were the new ones. And Jack is in the office supply room. Or maybe
that was Jerry. Then there are three Cherrys. It’s very confusing.
On my errands with S, Ben and Ken, they were showing me
how to do this hand-off. We went downstairs and through some kind of garage
thing with two doors. I had no idea if I was supposed to shut the one door or
not so I was kind of standing there and S couldn’t get out. I thought we
were locked in, but she’d had that issue before and got it straight, so we made
it out. (You manage to figure out quickly who runs the place, and S is one
of those. Good person to know.)
Anyway, since that little errand is a daily thing, and I can
see myself botching it, I asked if they ever did get stuck in that room. She said
yes, it’s happened before. I asked what happened if you did get stuck in there
and she said, “Oh, you call a Marine.”
I swear, I am halfway around the world from Nashville and my life is a country song.
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