coffee cup image

Aug 05 2007

Hurry Up and Wait

Posted by Dale @ 7:52 pm in Deployment Print This Post Print This Post

This week, I’m at Fort Benning, Georgia for some pre-deployment processing at the CONUS* Replacement Center (CRC). The last time I was at Ft Benning was in 1984 for Infantry Basic and Advanced Individual Training and Airborne School. This time around, I have 1 roommate (in a 4-person room). Twenty-three years ago, I had about 30 roommates! Another significant change is that no one has yelled at me the entire 2 days I’ve been here. I’m able to eat in peace in the mess hall. There are stalls around the toilets. I even get to put a lock on my wall locker. All in all, this is a much different experience than when I joined the Army.

However, there is one thing that hasn’t changed — hurry up and wait. We rush around to get somewhere so that we can wait for something to happen. This morning, we had formation at 0550 for the Army personnel. There are individuals from the other services here as well as Department of the Army civilians and contractors. Everyone that is deploying as an individual must process through CRC. So anyway, I was sitting in the bleachers at 0550 with the other 80 or so Army personnel. Around 0610 two busses showed up. The NCOIC grabbed 44 soldiers, put them on the first bus, and sent them to be issued some equipment for deployment, like boots and helmets. Then he informed the rest of us that the station we were going to wouldn’t open until 0700. At about 0655, we went to our station to get fitted for our Advanced Combat Uniforms (ACUs). When we all got seated in the room, the civilian running the site said we couldn’t start until his co-worker returned from running an errand. We finally began processing through this station (our first for the day) at about 0725.

As a private, you learned to accept “hurry up and wait”. I’m finding it much harder to accept now. A few times while sitting in the bleachers waiting this morning, I thought about going up to the NCOIC to discuss the situation. But I decided that at that point, there would be no point in doing that. I did notice another Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) do just that.

* Continental United States

One Response to “Hurry Up and Wait”

  1. On 06 Aug 07 at 10:00 am,
    Mugs said:

    That’s what I love about you…You think about acting like an obnoxious LTC, but you delay long enough to allow someone else to make your mistake.

Leave a Reply