Grumpy stirs the pot

No one really learned until much later what had been going on, but Grumpy had finally formed his plan and was about to pull the irreversible trigger that would set it in motion. He would eventually receive most of the credit for the coup d’ état that was being launched, but his narrow little mind couldn’t have known the full extent of where his carelessness and wasteful self-aggrandizement would carry everyone involved.

It was nearly midnight when the plot was finally vaulted into cyberspace. Grumpy sat in the near-total silence of the night at his computer in the Transportation office pounding on the keyboard. His face was red and the veins bulged in his normally long, flaccid neck. The voice inside his head had slowly played a crescendo until it was fortissimo and searching for a rest. Beads of sweat formed in the night time heat of the plywood office as he repeated to himself, “I ain’t afraid of you! I ain’t afraid of you!” With every repetition of the phrase, though, he realized that he was trying to convince himself that he wasn’t really afraid, but the vise clamped down on his gut and he knew that if he really committed himself by actually pressing the ‘send’ button that Maxx would be the last face he’d want to see. Maxx had left for three long weeks. Grumpy knew that he had time to pull this off if it would work.

The letter that he was sending would go directly to the Ethics Hot Line more than half a world away, but Grumpy knew that the repercussions would resound in his far-off corner of Iraq, and that the resonance would be thunderous as the entire corporate world would be brought down around Maxx’s quiet, peaceful life. He looked at his letter one more time and hesitantly reached up to hit “send.” He watched with demonic glee as the blue bar count percentages as the computer sliced up the information into tiny bytes of information and then rushed them off to Houston.

Grumpy’s hand shook as he pulled it away from the mouse. “Done!” the voice in his head screamed. It was finally over. Grumpy was about to change the direction of his life, but what he didn’t think about, or care about for that matter, was that the lives of everyone who would come into contact with his anger would be changed as well.

By seven in the morning the realization of what he had just done had grown and now loomed huge in his mind. The vise had nearly cut off his breathing and his heart struggled to beat as the voice continued to whisper in his head, “You’re a dead man! You’re a dead man!” Grumpy struggled to get himself through the shift change with the drivers and then he drove the white Chevrolet pickup truck to the dining facility to try and ease his tightness by picking up some more Rip-its. He downed two of the energy drinks at the DFAC before taking the rest of them with him to the truck. “You’re a dead man! You’re a dead man!” The voice taunted him and he knew that he would have to act fast to save himself before Maxx returned. He bumped quickly along the back road of the base, through the morning emptiness that gave him some comfort. Even the passing vehicles had become invisible and he failed to return the friendly waves of the passing drivers as his mind focused in on his hope of salvation.

He pushed the door open to the Operations tent and walked down the plywood hallway to the office of the base manager. “I need a transfer,” he trembled. “I need to go to another base just as soon as you can get me out of here.” The large, steel-hard man sat behind his desk and stared at Grumpy, his dark, deep-set eyes narrowing. “Why do you need a transfer?” Grumpy choked as he began to spin his tale of terror in the Transportation department. “I sent a letter to the Ethics Hotline and I need to get out of here before Maxx comes back.” Sam, the site manager considered the request momentarily. “I’m sorry. I can’t give you a transfer. You’ll have to go to H. R. and see if they can help you.”

Panic had set in by the time he opened the door to the H. R. office. “You’re a dead man! You’re a dead man!” the voice screamed. Joe, the soft-spoken H. R. supervisor listened quietly as Grumpy related the horrors of working in the Transportation department and how Maxx was continually threatening, intimidating and abusing him. “I suppose we’ll have to have an investigation before we can do anything,” he finally responded. Grumpy already felt like a dead man as the voice screamed even louder. The vise would never loosen its grip on his gut until either he or Maxx was gone from the base.

The magic white Rabbit

The base is laid out on a wide desert expanse that ends five miles away against a line of low hills in the north and east. The city of Tal Afar itself has been built up over thousands of years in a little crook of the hills due north of the base. Millenia ago it was a thriving settlement known as Karana. It commanded a view across the vast plain to the south and west where the ancient city of Qatarra was only a small dot in the distance.

The Syrian Desert, as barren and dusty as it is, sustains an amazing variety of animal life. One of the most prevalent animals is the lowly Jack Rabbit. It uses its speed and agility to avoid being caught by the foxes, fennecs, hyenas and jackals that live out their lives at night in the desert. The rabbit is prey, and so it hides. The Jack Rabbit’s fur is the same color as the desert floor and it blends with its surroundings and it uses its camouflage to hide from its enemies. The rabbit is a burrowing animal, able to dig into the hot, dry earth to create a cool refuge from the heat of the day.

One night, while driving along the base’s back road I watched a panic-stricken rabbit gallop across the headlight illuminated road while a pair of jackals bore down on it in hot pursuit. The wide-eyed rabbit suddenly disappeared from sight in the middle of the flat earth and the jackals dug at the ground and sniffed the hole as a last-ditch effort to get a filling meal. The wily rabbit had escaped with its life.

“Rabbit’s been identified on the daily list from KBR in Houston as one of the top 100 abusers of internet privileges in the entire corporation!” Maxx was agitated as he read the report again. “That Rabbit is absolutely worthless as an employee. This is the second time he’s come up on that list! If I get the chance to send him packing, he’s gone! I’m not putting up with this kind of B. S. any more.” That was my introduction to Rabbit. I hadn’t met him, but I knew that he was keeping himself busy at night cruising through the endless maze of the World Wide Web.

In 2008 Maxx had gone home for a vacation and he’d left me in charge of the department. I followed in Maxx’s footsteps by changing up my schedule to keep people guessing about when and where they might run across me or be observed. One night I opened the door to the Fuel Department office to check up on the employees there. Rabbit was alone, his back to the door, and when the door opened there was a flurry of activity on his keyboard as I watched an internet site disappear. “Is everything all right?” I asked. “Uh, yeah, fine.” Rabbit was shaken by the sudden, unexpected intrusion into his internet abyss. I closed the door and left quietly, making note of the reaction to my visit.

The next morning, after his customary trip to the weight room, Rabbit walked passed me as we met on the dirt road. “What were you doing last night?” he asked. “I was out checking on our people.” He’d never really met me before, let alone had me walk into his night shift routine and I could tell that he was wondering whether Maxx had specifically asked me to check up on him. Maxx hadn’t, but I thought it would be a good idea to keep everyone honest. Rabbit had a reputation and I was going to keep him on his toes.

Fuels had just recently been annexed to the Transportation Department and it had created some bad feelings already between Scalawag and Maxx. Maxx hadn’t asked for the assignment to assume control of the Fuel Department, just as he hadn’t asked for the assignment to come to Tal Afar in the first place. He’d just been ordered by management to “straighten things out.” It was a gift that Maxx had, getting things “straightened out.” Maxx sensed the ever-growing tension between himself and the Fuels people, so he called a meeting in the Transportation office with all of the Americans.

“I’ve called you all together to clear the air. I sense that we’re having some difficulties with the way things are being run. If anyone has anything that they want to say to me, I’m interested in hearing it. There will be no reprisals or recriminations. You can say anything you want.” There was a long silence and then Rabbit broke it. “I think you’re an a__hole.” Maxx didn’t skip a beat. “I think you’re a flaming a__hole, but that’s neither here nor there. I want to know why you think it.” Maxx, Scalawag and Rabbit moved into the office for a more private discussion. When they emerged a half hour later, they were all smiling and talking as if some new ground had been broken in their relationship. It appeared to ease the high tension that had been crackling in the air.

Rabbit was a solitary animal who lived one of the quietest lives of anyone on the base. I don’t think he ever left the Fuel Dept. office, except to visit the Porta-John that was just outside, and the night shift was always quiet anyway. Very few people actually worked at night. Transportation was one of the exceptions, with trucks filling huge tanks on a regular basis all day and all night long. Rabbit’s fuel trucks kept the generators running and there were a lot of fuel tanks to be filled. Rabbit, just like his foreman, Scalawag, didn’t have a license to drive the fuel trucks and that fact was the original cause of the friction between Maxx and the Fuel department.

“Scalawag, what good is a Transportation foreman to me who can’t even drive a truck?” Scalawag sensed the frustration in Maxx’s voice. “When they made me foreman here there was no requirement to have a Class A CDL. I know about fuels, not driving trucks.” Maxx understood the stupidity of this company that was accustomed to hiring people without the slightest interest in whether or not they could actually perform the job that they were being hired for. All the company needed was a warm body whom they could place in the position so that the government paychecks would begin pouring into the coffers. Each new employee came with a training price tag of several thousand dollars and the company would gather a huge group of new employees at a secure location for training. The employees were held at a local hotel and transported to the training location each morning. The group was fed at the location to avoid having them leave or stand around outside the building. Nothing about the process was to attract attention. This was the world of operational security and secrecy in the face of an inconspicuous enemy. As each new group of employees was quietly shipped off to the Middle East, the company also sent an invoice to the government for their training. Scalawag and Rabbit were just bodies to fill positions. They knew about fuels, but they had no ability to do more than sit in their office and push the mountainous stack of government-generated papers from one corner of the desk to the other. “Those two are absolutely worthless to me,” I heard Maxx repeat on several different occasions, and Rabbit was keenly aware of his precarious position within the department. His only hope was to keep galloping and shifting his position ahead of the jackals until he could reach his secret hole.

Malcontent

July 30, 2009

I had my doubts about Bling the first time I saw him. He’d arrived with two other Americans who were supposed to relieve some of our burden. Maxx and Dawg and I had all been holding the place together while everyone else was either playing on R&R or recovering from their various illnesses. Bling came in with the usual telltale signs, gold front teeth, gold chains and oversized black shirt and trousers. Everything about him screamed “attitude” but I’ve learned not to always trust my first impressions and so I thought I’d observe him for a while before passing my final judgment.

He came to us as a brand new employee, fresh from the States, who was looking for a chance to say that he’d been overseas for the first time in his life. He’d been working on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and had decided that he could get a job working for KBR and earn better money.

He wasn’t a man who liked to avoid conflict. In fact, he seemed to seek it out, right from the beginning. He’d learned that it was all right to use intimidation and bullying to get his way. “Man, I got a bone to pick!” he said to Maxx one evening after the shift change. “I’m workin’ overtime here and I’m not getting paid for it!” Maxx looked at him with disbelief on his face. “How are you working overtime?” Bling was ready for this fight. “Man, I work my twelve hours every day and when it’s time to leave there’s always somethin’ goin’ on that I have to stay for. I ought to get paid for every minute that I work past my regular hours.” “If you’re putting in less than fifteen minutes beyond your time, you don’t get paid for it. Besides, overtime needs to be approved ahead of time.” “This place is encroaching on my personal time. I need to go to the gym each night to work out.” Maxx was soft in his reply, but he was absolutely firm. “You’re not here to work out at the gym. You’re here to work for the military. That mission comes first and if there’s something that blocks you from your ‘personal time’ each evening, then you need to get over it. You won’t ever be paid for every minute of overtime. This is a war zone. Don’t forget that.”

Bling didn’t get over it. Someone had told him that KBR stood for “Kick back and relax” and he didn’t like the idea that this wasn’t going to be a cush job.

I watched him for those first few weeks of work and his attitude was always just a little bit over the top. “Man, I’m watchin’ those guys to make sure they’re doin’ what they’re s’posed to be doin’.” I watched him to see what his idea of ‘watchin’ those guys’ was. He’d sit inside of his air-conditioned pickup truck and read books with an occasional glance at the operation. His frequent gripes about how poorly the drivers were doing began to have its effect on the drivers’ attitudes. I never heard any encouragement come out of his mouth. I never heard him say, “You guys did a good job out there today.” He just seemed bent on crushing their spirits so that they’d be as miserable as he was.

He wasn’t worried about making a connection with the drivers and it was obvious that he didn’t really care about doing his job. He just wanted to collect his pay at the end of the month with a minimum of personal effort.

Maxx had just left on his three week R&R leaving me in charge of the day shift administrative duties. I was to fill in for Maxx. I was to make my observations while he was gone and one of my first was focused on Bling. I drove by the Tank Wash one afternoon and noticed that all of the employees were sitting outside in the heat. Bling’s pickup truck was parked in front of the office and so I decided to stop in and check up on the guys. They all stood when they saw me coming and they all had huge smiles on their faces when they realized that it was me. I parked the truck and stepped out. “Where’s Bling?” I asked. The coordinator nodded toward the closed office door and so I moved toward it. As I pulled the door open, Bling’s head jerked up and his eyes jumped from his lap to full alert. “Did you tell these guys that they couldn’t sit in the office?” I queried. It was my first question since the heat outside was unbearable and I couldn’t imagine anyone making a conscious decision to sit outside while a nice air-conditioned office sat nearly unoccupied. “No, man, I didn’t tell ‘em nothin’! They just chose to sit outside.” “All right, then.”

I told the coordinator that the office was there for them to stay cool in the heat of the day and that they were welcome to go inside. The coordinator nodded, but I could see that there was an unspoken conflict somewhere in what I’d just told him.

Back at the office a little later, Lumpy and Grumpy were sitting at their desks holding a little conference between foremen. Bling walked in because it was time for him to finish up his day. I wanted to make a point, but at the same time I didn’t want to raise tensions and so I decided to make Bling the subject of a hard time. “You guys need to keep an eye on Bling,” I commented with a smile on my face. “I opened the door at the Tank Wash this afternoon and his head popped up from a nap.” Bling jumped right on it with a full frontal attitude. “Man, you think I was sleepin’? I don’t sleep on the job! I was playin’ a video game! You didn’t see the game in my hands? And what was that thing about tellin’ the guys that they couldn’t sit in the office!” The conversation had just become unproductive. “Bling, I was just giving you a hard time. As far as the question goes, it’s based on my past experience because of someone who used to lock the employees out of the office while he sat inside and read.” Bling retaliated once more to make sure that I got the point. “I don’t sleep on the job, man! I was playin’ a video game!” I don’t know whether he realized it or not, but it was the wrong thing to admit. I walked out of the office. I thought to myself that if Jim-E had given Bling the same hard time, it would have been funny. It was undeniable that Bling looked at me and Jim-E with different eyes.

Grumpy followed me outside. “Lumpy and I heard what went on in there. If you want us to write statements, we will.” I gave it a moment’s thought. “No, that’s all right. I can talk to Bling about it. I don’t see any major harm and I don’t think we need to bring H.R. into the equation.” I regret that answer. I wish now that I’d had them write their statements.

Bling seemed to be out of control a few days later on June 6^th when one of our bus drivers, Lalith, came through the office door in tears. “What’s going on, Lalith?” He stood there at my desk and sobbed, “Sir, Mr. Bling not like me. He telling me I go home. You like my father but Mr. Bling yelling at me, tell me I going home.” I was wondering what had really happened because of the language barrier, but I felt like the truth was there in Lalith’s eyes. “Bling was yelling at you?” “Yes, sir.” “What was he yelling about?” I inquired. “Sir, bus stop very bumpy. Bus rocks this way and that way when I drive in. Mr. Bling tell me I speeding but I not speed. Bus not good. Bus rocks when I drive slow.” I tried to give him some consolation. “It’s all right, Lalith. I’ll have a talk with Bling.”

Bling walked through the door just minutes later. “I just had a driver come to me in tears because you were yelling at him.” The attitude came back with full force. “Man, that’s bull sh__! I didn’t yell at him!” “Bling, I’m not trying to place blame here, I’m just trying to understand what happened to make him so upset.” Bling grew slightly quiet. “He was speeding through the bus hub. His bus was rockin’ back and forth until I thought he was going to tip it over.” “Did you drive the bus to see if the problem was mechanical?” “Naw, man. He was speedin’.” It was obvious that Lalith was terribly upset when he stepped into the office and I knew that there was more to the story that Bling didn’t want to admit.

I followed up that evening by driving Lalith’s bus through the bus stop. He was right. No matter how slowly I drove the bus, it rocked violently back and forth. A terrible grinding noise was coming from the passenger side front suspension as it rocked. The bus needed to go to Maintenance for a check up. I thought it might be well for Bling to go somewhere for a checkup, too.

Five days later, on June 11^th, Aslam complained that Bling had ordered him to remain in the office during the day and that he was not to go out inspecting the Porta-Johns. I was surprised by the complaint because Bling didn’t have any authority to work with either the Porta-Johns or the office staff but Bling had arrived at the conclusion that he was now in charge. “I’m sorry, Aslam. I’ll talk to Bling about the situation and I’ll let him know that it’s a part of your job to check P.J.’s during the day.” I sent Bling a kind e-mail explaining that Maxx and I had given Aslam the responsibility to inspect a number of Porta-Johns each day so that we could spread the work out between those of us who had been given the responsibility and inspect about 180 every day. There was no response to the letter and Bling didn’t bother Aslam again about it.

The next morning, though, Bling attempted to pull another member of the office staff off of his appointed duties to have him clean buses at the main bus stop. On June 12^th the temperature was 103 degrees in Tal Afar and cleaning the buses would have been like working inside an oven. Again, I talked to Bling about pulling people off of their regular duties. Again, there was no response, but there were no more attempts to pull people from their regular work. Bling had become quiet.

Anger

24 July 2009

“Lumpy J. if you’re nasty!” Maxx called it out as Lumpy stepped into the office. I’d been gone on R&R for the previous two weeks and so the inside joke was wasted on me. Lumpy laughed a goofy laugh and began his report. “I checked on da Tank Wash and everything looked OK dere. I checked da bus stop and everything looked OK dere.” Lumpy habitually changed his TH’s into D’s—dis, dat, dose, dese, dem, dere. “I’m gonna go down to Fuels and take care a’ da report fer dem.” Lumpy’s large, round face had a serious look on it, full of concentration, as if he were trying not to let his feelings show. He turned without any further comments and walked out of the office. I thought it was pretty uncharacteristic of Lumpy to keep his words from spilling out. He’s never been able to do that before. In fact, one day Maxx and I watched him driving the white pickup truck past us on the road. He was alone in the cab of the truck but he was chatting away with some unseen rider. He’s never been able to hold his words in before.

A month and a half before this, Lumpy came in to the office one morning with a hand that was swollen to the size of a cantaloupe. “What happened to your hand!” Dawg was dumbfounded at the sight. “I must a’ hit it in da shower or somethin’. I don’t know.” Maxx was right on Dawg’s tail. “What the hell happened to your hand!” Lumpy chuckled as he swooped his hands in a wide, circling gesture. “I don’t know. I must a’ hit it in da shower or somethin’.” He was examined by the medic and then by the military doctor. The Army doctor was fresh out of medical school and a first deployment soldier. He was the only real doctor on the base, but he’d received all of the required training in treating trauma victims and he’d spent his residency working in the emergency room. “Are you certain that you weren’t stung by a scorpion? Are you allergic to anything? You’re going to need to go home for treatment. We can’t help you here. This is going to require some sophisticated tests to determine what’s happened.” Lumpy was sent home for several weeks.

I left to go back home for R&R while Lumpy was out of the country and so I wasn’t in on the big inside joke about his new nickname, “Lumpy J. if you’re nasty,” but I used my own imagination to come up with the possibilities. It was an inside joke between Maxx and Lumpy, but Lumpy was only laughing on the outside. It became apparent later that his true feelings were slowly smoldering on the inside.

Lumpy returned from his state-side medical treatment after a month away from the camp and the first thing he did upon his return was to walk into Maxx’s office and ask for his next R&R! Maxx was wondering if Lumpy had just lost his mind. “Do you mean to tell me that after a full month in the United States of America you want to go back for another three week vacation!” “Well, uh, yeah. It’s time for my R&R and I want to go back home.” Maxx sat in his office after Lumpy had left and stared at the ceiling. “What kind of idiot would come back to work after a month away and then want to turn around and take another three weeks!” It was outside of Maxx’s frame of reference. He’d never witnessed anyone so brazenly lazy before. “If Lumpy can be gone for two months, then why do we even need him here?” That was a question that Maxx would ask himself many times over the next few months. “Why do we even need him here?”

Lumpy had been sent to our department from the headquarters base. He’d worked in the Fuel Department there and it was hoped that he could fill in and lend a hand in our Fuel Department where Scalawag had constantly complained about how overworked he was and how understaffed his department was. Scalawag was another character in the department, a supervisor of Fuels who didn’t have a driver’s license and who couldn’t even drive his own fuel trucks. “He’s absolutely worthless to me as a foreman,” Maxx would say. “How does a company hire a foreman who can’t even drive his own vehicles? When they need a new driver trained, he can’t do the training. It’s left to me to get the training done. He’s worthless.”

The Fuels supervisor on the headquarters base had finally reached his limit of trying to work with Lumpy. “He likes to hide during his shift. Nobody can find him. He’s a lazy man who likes to disappear,” he warned Maxx. “That won’t happen on this base. My people check in with me on a regular basis or they don’t work for me.” That was the truth. Maxx kept a close eye on his people. They didn’t sleep on the job, they didn’t go to the gym on the job, and they didn’t just disappear on the job. “I’m a firm believer in President Reagan’s philosophy of ‘trust but verify’,” he told me on several occasions. He expected all of the Americans to follow his lead with their people, and I took it to heart with the bus drivers. I was always kind when I caught them goofing off, but they knew that they’d been caught and I let them know that my expectations were much higher and it didn’t take long to teach them where the limits were.

In May, just before Maxx left for his much-needed vacation, Lumpy came into the office one afternoon and reported to Maxx that the hose that had needed a clamp at the Brine Pond was still unclamped. “Why hasn’t that been done?” Maxx inquired. “Uh, Grumpy left a note for me to have Indika saw de hose off and den to clamp it over a new fitting and Indika never got around to it.” Maxx was suddenly in a rare angry mood. “I have three foremen in this department and they all want Indika to do their work for them! You are a foreman! Get out there and get that hose clamped off!” Lumpy had been looking for a way to get out of doing the actual physical labor. The Brine Pond was a hot place and the temperature was edging over 100 degrees each day. Indika was a translator in the office, but he was willing to do anything for his American bosses and Grumpy and Lumpy both liked to take advantage of him.

It was still May, just after Maxx had left for his R&R, when Lumpy walked into the office one morning and announced, “I ain’t getting’ into dem discussions at de Dee-fack at night. Uh-uh. Dey ain’t talkin’ ‘bout nothin’ good down dere. I ain’t even gettin’ involved. It’s some bad stuff dat dey’re talkin’ ‘bout. I don’t even want to be around it. Uh-uh. Dat Rabbit likes to talk ‘bout some bad stuff.” It was a typical conversation with Lumpy. No one ever had to respond because it just rolled out of his mouth. I knew that Rabbit was a trouble maker. I’d already heard about how he liked to stir up discontent and then sit back and watch it roil. I didn’t jump in on Lumpy’s conversation because it was so typical and I was seriously tired of encouraging him. A question could have kept the verbal waterfall tumbling for another two hours so I let the words slip off of my ears like a drop of water on an oil slicked slope. In another couple of weeks I’d add that to my growing list of regrets.

Turmoils

24 July 2009

The intrigue has passed and the weeks of hell are finished in Iraq, but the bitter taste remains, the bitter flavor of stupidity and waste. A good man’s name was darkened by a few fellow workers who all had the evil motive of revenge in their hearts, and the bitterness was made more acrid by the fact that it was motivated by the kind of revenge that comes after being caught in their own laziness and stupidity.

This is a long story that concludes my time in Iraq, but I have lots of time on my hands right now as I’m searching for new employment.

Evidently, this whole miserable affair began nearly a year ago in about October. Grumpy, the night shift foreman, had modified his jacket by cutting the pockets out so that he could fill the entire lining with drinks that he was stealing from the dining facility. He relished the notion that he could stuff his jacket full of fruit juices and “Rip it’s,” ‘energy’ drinks that are popular with the soldiers in Iraq. Each morning when I arrived at the office Grumpy would laugh about how many drinks he’d been able to sneak out of the chow hall during the night.

One morning Grumpy wasn’t in a good mood because he’d been followed around the dining facility by the night shift supervisor who’d been alerted that he was up to mischief during the midnight meal. That evening, after considering his new situation he had decided that it must have been Maxx who had given the hint to the chow hall staff. Maxx hadn’t said anything to the dining facility staff, but Grumpy had already decided that it was certainly Maxx who must have tipped them off. As his night shift was just beginning, Grumpy stormed into Maxx’s office and shouted, “I ain’t afraid of you! You don’t scare me!” Maxx returned with a quiet voice, “Would you like to take this outside?” That struck Grumpy as a threat, but Maxx insisted that he was merely asking if he would like to step outside the office for some privacy in their conversation. They moved outside and around the corner of the building where they would be able to have a more private confrontation, but Dawg, who remained inside the building, could hear Grumpy screaming at Maxx. After Grumpy had blown off all of the steam that he’d built up during the day they returned to the bustling office and continued with the shift change.

Grumpy returned after the shift change was over and apologized to Maxx for his blow-up. “I’ve just had a bad day. I didn’t mean to blow up at you,” he confessed. Maxx admitted that he’d had a long day, too, and that sometimes being cooped up on the base can get to a person. The confrontation was dropped and forgotten. Well, at least that’s what Maxx assumed.

Two days later he was surprised by a note from the Human Resources Department. “We request that you respond to the following statement that was submitted concerning your conduct.” The statement alleged that Maxx had threatened Grumpy and that Grumpy was fearful for his safety. Maxx responded to the allegation and a meeting was called by the Human Resources Department to go over the event. The site manager sat in on it and the meeting ended with the apologies being extended once more. “Why did you take this to H.R?” Maxx asked. “I thought you were going to talk to H.R. and I wanted to beat you to the punch,” was all that Grumpy could come up with. Maxx shook his head in disbelief.

Because of the nature of the allegations, the Deputy Director of Logistics and the Director of Transportation had also been notified so they flew in from Headquarters on the very first available flight. A second meeting was held that included the site manager and the Human Resources supervisor. The meeting ended once more with apologies from Grumpy and the incident was closed. At least that’s what everyone assumed—again.

Grumpy’s famous jacket became a joke, not only in Transportation, but across the entire base. Grumpy had been caught by the staff at the dining facility and had been reprimanded by the supervisor there. He was humiliated and angry because he couldn’t continue to steal his drinks from the chow hall. Every time he walked into the building the staff was alerted to his presence and an ‘observer’ was assigned to him for the entire time span of his meal. Grumpy’s infamous jacket had become a joke, too, until Maxx finally decided to put it out of its misery. A solemn ceremony was held in the Transportation yard with all of the American staff present. The jacket was hung on the concrete blast wall and a match was put to it. The jacket, 100% synthetic, burned nearly instantly. “I paid $20 for that jacket in Russia about ten years ago. It paid for itself many times over in juice and Rip its” Grumpy was proud of his chow hall escapade and he wanted us to know that he’d really put one over on the dining facility staff. It wasn’t about the drinks. It was a glimpse at Grumpy’s brooding dark side.

Maxx had arranged for the ceremony for the demise of the old, brown jacket but he didn’t want Grumpy to feel like he was just the brunt of a cruel joke. Maxx had gone to the P.X. that afternoon and had bought Grumpy a brand new jacket. He’d paid considerably more than $20 for it, too. It was presented to an ungrateful Grumpy at the end of the ceremony.

The winter progressed and Grumpy wore his new, warm jacket during the cold December nights as he drove the FOB to check on the drivers. Something happened that made us all wonder about Grumpy that month, though. The Rip its and the juices began to show up again. Maxx asked him one morning about all of the drinks. “I found out that if you take out a ‘to-go’ plate at the DFAC you can take two drinks with it. I just take out six to-go plates and that gives me twelve drinks.” The answer to the next question was absolutely predictable. “What do you do with all of those meals?” “I just throw them in the dumpster.” Grumpy was reprimanded again, but this time it was Maxx who did the reprimand. “There’s such a thing as fraud, waste and abuse on this base. Don’t you ever let me find out that you’re dropping perfectly good food into the dumpster just so you can get a lifetime supply of juice boxes!” Word was sent to the dining facility and the chow hall observer resumed his midnight vigilance. As he spoke with the DFAC manager, Maxx learned that Grumpy had told the staff that he was taking plates to Maxx at each meal. Maxx was furious that his name had been used to cover Grumpy’s lie.

In January Grumpy struggled into the office one evening. He didn’t look well, his face was pale and the tone was gone from his skin. “What’s wrong, Grumpy?” Maxx was clearly concerned. “It’s kind of embarrasin’,” Grumpy mumbled. After some coaxing, Maxx was able to draw it out. Grumpy’s colon was suddenly extended outside of his rectum. “This is serious,” the medic told him. “This is extremely serious,” the military doctor told him. When asked about his diet he explained that he’d been losing massive amounts of weight by drinking Rip its as his only source of nourishment. “They’re full of vitamins,” he boasted. “Your diet could kill you,” the doctor admonished. ”We can’t do anything for you here. You’re going to have to go home for medical care until you’re well enough to work again.” Grumpy was suddenly thrust into a situation where he found his life swirling out of control. An email notice arrived from Baghdad. “Any employee who leaves for medical treatment is not guaranteed employment at the conclusion of the treatment.” Grumpy reeled in anguish. He had no money. He sent his entire paycheck home to his wife who had managed to spend every nickel every month for nearly five years. “I can’t go home if I’m going to lose my job. I’ve got to stay here.” “You can’t stay here with your medical condition. You have no choice.” KBR had no compassion. They were seeing red ink every day because of an overburden of employees. They were looking for ways to be rid of people.

Maxx came to Grumpy’s aid. He started a campaign to hold Grumpy’s job for him, at least for 30 days, to allow him enough time to have surgery and to get back to Tal Afar. Maxx talked to H.R. and to the base manager. He called the Deputy Director of Logistics on the phone. He wrote to the Project Manager in Baghdad. He made a case for Grumpy, who had been loyal to the company for five years. Maxx was heard at the highest levels and Grumpy was given 30 days to return to duty.

Nobody expected Grumpy to come back, but we all prayed for him. Candace’s daughter who is a nurse told us just how serious this could be for Grumpy. “He could spend the rest of his life with a bag strapped on his leg. He could die.”

Grumpy arrived in Florida within three days of leaving Tal Afar. He went straight to his doctor who examined him and was amazed that his condition had corrected itself. “You can return to work as soon as your company clears you.” Grumpy fought the system for nearly a month until he was successful in his struggle and was told that he could return to work. He arrived in Tal Afar on the thirtieth day after his departure. His job had been saved.

The storm's aftermath

On June 17^th we had a terrific dust storm with high winds and thunder and lightning. The walls of my hooch rocked and whistled all night long against the steady pressure. The lightning flashed outside, painting the inside of my dancing room blue. I kept expecting the generator to be shut down, but it chugged on through the storm and kept my air-conditioner running.

In the morning there was a thick coat of red dust on every object in my room and the floor was covered, leaving footprints as my flip-flops dragged across it. The daylight outside was still filtered and orange as the dust continued to settle from hundreds of feet in the air, covering the walls and vehicles and camouflaging the already dried mud spots where rain had dropped through the fine grit.

As I drove to the DFAC for a bite of breakfast I was astounded by the damage that I found across the camp. Porta-Johns were torn from their moorings and pushed every which way across the ground. One huge maintenance tent, probably 100 feet by 50 feet, had been torn apart in the winds. The green canvas was missing from the roof and the yellow fiberglass insulation was scattered for miles to the east. The inner lining, a white layer of light-weight material was shredded by the wind and flapped peacefully in the breeze that continued to push eastward. The roof was nothing more than an aluminum skeleton. A few labor crew employees walked across the barren fields dressed in plastic hazmat suits, plastic gloves, hard hats, dust masks and safety glasses as they picked up the torn, scattered fiberglass, a very hot job when the temperature reaches into the nineties very early in the day.

That was the wind that blew outside through the night. Inside the office another wind was blowing—an ill wind.

(To be continued)