Remember a week and a half ago I posted a picture of a school bus? Now you will finally find out about that school bus.
Weigh Over
When we were getting ready to leave Fort McCoy to fly to Afghanistan we had to get on a bus to go to the plane. Most of us got on a school bus with our "carry-on" gear and were sent to the scale. There was some worry that we would be over our weight limit, but our S4 kept reassuring everyone that we would run out of space before we went over weight. He would say, "We'll cube-out before we weigh-out."
I have to mention that this S4 worked for the Illinois Army National Guard full time, was a Major and was eventually convicted of a felony involving embezzlement.
We packed everyone below the rank of LTC onto the bus each with a very full duffel bag, personal weapon, helmet, body armor, mask and LBE. I was stuffed at the back, immobile under my bags and equipment. I slide the window down to breathe,
On the scale we paused and several people were getting on and off, walking around. The members of our unit that didn't have to do through the weigh-in were full timers, O5 and over, and Sergeants Major.
Some supply NCO got on the bus after a little while and said we had gone over our weight limit. He told everyone to pass their magazines up to be collected into a box. I don't know how these loaded magazines were going to get to Afghanistan, if not on our plane, but I didn't question it. We all helped them collect our ammo.
We waited again.
After another little while the Sergeant got on the bus again and said we were still over our limit, Now their solution was for us all to empty our canteens out the windows. This seemed ridiculous to me, so when I saw one of our LTCs walking bay I shouted out the window, "Sir, how far over the limit are we?"
He responded, "About seven thousand pounds."
More than three tons, we were over by more than three tons and someone thought we could make it by emptying our canteens?
I decided I was not going to bother to try to get to my canteen, unhook it and figure out a way to reach the window to hold the canteen out and empty it. I told everyone on the bus of my intentional procrastination. The NCO had already left the bus so I couldn't tell him.
Several minutes later someone got on the bus and said we were fine and were moving out.
I guess someone had a very large thumb on the scale. Maybe. I'll never know what happened, but it was probably somewhere between incompetence and corruption.
Do you hate school buses as much as I do?
Weigh Over
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| It is yellow like a bus |
When we were getting ready to leave Fort McCoy to fly to Afghanistan we had to get on a bus to go to the plane. Most of us got on a school bus with our "carry-on" gear and were sent to the scale. There was some worry that we would be over our weight limit, but our S4 kept reassuring everyone that we would run out of space before we went over weight. He would say, "We'll cube-out before we weigh-out."
I have to mention that this S4 worked for the Illinois Army National Guard full time, was a Major and was eventually convicted of a felony involving embezzlement.
We packed everyone below the rank of LTC onto the bus each with a very full duffel bag, personal weapon, helmet, body armor, mask and LBE. I was stuffed at the back, immobile under my bags and equipment. I slide the window down to breathe,
On the scale we paused and several people were getting on and off, walking around. The members of our unit that didn't have to do through the weigh-in were full timers, O5 and over, and Sergeants Major.
Some supply NCO got on the bus after a little while and said we had gone over our weight limit. He told everyone to pass their magazines up to be collected into a box. I don't know how these loaded magazines were going to get to Afghanistan, if not on our plane, but I didn't question it. We all helped them collect our ammo.
We waited again.
After another little while the Sergeant got on the bus again and said we were still over our limit, Now their solution was for us all to empty our canteens out the windows. This seemed ridiculous to me, so when I saw one of our LTCs walking bay I shouted out the window, "Sir, how far over the limit are we?"
He responded, "About seven thousand pounds."
More than three tons, we were over by more than three tons and someone thought we could make it by emptying our canteens?
I decided I was not going to bother to try to get to my canteen, unhook it and figure out a way to reach the window to hold the canteen out and empty it. I told everyone on the bus of my intentional procrastination. The NCO had already left the bus so I couldn't tell him.
Several minutes later someone got on the bus and said we were fine and were moving out.
I guess someone had a very large thumb on the scale. Maybe. I'll never know what happened, but it was probably somewhere between incompetence and corruption.
Do you hate school buses as much as I do?
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