I spent a little over a decade in the Air Force- had to get out to take of a critically injured family member. Anyway, during that time I learned a lot about discipline, honor and country. I saw many exotic lands- met a bunch of people, some friendly, some not. I saw some beautifully executed military operations and one or two clusterfucks. I once saw innocent chocolate chip cookies slaughtered for no good reason…
I was on a remote deployment in a nameless South American country. We were there 90 days at a time, a walk in the park compared to what the troops in the sandbox are doing now. Anyway, as you can imagine, mail is a big deal with you’re out in the middle of the boondocks- and we were no exception. Understand that this was also a rather hot location- and I’m not talking about the temperature. We were careful and there were some credible threats out there. So one day we get an unannounced suitcase on a plane from the embassy. No labels, just a rather large, locked bag. We stashed it in a huge tractor tire next to the hanger (let’s just say the airport was rustic). We called in the host nation’s bomb squad- they X-Rayed it- wires and batteries on the inside. Shit, this is not good. They decided to blow the locks off and possible set off a sympathetic explosion if there was a bomb in the case. Sounds like a plan. Except the tech who set the charge put a little too much explosive on the locks. So six of us are standing around holding M-16s, bomb techs with us, standing in a field. The suspect suitcase was on the other side of a big ass rock. Tech twists the detonator- we’re all expecting a pop and then maybe a bang if it’s a bomb. Instead, BOOOOOM! Dirt, rocks smoke everywhere. Little bits of paper start raining down- something lands on my collar. It’s a chocolate chip. What the hell??? More cookie fragments rain down- someone finds a AA battery. Something has gone wrong…
Turns out our liaison at the embassy decided to ship our mail on an extra suitcase- just didn’t let us know. The batteries and wire? Someone had a Walkman in a care package. Yep, we blew up our mail- and cookies…
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