The Box

The soldiers working in the Conn Barracks post office had it easy compared to their battles sweating it out in the field or in the motor pool. Yes, it was a lot of sorting, lifting, and careful handling of fragile packages and long awaited mail from home, with a lot of smoking and joking in the air conditioned offices. These pogues had it made, but you always wanted them on your side. After all, it could be your mail they were handling. Anything derogatory you had to say needed to be done a safe distance away and shared in confidence with others that would not blow your cover. Or else mail could go missing.

The mailroom got two deliveries a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, well before the soldiers rucked out of the motor pool, or wherever they happened to be working, on their way to a barracks barbeque or to the Stadt for a good Hefeweizen.

Most days the trucks were full. Unloading greetings from abroad, care packages made with love, full of American magazines, sweets from home, cigarettes, lotion, DVDs, books. Sweet and bitter letters from mothers, husbands, wives, boyfriends, lovers, an occasional dear John in the stack. And, last, but not least, the box.

It arrived at APO AE 09054 GERMANY, in the second delivery, addressed to one Pvt. Janet Pedrosa. It could have been called ordinary except it lacked a return address and was certainly not what one would qualify as square or even squarish. The sides were concave and wrapped entirely in brown paper marked with small black slash marks, as if someone was ticking off time.

The boys didn't think anything of it, and they tossed it in the package pile along with the many shapes and sizes growing there. Their music was loud and they were busy sorting and occasionally breaking to smoke. Not sensing anything out of the ordinary they carried on this way until Captain Ayala made an appearance. Swenson turned the music down and both he and Germain stood at attention. "Carry on boys", Captain Ayala said in his laid back Texas drawl. "I just came to pick up my mail and check in on you". Swenson and Germain relaxed at the Captains behest, continued sorting, without the music this time as Captain Ayala looked at the mail room proudly, knowing these soldiers kept it squared away. This reflected well on his leadership and he was up for promotion soon, so he owed these gentlemen.

After sorting through his own mail he said, "You soldiers do outstanding work. Keep it up". He turned to leave and then he heard it, tick, tick, tick. He held his hand up, "Shh, you boys hear that?", he asked with concern. Germaine and Swenson looked at each other, shrugging "Hear what Sir", Germaine said, looking puzzled. "That", said the Captain in a whisper, not moving, hand still held up to quiet them. They strained. tick, tick tick. Now the boys heard it, and slowly but surely leapt into action.

This had never happened in a post mail room, at least not here and no where they could think of. A possible bomb. That's crazy. The worst that they had seen was maybe some soft porn sent over for the poor boys who couldn't get any.

"Look, it's coming from that box addressed to Pedrosa" Swenson said and grabbed the mail room phone. After the report to the MPs of a ticking package, things happened quickly. There was no time to waste. The MPs deployed the EOD , evacuated Ayala, Swenson and Germaine and put up a blockade of at least 2 square blocks around the mail room.

The ordinance specialists quickly removed the brown paper package, with it's concave sides, and placed it in the middle of the street, far from any building. About this time soldiers were streaming back to their barracks. They were a naturally curious bunch and got as close as they could to the action. This is what they lived for after all. The MPs encouraged them to keep moving, but as long as they stayed behind the tape there wasn't a lot they could do to control gathering crowd.

You couldn't miss the explosive ordinance disposal specialists decked out in their bulky and tactical bomb tech gear. It was very clear what this was and what was happening on this Kasern in Schweinfurt Germany.

"Shit", someone in the crowd exclaimed loudly, "it's a damn bomb?" "No way", someone else said. And the chatter continued, like armchair banter during a national football game. The realization that this was an emergency situation that could easily go south sent no one running. That wasn't the nature of these soldiers. They were now in this for the long haul.

These were American nationals on foreign soil under the auspices of the SOFA agreement. Tensions often flared as American soldiers would converge into bars, restaurants and nightclubs without even trying to learn a lick of German. The threat level was low, but tensions were often high. This could be a planted bomb sent by the illusive enemy the Americans were always fighting.

The ordinance crew moved careful around the wrapped brown paper box, using long probes to check for any wires or inconsistencies. This was delicate work and one wrong move could send them to heaven.

Several EODs surrounded the box and all of a sudden, unexpectedly, a loud alarm sounded, causing the crowd to jump back nervously. One of the EOD guys whipped off his helmet, puts his head back and belly laughed, soon after the other two EODs were doing the same. This kind of whacky behavior was not unexpected from this crazy crew. After all, you had to be slightly touched to have signed the dotted line for this duty.

The apparent leader of the pack, still laughing, held something up in his right hand. It was an old fashioned Micky Mouse winding alarm clock. tick tick tick. A gift from mother to daughter, intended to help Janet make it to PT on time. A gift that would never be forgotten or lived down in the history of Conn Barracks.