It’s time for every groundbreaking ceremony ever
YOUR BASE, Your Current/Upcoming Duty Station — We regret to inform you that your entire section will be slated to (finally) attend a groundbreaking ceremony in the near future.
We can imagine your surprise. We ourselves are surprised. After all, it seemed only yesterday someone near retirement told you the new facility was going to be moved to some other logistical black hole in 2010, before you were even in. That would have compounded the already substandard parking situation. But you will be relieved to know the powers that be have hashed out that the new facility will be built here, on this dump. You will eventually only have to trek a mere two miles to work as opposed to the marathon you currently run. The “good” news ends there.
True, that asbestos-ridden homeless shelter you call a barracks has not been renovated since before you were born, but we have priorities. Yes, we know that the MWR Center has seen better days in like…the GWOT. But we are focused on the future here, not the past. We have to consolidate multiple missions under one roof in order to make sure your future service members will be sitting in what is essentially a joint telephone booth.
Remember, it could be worse. You could have worked at the JIOCEUR Analytic Center. After dicking around, trying to move to RAF Crouton a paltry 50-some miles southwest for years on end, budgetary things took a turn for the surreal. An overly, shall we say “ambitious,” congressman intended to move the post from the second-world United Kingdom to the Azores of all places, a move so boneheaded and suspect it resulted in an IG report. Stop laughing. I’m serious. Now it’s getting built on the base they originally said was going to close. So there’s that.
Look lively and press that dress uniform! Get ready for an hour of the commander thanking everyone—particularly the concerted fundraising efforts in D.C. and their respective backers in Congress—to get this white elephant approved. You’ll thrill yourself senseless standing in a parking lot during that said hour, wondering what all this is about. Pity you will not be coming back to this duty station any time soon and definitely not in 2037, when the whatever-it-is is complete.
Tony has to go to medical that afternoon.