Dirty Laundry

Mine is bad enough, I don't really want to look at yours, let alone touch it...

Last Friday afternoon the Army unit that is responsible for students here held a Health and Welfare. The unit asked our company to provide NCOs to help so it would be done all the faster. It still took over two hours to inspect the barracks of the company I was helping out. I won't go into the specific dirty laundry that caused the entire unit to do this for all the barracks Soldiers, but I will say that the Army uses Health and Welfares for a number of reasons - an inspection of general living conditions and cleanliness and a check for contraband. Contraband is also loosely defined, so that individual unit commanders have a little bit of leeway to decide on what 'contraband' is exactly. For example, Army wide, the barracks alcohol policy ranges from one 6-pack of beer per individual (that's was the policy when I was a student here) to full bar = OK. This being a TRADOC unit, the barracks policy is fairly strict but there are a lot of things that are not considered contraband now that were when I was a student.

Few things struck fear in my heart more than the words Health and Welfare. This wasn't because I ever had contraband. It was more because I hated the idea of someone coming into my room and having to go through the contents of my laundry bag or seeing last nights dirty dinner bowl stored in my fridge because I was too lazy to clean it before bed.

After having helped out with the inspections last week, I think nothing has changed. The rooms I checked ranged from slightly disorganized to very clean. But, I still had to dump dirty laundry all over the floor and sort through it to make sure there wasn't anything hidden there. I remember how embarrassing it was for me to have my stuff dumped like that, so I tried to be quick in addition to being thourough.

I remember the last Health and Welfare we had before I graduated and left this place in 93. I was standing in the hallway at 0400 watching the NCOs make their way from room to room. I silently prayed that the team that got my room wouldn't be the two female SGTs. It was. I was red faced the entire time they were in my room. Nothing like having a pair of women that you don't even know and that outrank you by several paygrades going through your dirty drawers, right?

It was interesting to see how the students are living now. Many live in the same barracks I lived in, but now it seems that a lot more have rooms all to themselves. That's nice because most of the rooms are fairly small. Mine was and I had a room mate the entire time.

My partner made a joke every time he found some porn. Mostly to relieve the tension the student probably had when it was discovered. That's another thing I wouldn't want someone finding. Of course, some of the stuff these guys had... well, let's just say "Different strokes for different folks". HAHA!

At least I only inspected male rooms. My buddy was partnered with a female NCO and worked the female floor. He reported back to the 1SG before he left that he found something longer than 3 and a half inches, but it wasn't a knife. The female NCO that inspected in the building I was in, found a book about sexual positions and techniques and embarrassed the male she was partnered with right out of the room by discussing the contents with the resident. Too much information was shared.

Overall, it was a learning experience for me. I've been on this side of Health and Welfares before, but I've always been in roles other than that of the inspector.

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