Once upon a time, I was the team leader of the Initial Receiving Branch (IRB) at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. It was Summer Surge 2000, the time from early June to late September when soldiers arrive at military posts for basic training and/or AIT (Advanced Individual Training). It is the busiest time of year for training posts, legit hundreds of people showing up every day.
The stories I could tell about my time at the IRB… People be wilding. This was the lesson I learned during my time there.
Part of my job was to brief the incoming noobs. Part of that briefing was about the stuff they’d brought with them. About what they could keep during basic, what stayed in their bags, what they couldn’t have at all, like illegal stuff. There was another class stuff, too… stuff they didn’t keep on them or in their bags but didn’t have to get rid of. That was anything they had deemed to be “high-value,” which they could put into safekeeping in an ultra-secure area to get back at the end of basic.
At the end of my briefing, every soldier went through the amnesty room, a room they went into alone to go through their bags privately. There was a trash can and a slot in the wall that leads into a locked room only accessible by the Military Police. Anything they couldn’t have but that wasn’t illegal went in the trash, which we’d clear after each group. Anything they had (weapons, drugs, etc.) went in the slot. The amnesty room is a story for another time…! Once they were done in there, they came back into the briefing room if they had an item for safekeeping, where one of my soldiers would help them.
One night, I was fielding questions from some noobs post-briefing. One was from a female who I’d had to admonish more than once for talking and not paying attention during said briefing, which was evident when she posed her question. Where was she to go to put an item in safekeeping. Which I’d mentioned no less than three times. The location was barely six feet away, at the other end of the counter behind which I stood. Where my soldier was currently processing other safekeeping items for other noobs. So off she goes.
This chick walks over to where my male soldier is processing the items, waits her turn. Then she bends down, rummages through her bag, and pulls out something that she puts on the counter in front of him with an audible thunk.
This bitch plonked down a rubber schlong the size of which caused me physical pain just to look at. That motherfucker (no pun intended) rested on its… laurels?… on the counter like a weird sapling growing out of the formica. It was pushing two feet tall and as thick around as a can of soda. Horr-i-fy-ing. And that thing was a color not found in nature… a blinding hot pink. And there were things all over it. Tentacles and spikes and bumpy masses that looked like seeping growths. I’m no prude… but dayum, Daniel. I was skerred.
Among the things they couldn’t have was porn. Duh. Point of fact… dildos are generally considered “porn.” And porn got thrown away. Her argument was that this thing was an expensive, custom cast brute, so should be considered high-value and therefore eligible for safekeeping.
And this chick’s commentary on the item was nothing less that porn-soundtrack worthy.
My male soldier’s face was a color I’d never seen on skin before. He’d had no idea how to handle this particular situation, so he’d turned to me, his fearless leader, to take care of said situation. Problem with his thought process… I had no fucking idea. So I made a command decision and let her put her friend in safekeeping, mainly because I really didn’t want to engage in a prolonged conversation about said item nor her history with it.
Typically we used 9″x12″ clasp envelopes that we then secured with packing tape. The Big Daddy Dildo took a custom patchwork of 2.5 envelopes and an unholy amount of packing tape to secure.
I repeat… people be wilding.
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