Many years ago, I was part of an advance team coming back from Iraq well ahead of the main body. After touching down and given a "Welcome Home" celebration we were given a forty-eight hour pass and those that had family already there went with them but that left a large amount that did not behind and stuck in the barracks for the weekend.
At the time I was just a humble Private First Class, an E-3, very shy, a mere boy in uniform standing at a short 5'10", very thin at 130 pounds with a crew cut brown hair and eyes and constantly picked on and joked about by the rest for this. Everyone else smoked, drank, and, of course had sex except for me. At the time I was a virgin and tried to keep it a secret, waving off questions, but after being deployed for a year we were all pent up with testosterone. There were women in our unit, most were rather plain looking or married, and there was the prohibited sex, of course people broke it so much that there was large bowl of condoms in the battalion aid station.
The first morning back in the States I awoke and stepped outside the barracks and breathed in the clear air of Kansas the polar opposite of the sandy, shit stank, of Iraq and my first mission was to find a cheeseburger at the on base Burger King. No one was outside but me, in my civvies, it was an odd feeling, the clothes did not fit properly and of course neither did the shoes for my body had changed proportions being deployed and for a while it looked like a new born calf walking. Coming back to the barracks after a couple of hours I saw Sergeant Jeremiah stepping out. He was a tall, thin, black man with a bald head, but had muscles to his body. When he came out his eyes turned about and saw me and I do not know the reason why he called me over.
"I know you, you're the young guy right?" he asked.
"Yes, sergeant" replying trying to place my body in a "at ease position" to which he laughed and waved it down.
"Relax, man, we're back and off duty, call me Jeremiah. What are you doing right now?" Leaning forward at the waist towards me his dark eyes were on my paper bag of French fries and a half eaten Double Whooper, "Gotcha some Burger King?" pulling back, "I hear ya. Good choice but I bet it will go through you like hot grease," and laughed. A moment later a woman exited the barracks door behind him and slowly wrapped her arms around the sergeant's waist from behind and gave a gentle kiss to the neck.
"That was wonderful, baby" she said with a very faint voice. I did not know her, a black woman, and young, possibly early twenties compared to the sergeant that I think was thirty. The two talked for a moment, gave a kiss on the lips and she walked away and my face had a 'who was that?' Look with the eyes but it was not my place to ask, but the sergeant was wise and saw it, "She's a girl that's been waiting for me. Right now she's gotta go back to work. You know what a soldier first does when he gets back?"
"Cheeseburgers?" I replied.
He laughed, "True, but I was going to say 'pussy', but damn, I like you. Say, what are you doing tonight?"
In my mind it was flashing that all the things I could be doing but there were none. At that time there were no televisions, computers, or internet yet in the rooms because our personal possessions were in storage thus I shrugged, "I don't know."
"Cool, you want to help out on something?'
"Uh, sure."
"Cool, we're going to be having a party over at battalion tonight," Jeremiah said.
'Battalion?' I thought it was being remodeled at the moment. How are they going to have a party there? But apparently that was the point. He said that one of the rooms had been cleared of all the furniture thus it was large enough for a party. "But, what about the sergeant of the guard?" I asked. There was sergeant and usually one or two guys that would stay behind a desk all night answering phones and helping people access their rooms when they are locked out and sometimes, once in a blue moon, would inspect a room for contraband.
"Don't worry about him," Jeremiah said, "He's a friend of mine. Just be at 2200 hours at my room, 102, and help us."
Agreeing to this Jeremiah gave me a pat on the shoulder and he walked away leaving me to ponder what to do. I had the rest of the day to myself and spent it eating and of course Jeremiah was right and that stuff went right through me and later called my folks and promised them I would be home in a couple of weeks. Other than that I just waited and when it came time to meet the sergeant, changed into my desert dress uniform, for some reason my mind said, do it, I went downstairs and knocked on his door. Opening up he was surprised to see me in uniform but it was time, "Alright, my man, come on in."
He lived in a small room, no more than eight feet by ten feet and it was jammed to the gills with boxes of all sorts and it perplexed me where he could obtain all this in a day. Most of it was stereo equipment including CDs, subwoofers, and speakers and miles of cables and wires.
Looking at it all I asked him, "We're going to carry all of this?"
"Not all of it," Jeremiah replied, "But I have some more guys on their way to help."
He made no mention of my uniform but he wore loose fitting street clothes and sure enough five more guys showed up and each of us picked up as many boxes as we could and began the walk towards Battalion.
It was dark now, and the parking lot was empty except for one vehicle near the front. Going up the stairs to the building there was a desk off to the side where two guys were sitting rather bored. Jeremiah was the first through.
He and the sergeant on duty shook hands and I saw some money being exchanged but said nothing and went down a narrow corridor past the desk towards the back.
Walking behind Jeremiah he approached a set of double doors and pressed the bars and threw the doors open. This was it. A massive room that was normally used for battalion level briefings. The room's ceiling tiles had been removed to have wiring and pipes changed but fortunately the air conditioning unit was still operational if not sporadically. When we stepped through the doors Jeremiah turned about and began directing everyone where to place all of the boxes. I was carrying two coolers filled with CDs. Setting them down by Jeremiah whom asked me to go back to his room to get the ice and beers.
Going back I had the urge to avoid being seen. Getting into his room I could not handle all of the beer and ice all at once thus it took several trips and each and every time I kept worrying that I would be caught by someone. I did not know who, but someone, perhaps the surprise arrival of an officer and then the whole party would be in danger, but no officer ever presented themselves and the party was set up rather quickly. My task was to fill the coolers with ice and beer and move the cables off the floor and along the wall, trying to be helpful whenever necessary.
Jeremiah was distracted most of the time and when he saw me kicking some cables along the wall he called out to me, "You got all the beer?"
"Yeah," filled all the coolers" pointing at the brightly colored plastic containers beside the door.
Nodding "Good, good," he was satisfied and turned his head towards the speakers being put up around every corner of the room.
