Un altro racconto di guerra; questa volta l’utente elitist_ferret scrive:
So there I was… balls deep in Afghanistan per status quo. I was doing a back to back deployment leading my own little team of 4 recce guys and we'd usually join up with OGA, ODA, or Rangers for direct action missions. It was pretty cool and I've shared some stories here about it. This one is a little different. This is about what happened between the missions… particularly with the poor fucks slated for RCF duty (remote collection facilities).
Basically a fenced off shipping container, a base inside a base if you will, that they had to maintain 24/7 during the deployment. Needless to say RCFs were not in 'nice bases', they were in remote shit hole bases in the middle of no where. So they were a shit hole, inside a shit hole, if you will. Sometimes instead of a connex it was a type of vehicle that wasn't armored, so they stuck them on bases and used them stationary behind the base walls.
No one else without a specific read on could even come inside the gate and generally the only other people on the base were infantry who didn't even have an SCI, much less a special read on. Their only human contact was usually some intel officer or intel lacky who would come check on them a few times a day so they could go take a shit or get food. Otherwise they were supposed to be in their box 24/7 to make error beeps into happy collection beeps. Other than their daily visits the only thing they had was a few radios and an iridium sat phone.
RCFs at the time were generally manned by a single person. They would be by themselves for almost all of the deployment. Prisoners wouldn't be treated like that lol. Needless to say RCF people on that deployment developed some… eccentricities… that raised eyebrows. It became policy for any team going though any base with an RCF that we basically go hang out with them for the entire time we were there (usually a day, maybe 3 at most).
These are their stories.
One dude was caught mid thrust inside the tscif with a random airforce lady (uncleared). The end result being a ruined marriage and revoked clearance. I didn't know the guy so I have minimal details. I do remember it explicitly being described as “mid thrust”.
One dude was so desperate for human contact that an infantry officer basically humint'd him into giving him SCI material when he was only cleared for secret. So this officer is talking about SCI material over a secret radio net. After a small investigation the dude was found, the officer lost his clearance and got a reprimand in his file (career ruined) and the enlisted dude was demoted, yelled at, and left to do RCF work. He was a nice guy and his hot gf was also at an RCF. If they had just phone sex'd more maybe it would have never happened.
Another dude actually became really, really good at throwing knives. He said he practiced “all day long for months”. He was so proud he wanted our first sgt (top) to let him knife an apple off his head. After watching the dude show off his skills of course, top let him knife an apple off his head. The dude also apparently didn't stop talking for almost the entire time lol. After this top decided he would try to visit every RCF site at least one a month so they would go less crazy. This is also the event where he decided all of our teams would go visit even if we were just passing though.
Another dude I knew had his parents send him one of those inflatable hot tubs and he filled that bitch up with water bottles. I misremembered this in my original post (a reply in /r/askreddit). His facility was at a lower classification level so everyone was around it. He would have hot tub parties during working hours. Eventually he got in trouble because a green light turned red for hours (not working). The base intel officer went to see what the fuck was up and there he is, in the hot tub with a bunch of women. Living the dream.
This whole 1 person will man the RCF 24/7 policy was later changed for being idiotic.
There's limited pics because it's kinda frowned up on to take photos inside these areas… I have a few pics of us hanging out at night by fires but luckily I have the whole task force set of photos as well.
one of the RCFs, this one wasn't quite normal. It wasn't made to be lived in. It was just the gear and they had a bhut next to it inside the fence.
My team meeting the wierdo (she's the one in the middle, she was actually cool). We'd usually scurry off into the night and “find” wood and stuff to cook over said wood while bullshiting with people who hadn't had a non professional conversation in ages. We were real good at the non professional conversations.
I swear we're normal and there's no need to add us to any lists.
Anyway hope you are entertained. I actually found a few pics of myself I didn't know existed while trying to find any RCF pics that I could share.