One day, at the Pentagon…

December 8, 2006 in Washington

It was supposed to be a mundane task. I was to wrap two boxes, put labels on them and deliver them to the locations addressed. One was going to the Public Affairs office, specifically, CNN. They had requested some directives and memos, nothing of any importance really. The other box was going to Army Intelligence, which was to be treated a little different as the contents were classified.

I made the delivery’s and returned to my desk to continue my work. A minute or so later, my boss appeared and said very sternly, “I just got a call from Army – you gave them a box full of junk.”

I had screwed up. I had inadvertently switched the labels on the boxes.

“I am not telling you to run down there, but you need to get that box back”, he said.

I believe the first words out of my mouth were, “Oh fuck.” And I was off.

With my uniform trailing behind me I sprinted through the halls headed for the Public Affairs office. When I got there I asked the girl that I had dropped off the box to, where it was. She said that she took it down the hall to CNN. I hauled ass to CNN.

Short of the office, I slowed and peaked inside. The box was sitting unopened on the floor next to a desk. A man with white hair and a white beard sat at a typewriter typing furiously. His back was to me. I tip-toed in, bent over and picked up the box. When I stood straight up, a medal on my uniform grabbed the cardboard and made a noise. He turned and saw me with the box and said, “Hey, that’s not yours. Put that down!”

And I was off and running again. He chased me about half the length of a corridor, but I was too fast for him.

That night I was sitting in the barracks tv room eating pop tarts and watching CNN. The anchorman says, “And now a special report from Wolf Blitzer at the Pentagon.” It was the same guy that had chased me down the hallway. (Of course this is only moderately entertaining if you know that Wolf Blitzer is the evening anchor of CNN now.)    

Over the next year I managed to avoid Wolf Blitzer like a bad disease. Anytime I saw him in the hallway, I walked in a different direction. I never went to the Public Affairs corridor if I couldn’t help it. And then one day, I was sitting in the cafeteria enjoying a bowl of soup and who comes walking by my table? Yes, Wolf Blitzer, and he was with another man. He says to that man while pointing at me, “Don’t challenge this guy to a race, he’s fast.”

And I never saw him in the hallways again.

                                                                                        up next, Sgt. Brick………