A Night That Will Live In Infamy!

War is a funny thing sometimes. Occasionally it will take you quite some time before you realize who your enemy really is. I think we at JCCS-1 have now discovered the true enemy. The real enemy over here in Iraq? Rats! Big, huge, vicious rats.

There had been rumors floating around the squadron about a large rat-like creature that was said to be haunting the building at night. I had never seen it, and, it seemed, no one else had really seen it either. The stories were most often told about someone else seeing this mythical creature. "Oh, yeah, Oscar told me the other day that one of the Admin folks saw him yesterday." OK, so I mentally filed these stories away in the same folder as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Over time, the legend continued to grow.

As fate would have it, the legends were true! Friday night was my night to stand the watch. We have to maintain 24 hour security over our building, so each night some lucky soul gets to stand the watch from 10:00 pm until someone comes in the next morning. Normally around 8:00 am. So, Friday night was my night. I came in around 8:00 pm to get set up (I bring in some movies and stuff to keep me occupied) and was informed that yesterday Kuz and the Master Chief had killed the rat! Apparently it was big, too. As the story unfolded, it was said the beast was the size of a dingo, with large razor sharp fangs that dripped blood. OK, maybe I exaggerate a bit, but they did say it was the size of a small dog. Well, that made me feel better. I wouldn't have to worry about the rat that night.

Well, about 30 minutes later Cluster said "Hey, I just heard trap snap, I think we got another rat!". That was true. As I looked behind the kitchen door, there was another rat, wiggling and twitching in the trap. Great! Guess who's standing the watch, and therefore responsible for getting rid of the corpse! So, I decided to let him just hang out there for a while until I was positive he was dead. Picked him up and disposed of him. Not pleasant. But, hey, two down in two days, we must be winning the war!

Well, Saturday nights are much welcomed down time here for us. We all pitch in and order up some pizza from the Pizza Hut trailer and then we put in a DVD and watch it on the big screen while we eat. Good times. We were all quite engrossed in our movie, eating our pizza, when the night's calm was shattered by a startled scream! V.D. had gone over to the table to get another piece of pizza and, you guessed it, a friendly rat was sitting in the box, eating our pizza! Seeing the rat there startled V.D who yelled, thus startling the rat, who ran and hid behind some file cabinets. All right, they attacked our pizza, it was time to take the gloves off! So, we paused the movie, turned on the lights and went on the attack! We couldn't get the rat to come out from behind the file cabinets so our Deputy Commander (a Navy Captain, equivalent to a full Colonel) came up with a brilliant plan. He grabbed one of the fire extinguishers and, aiming behind the file cabinet, fired off a long blast. Let this be a warning to you. If you shoot off a fire extinguisher inside and there's no fire; it makes a huge mess! But after several blasts of the extinguisher it worked. The rat took off at top speed and ran right into the kitchen. Aha! Foolish rat, now you are trapped! We slammed the door shut and sealed it off.

Three brave heroes then decided to finish the job. The ran into the kitchen (and of course we shut and sealed the door behind them) and set about chasing the rat. After a few minutes, Paste began laying odds on how long the rat would survive. I personally began laying odds on which man would perish in the mighty struggle within the kitchen. As it turned out, we were never able to catch that particular rat. Don't know if he made outside to safety or if he's still holed up in the kitchen. I am happy to report that all men made it safely back out of the kitchen.

So, now you know. The real enemy we're fighting over here are the big, huge, vicious, pizza stealing rats!