Friday, January 4, 2008

Working the Main gate on a USAF Base

When you first arrive on a new base, mostly, you do gate duties. It’s not that bad, but it can get pretty boring. Occasionally, something happens to break the boredom but those times are seldom.
When you’re on the main gate on the midnight shift, there are two of you. After I’d been there for a while, I got into how things worked. One person would sleep out of sight of anyone that might happen by, especially the flight chief who might stop by for a post check. We’d sleep two hours each and it made the shift go by smoother.
Every night at eleven o’clock, we’d start 100% ID checks. This basically means, anyone and everyone, except the base commander or some stray general who might come by, had to produce a military ID to be allowed access.
One night, I was at the main gate and my partner was getting his twenty winks, when a car approached the gate. When the driver got to me, she rolled down her window and I asked for her ID card. She looked at me funny and stated she didn’t have it with her. The car had a military decal from a nearby Army base, so I assumed she was either a soldier or a dependent.
She informed me that she didn’t have her driver’s license either. Then she told me that she was a soldier and that she and her husband had gotten into an argument, she’d grabbed her car keys, a towel, and, left home.
Up until that point, I hadn’t really taken a good look at her, but, with that statement, I did. Sure enough, she had a towel covering her. From the sides, all I could see was skin.
I instructed her to pull over to the visitors’ control center while I determined what to do next. She didn’t know, but I already knew what I was going to do. First thing was, I called the desk and requested they send all available units to take a look at this situation. Second, I went over and woke my partner so I could walk over to the visitor control center and get a better look myself.
I walked over as two units pulled up to the center and I briefed them. We went over and talked to her under the premise that we needed more information before we could let her on base. During all this, we made sure to shine our flashlights into the vehicle as much as possible. She got a kick out of all the attention she was receiving and that made things even more interesting.
In the end, she informed us that she was going to spend the night at one of her friends’ houses on our base and that was why she had come there.
I finally allowed her to go to her friend’s house, but, only if one of the units could follow her to make sure she was going there. She agreed.
When the unit returned, he said that she pointed out the house where she was going, but he told her he couldn’t leave until she went into the home. Finally, he said she exited the vehicle with much hesitation and ran naked to the door. She stood there for several minutes until a woman let her in. He complimented her figure, among other things, and we all had a good laugh.
The next night, the same girl returned to the gate. This time, she brought cookies, to thank us for allowing her to enter the base the night before.

No comments: