Protecting the Force from Common Sense

It's hazardous to our safety here to have trash receptacles near our barracks.

If it doesn't make much sense to you, then clearly you haven't been in the Army. Or long enough, like me.

One day, the dumpsters that had successfully received our refuse for months were gone. They must be getting cleaned or replaced, right? Well, as it turned out, no... they were removed to save our lives.

Setting new lows for risk tolerance, someone or some committee decided that it was safer to remove the dumpsters to a location unknown. It's an OpSec thing. I have heard that these dumpsters are just too tempting for bomb setters.

So, there are many dumpsters available around the work areas and the chow hall, but now we have to walk twice as far to throw things away. I suppose that they think we either need more exercise, or this is some sort of tax that they hope will result in the production of less trash. My guess is that folks will simply let it pile up higher in their rooms-- I think we need a Risk Assessment done on that.

Anyway, now what we get is a pile of trash at the former dumpster site. You couldn't hide a bomb in that, could you? What about all the grills-- perfect hiding places for explosive devices, right? (What's the over-under on how soon a policy letter will be released to regulate leaving lids off the barbecues?)

Instead of telling us what was going on, and giving us proposed alternatives, they just wanted us to guess at what happened to the dumpsters. After all, if the ordinary Soldier had a clue about what was happenning and why, we could start acting independently and making decisions for ourselves. And that's the biggest threat to the "Force."