The Problem With Doc Ock

I don’t know what’s going on with this dude. He’s just having a bad week. He ended up losing his weapon today. Thankfully we got it back. He was really lucky. It all started this evening when we got back from mission. We had cleared our weapons at the gate and then took the 20 minute drive to get back to our pad. We were going to put our gear away and then go to the chow hall to eat dinner. Well, things didn’t go according to planned.

When we got back to the pad we started unloading our gear. I started taking the .50 cal apart when it happened. Doc Ock had the look of disbelief on his face. He was looking around in the back seat of the Humvee and I knew something was up. I had a feeling I knew what it was but I was hoping I wasn’t right. He looked upset then he called me quietly. “Sergeant Puebla, come here.” I had a feeling I knew what he was going to say. “I can’t find my weapon,” he said. “Are you serious? Did you check in the back real good? Did you freaking leave it at the clearing barrel?” I replied. “I think I did,” he responded. “Fuck! Go look for SSG C. real quick and tell him so we could go back over there.”

I was hoping that we would get lucky. I was hoping that know one picked it up and stole it. And the last thing I wanted was for it to get into the wrong hands. I didn’t want any local national to pick it up and stash it away. That’s all we need, a local or someone else running around the camp with a weapon. Ammo is very easy to find. All one has to do is go by the clearing barrels to look around for some stray rounds. I’m sure I’d be able to find enough rounds to fill a magazine myself. That was the worse case scenario. At least in another Joes hands, I know that we’d at least be safe.

So we got back into the Humvee and drove all the way back to the gate. Like I said before it was a 20 minute drive from the pad. I decided to drive since Doc had already got into trouble for speeding. I figured I’d speed over there this time and if I got pull over at least Doc wouldn’t be in trouble again.

We got to the clearing barrels and looked around. It was nowhere to be found. We didn’t have many options. Our next move was to check with the gate and hope that someone turned the weapon in to the gate guards. The Doc and I split up at that point. He went to see the guys at the gate and I went to question some guys that were sitting in their Humvee by the clearing barrels. The guys I spoke with didn’t know anything about the weapon. Even though they had been sitting at the gate for 30 minutes they were not aware of anyone finding a lost M16.

Doc just happened to get lucky. I went back to the gate to link up with Doc and there he was, talking to the guard. Luckily the guard had his M16. I guess someone had found it and left it with the guard. I told Doc he was real lucky. Well, his trouble didn’t stop there. It was reported to the Commander so we had to go see the 1st Sergeant as soon as we got back to the pad. I sensed more doom for Doc then I did for myself.