Beach Det (detachment) is where someone gets sent from the ship to the shore to work. I spent 6 weeks of our 3 months in the Persian Gulf in Bahrain.
There is a US Navy Administrative Support Unit there but not a real base. The US military rented an entire hotel to house their servicemembers. There was a little old man who mopped the marble floors in the lobby each day. His mop handle was only like 2 feet long, so he hunched over and whipped that mop back in forth, clearly a practiced motion.
I'm not sure where everyone else worked at, but there were 3 shifts of about 4 people each who worked at the airport; sorting mail, loading planes & helos to go out to the Lincoln and smaller ships in the battle group. They were 12 hour shifts - we'd work 2 days, 2 nights, and have 2 days off. Some days were really easy, some were rough. We'd have to sort all the mail into big bins according to ship or load up the outgoing mail into aircraft containers so it could be loaded onto C130s. The battle group oiler would send their CH-46 helo in to get mail and they were not able to shut it off for fear it wouldn't start again, so we had to run bags of mail out, ducking down like they did on old M.A.S.H. episodes.
Bahraini money is pretty neat. Most foreign money I've come across is pretty and colorful, unlike our drab green dollas.
Their currency is Dinars, broken down into Fils. In my time there, I did learn all the numbers and would quiz myself looking at license plates as I shuttled everyone around.
And from what I can guess, they use neighboring country's currency like their own. Either that or I got screwed over. But either way, I also ended up with some United Arab Emirates Dirhams...
...and Saudi Arabian Riyals.
Sorry about the crappy spacing in this post!
Right after I reported to the airport, the government vehicle needed to be turned in for maintenance. I got to take the stylin' old wood panelled Ford station wagon in and pick up the replacement, a poo-brown Mitsubishi mini van. When I opened the door, I immediately saw 3 pedals on the floor. I looked between the seats and there was no stick! I honestly had never heard of nor seen a column shift manual transmission before! But since I could drive a normal one, it was easy enough to figure out. I hopped in and drove away. I ended up being the driver for all 3 shifts of workers. I can only imagine the people at maintenance thought they were being funny giving me that van. Pppft! I gots skillz. It was neat driving in a foreign country, too. Road signs tended to be a challenge, since Arabic writing is not like ours at all! I did like how their stop lights work, tho. While it was red, the yellow light would come on right before it turned green. So people would actually be moving before it turned green!
Not the most inspiring view out in that part of the world!
#AtoZChallenge
Your reference to MASH is a neat visual.
ReplyDeleteWe laughed about it at the time but it's exactly what we did, except we actually wore head / hearing / eye protection.
DeleteFascinating. Your writing took me right there. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks! My thoughts sort of wandered, but it worked!
DeleteInteresting post, I especially liked seeing the money as I've got a note from Saudi Arabia from when my Grampy was stationed there in the 60s. :-)
ReplyDeleteCait @ Click's Clan
I've gotten a nice collection of foreign currency. Much prettier than ours!
DeleteI like looking at money from other countries. Several years ago someone had dropped some Iraqi money outside where I worked. My boss found it. We figured someone that was stationed over there had brought it back with them.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty neat - I bet they were bummed when they figured out they lost it.
DeleteForeign money always is so colorful. It draws the eye aesthetically unlike american money.
ReplyDeleteI saw someone who had framed their paper currency. I wonder if I could do that with coins, too?
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