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Vomit Machine
Heiko Tepper
I don't know how about you, but during my military service the most
memorable things always seemed to happen when you did not have a camera at
hand.
I used to serve in the distribution department of a German Armed Forces
Logistics Battalion. Our responsibility was to ensure distribution of heavy or
high problematic cargoes throughout what then (during the late 80's and early
90's) was called Territorial Command South by the German higher-ups.
As it happened, one day we had to deliver a quite huge and complex
communications computer (not comparable with those lousy PC's everyone of us is
using today). We had to ensure its transport from our main depot about 70 miles
outside of Frankfurt to Rhein Main AB for a transport flight to Berlin
Tempelhof. At Rhein Main a C-141 and the guys of (then) MAC already waited for
us to load this thing aboard.
I was quite excited because for the first time of my military career I seemed
to have the chance to come in close contact with my favorite cargo planes. For
the Autobahn ride we chose one of our 10 ton trucks. And if this operation
(loading the electronic monster on and off the truck and stuff...) already
turned out to be tricky, the real problems started to surface as we reached the
airbase and had unloaded.
On the tarmac, while trying to push the heavy cargo container onto one of those
pallets, the computer inside the box (obviously driven by an autonomous energy
system) suddenly gave weird noises. As it did not seem to stop we and our MAC
counterparts started to open the freight container, and what has happened is
that the giant electronic wonder had started to spit out all the roll paper
apparently stored inside it. What we are talking about is not just paper, but
TONS of paper.
It had crumbled up all inside the box and now gushed outside on the tarmac,
because nobody knew how to stop it. After about five minutes of constantly
"vomiting", the computer finally kept mum. We collected the whole paper mess
around, stuffed it away and finished loading.
Since having these experiences with his cargo, the loadmaster wanted at least
one of us "Germans" to accompany the flight to Tempelhof. We had to tell him
that we had other orders and that, according to the Berlin Troop Regulations,
as German soldiers, we were not supposed to come even close to Berlin soil as
long as we are in uniform (things were very different then ...).
And how disappointed I was...I could have had a flight in a C-141!! It was not
meant to be.