Over the past few months, I’ve heard knocking on my CHU door. Usually it was three quick Rap Rap Raps, sometimes four or five, but always kind of soft and evenly spaced.
Typically I’d hear this in the early morning, and most of the time I was still in bed. The rapping woke me up a few times, and other times I was lying there partially awake and trying to crawl out of the pit of sleep. I usually wondered if I had really heard it. I’d lie there and wait for another knock, but it would never come. Once in a while I’d roll over, crane my neck around my locker, and look for a shadow in the bright sunlight shining under my door, but I never saw anyone. One of life’s little mysteries.
One morning I got up early and stepped outside my CHU, headed for work, and I heard three quick Rap Rap Raps. As I looked around I heard it again, and then it dawned on me; I was hearing machine guns being test fired. Mystery solved.
Until 0200 a couple of nights ago. I was sound asleep, and dreaming. In my dream I was trying to print something in color (I guess I dream in color). The first page came out all crinkled and smeared. After adjustments, the next two pages came out sideways, and then I heard three sharp knocks, which woke me up. My first thought; weapons test firing. After a few moments I realized that the test firing had never awakened me up from a deep sleep, and that the knocks had been pretty loud and I thought it might actually be a visitor.
Of course, a 2 AM visitor never brings good news, so I rolled out of bed and opened the door wondering what evil had befallen me. The last time something like this happened, I was told my Uncle Eldon had been killed in a car wreck. But, it was my sergeant, doing her part to count noses. There had been a report of a missing soldier, so the units did a head count to account for everyone. I went back to sleep until I heard the machine guns later in the morning.
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