What Would You Be Doing?

[Panther Al]

Well, in canon the cold war never cooled down, which is why I decided to stay out of the Army instead of going in: 93 I had all but signed up but seeing the winds was blowing for a better life on Civie street I had to tell the recruiter that had me all but signed up no.

So, Assuming 4 months Basic/AIT, 6 year hitch that I was going to sign up for, and the same connections used that I used when I joined Aug 26 2001 (hows that for timing, 9-11 I was in MEPS waiting for my plane to Knox), would have been in the 3rd ACR 1996.


Seeing how badly they was handled doesn't exactly bode well for my making it to 2000....

[Schone23666]

Well, in canon the cold war never cooled down, which is why I decided to stay out of the Army instead of going in: 93 I had all but signed up but seeing the winds was blowing for a better life on Civie street I had to tell the recruiter that had me all but signed up no.

So, Assuming 4 months Basic/AIT, 6 year hitch that I was going to sign up for, and the same connections used that I used when I joined Aug 26 2001 (hows that for timing, 9-11 I was in MEPS waiting for my plane to Knox), would have been in the 3rd ACR 1996.


Seeing how badly they was handled doesn't exactly bode well for my making it to 2000....

I remember I was up in Richmond at a hotel just a few weeks after 9/11...and ran into a bunch of kids who were getting processed into MEPS. Needless to say, the mood among them as they were watching the latest news on the TV about what was going on was pretty sober.

[waiting4something]

If I would have joined the Marines after high school and been in the 7th, I would have been ripe for sweating my ass off in Iran in the 1997 invasion.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Dying.

I was working in a datacenter on Thanksgiving Day in 1997 in Orlando, FL. Once I smashed my way out of an inch-thick window or two* and saw the mushroom cloud over Tampa, I'd run the three or four miles home where my wife was and await the inevitable.


*=electronic door locks, so I'd have to break the glass to get out.

[Legbreaker]

*=electronic door locks, so I'd have to break the glass to get out.

Electronic locks are designed to unlock in the event of an emergency or power failure - it's a safety measure. You should have been able to just walk straight out.

[weswood]

I've played this game before, I don't know why it wasn't in the original thread...

'96 I was 31, been out of the Corps for 4 years, married in May of that year. I don't think I'd have been recalled, but I'd have tried to reenlist, with an MOS change to Infantry.

If they wouldn't take me, the odds are I'd have been a cooked turkey at TDM. My house is surrounded by canon targets- Exxon refinery about 5 miles one way, Mont Belview about 2 miles north, and Bayer chemical plant 1 mile to the south.

[Snake Eyes]

In the fall of '97 I was still a police officer in the Maryland suburbs of DC. But I'm pretty sure I was home down with the flu that weekend, and - if it was in canon Twilight 2000 that the nuke meant for the White House went long and detonated in Rock Creek Park - I likely would have been incinerated. Had I survived, I imagine i'd have been tasked with internal security & civil affairs crap until drafted.

[weswood]

Damn, got my year wrong. Thanksgiving '97 was the day after my father died...For a minute I thought I'd actually live through it, the cemetary is far enough away, then I remembered the funeral was the day after Thanksgiving.

[Legbreaker]

I was out of the army, but applying for a intelligence analyst position with the RAAF. IRL I didn't get it (only one spot), but in T2KU chances are I probably would, and have been located in some high security office somewhere in the south east of Australia. Would probably have got that commission I turned down in '91 too.
On a positive note I'd have avoided meeting my ex and all the crap that came with.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Electronic locks are designed to unlock in the event of an emergency or power failure - it's a safety measure. You should have been able to just walk straight out.

"Should have been"

Remind me to tell those of you who haven't experienced it all about the minty taste of Halon-1301

[Legbreaker]

Then perhaps legislated requirements are different there then...
Over here it's the law.

[Schone23666]

Then perhaps legislated requirements are different there then...
Over here it's the law.

Raketenjagdpanzer is telling the truth, unfortunately. Most electronic locks that you'll find here in the U.S. are in fact designed to switch open in case of a power blackout, but certain electronic locks that are use to restrict, how shall we say, extremely sensitive information and/or equipment work differently. Once power is lost, nothing short of C4 is going to bust that lock open, depending on how well reinforced that lock and whatever door or gate it's attached to of course.

That said, I'd hate to know what kind of "datacenter" Raketenjagdpanzer works in.

[Legbreaker]

Sounds like a recipe for lawsuits....

[Schone23666]

Sounds like a recipe for lawsuits....

Not necessarily. Though you may possibly die an agonizing death from Halon exposure, the United States of America will appreciate your sacrifice knowing that critical data and equipment has been kept secure.

(please note I'm being sarcastic)

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Raketenjagdpanzer is telling the truth, unfortunately. Most electronic locks that you'll find here in the U.S. are in fact designed to switch open in case of a power blackout, but certain electronic locks that are use to restrict, how shall we say, extremely sensitive information and/or equipment work differently. Once power is lost, nothing short of C4 is going to bust that lock open, depending on how well reinforced that lock and whatever door or gate it's attached to of course.

That said, I'd hate to know what kind of "datacenter" Raketenjagdpanzer works in.

I worked for a company that shall remain nameless. However, while it was a private company, we had systems that were tied in to the Federal Reserve and Visa/MasterCard International, and we were the largest processor of electronic funds (ATM/Point-of-sale/Debit/EFT) transactions on the east side of the Mississippi. Then once we merged with our west coast counterpart, for a brief period (before the company was bought and broken up by two different companies) we were the largest EFT in North and South America, for about a year and change.

Nearly twenty years prior to "If you see something, say something" part of our employee training was "Don't tell anyone what exactly you do at work. If you let it slip, and if someone approaches you about committing card fraud or asks you to breach customer data, call the FBI."

Yes, our data was pretty important.

(And incidentally, no, in response to you guys and to virtually everyone who ever asked me we were not responsible for $1 and $2 ATM fees - the independent ATM franchisers and banks were, our company took $.0075 (three quarters of a penny) for every transaction we processed. When we tried to make it a penny our customers (banks) screamed bloody murder; you'd have thought we'd gone Manson Family Helter Skelter on them.)

Anyway.

The electronic/electromagnetic locks in the first datacenter we worked at were always doing flaky shit, but it never involved not locking. Sometimes the combo system would fail (thank you for crashing, Windows NT3.51 machine under the raised floor), sometimes the locks wouldn't release despite showing a good card read...I can only imagine that an EMP induced blackout would produce hilarious results - including some in the fire suppression systems. I remember one day seeing one of the IBM support guys - dude must have weighed 500lbs - come running out of one of the glassed-in CPU rooms. On that raised floor it was just like...GBOOM-GBOOM-GBOOM! Yelling OUT OUT EVERYBODY OUT HALON SYSTEM KICKED ON OUT EVERYBODY! Turns out the valve just purged itself of ullage, like...one puff...due to a chronically leaky o-ring (that's what the report from the company that managed the fire system said).

But this was ages and ages ago. And ages and ages. I left that job in October of 2001 to go work for the Army (not be in the army; I was 31 then, hardly 11b material)...that's another sad story for another time, I think...

Anyway anyway, yes, I'd have made it out and as there was a pretty clear view to the west, I'd have seen Macdill AFB and most of southern Tampa (and Patrick AFB & KSC to the east) rising up as a column of smoke and ash, tried to start my car, then walked/run home as best I could make it and...well...you know. Assuming the fallout foot-print didn't sprinkle Orlando, probably spent about a week in utter terror, assuming I and my wife (g/f at the time) didn't get killed by looters in the next couple of weeks, we'd probably have slowly starved to death over a few months, or died of something that the day before Thanksgiving would have been viewed as a minor nothing (influenza, toothache, etc.) I don't have any really applicable "survival skills" and right now my "go plan" involves a few boxes of MREs and bottled water, a generator, propane to keep it running a few days and other sundry goods all "hurricane ready" folks in FL have - but that's now, didn't have that in 1997.

God this is getting depressing.