By Tommy Batboy Basic Allotted Housing (BAH, in military parlance) is a glorious thing. As a 23-year-old single E-5 Ranger, this was like winning the lottery. Shortly after being told to get the hell off base I moved in with two of my buddies, K and Boon, about 20 minutes from post. Out with the barracks where everyone was in your business, and welcome to a life of decadence and TomBatBoyfoolery. Our BAH rate was about $670 a month and between us we paid about $225 a month for the rent of a small ranch style house, utilities, and cable. Yes friends, your tax dollars were not only paying to house us, they were paying for a whole new lifestyle of debauchery as well. To our mothers and girlfriends the place was a shithole - to us it was as close to Heaven as you could get in Columbus, GA. You walked through the front door into the living room. A hard right took you through a door way into my roommate Boon’s room. On that same right hand wall, next to his bedroom door, was the big screen TV, complete with Xbox, PS2, and shelves with a hundred or so DVDs. Directly in front of you as you were facing into the house was the doorway leading into the kitchen. To the left of that was the gun safe with my roommate’s MP-5 clone, AR-15, my pistols, and my other roommate’s shotgun- complete with ammo for all. On top of the gun safe were a couple of action figures of Rangers and Air Force SpecOps doing various cool guy things (one of my roommates loved the things). To your left you’d see an E&E map of Afghanistan hung up in place of curtains over the window and another shelf chalk full of a couple hundred or so more DVDs. Additionally one of my roommates had hung a 1:30 scale model of an AH-6 Little Bird attack helicopter and a 12” GI Joe-like HALO figure from the ceiling. The coffee table had a Special Operations history book on it, along with the latest copies of Maxim, GQ, and Playboy from our various subscriptions. The two pullout bins in the bottom of the fridge were stacked to the top with beer from around the world, as was the entire bottom shelf. We had a fully stocked bar in a corner of the kitchen, on top of the wine storage unit. The door to my other roommate K’s room was right across from the fridge in the kitchen. The laundry room had all our rock climbing, snorkeling, and miscellaneous adventure gear- not to mention a surplus store worth of TA-50. My room was just across a short hallway from the laundry room, right by the bathroom. If the physical space wasn’t awesome enough I got along famously with my roommates. The house had two rules: pick up after yourself in the common areas and don’t mess with another guy’s room. These rules were always followed. If you were a 23-year-old single Ranger, you weren’t going to do much better than this place. Soon, however, there was trouble in paradise. In the early spring I woke up one morning to a crunching/rustling sound in the kitchen. I turned on the lights to see something brown and low to the ground quickly scamper behind the fridge from behind the cabinet. Despite eating out most nights and not really cooking or knowing how to cook, Boon always kept one of those industrial sized bags of rice in one of the lower cabinets. As I opened up the cabinet it became readily apparent that we had a couple of new houseguests - a family of mice - and they weren’t following the golden rule of keeping the common areas clean after they had their meal. The next morning I told K about my discovery and we decided to investigate the problem more thoroughly. That night after moving everything around we figured out that they were getting in through the laundry room and had chewed a hole into the back of the cabinet to get to the rice. So we got some of those sticky mousetraps, laid them out that night and went to bed. Problem solved, until we woke up the next morning and all the bait in the traps was gone and nary a mouse had been caught…Oh, it was officially “on” my friends. “How are we going to get rid of these things man?” K asked me as we pried a flipped over trap from the floor. “Dude, we should get pellet guns and ambush them when they try and get into or out of the cabinet,” I replied. “Oh man! That would be awesome!” K exclaimed. With that we formally declared war on the United Family of Meeces. A quick requisition of Daisy CO2 powered pellet guns and the planning process began in earnest. After a recon of the objective and surrounding terrain the plan came together quickly. With K’s room positioned such that he would be able to open his door and move out directly toward the cabinet, his job would be to flush the mice out into the open. I’d stand in the center of the mini hallway staring down the walkway out of the kitchen with a perfect adjoining field of fire to catch the mice in an ambush. If they somehow managed to survive the initial onslaught, I’d be able to close the distance, jump on top (literally) of the washer and get into a secondary firing position as the enemy’s most likely course of action was to try and scamper down their primary egress route. If those mice stuck their heads back into the rice, it was on like Donkey Kong. I imagine some of you are staring incredulously at your computer screen wondering why it is, exactly, that we didn’t just throw out the rice. Further I am sure my family (who’s never heard this story before but is known to pop in here from time to time) is wondering what on Earth made us think it was a good idea to solve this problem with pellet guns in the first place. A. It damn well wouldn’t have been an ambush if we took the rice out; we needed something to lure the United Family of Meeces into the trap. B. How else do you expect Rangers to handle pest control after the traps failed? Call the landlord? C. Finally, and most importantly, K would soon be heading to Ranger School. The planning and tactical experience from the operation could help with any future planning he’d have to do in Hooah School. Once the plan was in place we did not have long to wait. The United Family of Meeces, thinking they had secure lines of communication, moved in that night. Hearing the rustling and munching I crept out of bed, careful not to wake the (ex)girlfriend, and grabbed my pellet gun. Quietly and carefully I snuck out of my room. K had also heard the noise because his door slowly, carefully, started to open as I got into position. “You think it’s them?” K asked me, whispering as much to not startle the United Family of Meeces as he was trying to not wake up his girlfriend (now wife). Due to its sensitive nature K and I had kept this seek and destroy mission “Top Secret”. Boon didn’t even know about it, never mind the ladies. Loose lips sink ships, as well as combat plans against mice cooked up by Ranger boyfriends. “Yeah,” I said also talking quietly. “You ready?” “Yeah.” “Let’s do it,” I said to K, tightening my grip in my pellet pistol. Moving stealthily, K crept to the cabinet door, pistol at the ready hand reaching for the door to the cabinet. “Ok, do it!” he told me. I flipped the light switch as he threw open the cabinet door, firing as he did so. He must have just missed because the mice shot out of the hole in the cabinet much faster than I’d anticipated them capable of moving. Pop. Pop. Pop. POP POP! Was all you heard as compressed air blasted out .177 caliber lead projectiles as fast as K and I could pull our respective triggers. The mice were able to run the gauntlet of fire and escape into the laundry room. Clearly we’d underestimated our opponents and the lead-time to assure the initial kill. Note for the AAR 1. Marksmanship and leading the target need to be improved “Dude, get them before they get down the hole, get them before they get down the hole!” K shouted, totally forgetting that it was 2am and there were two Ranger girlfriends and a roommate asleep. Complying, I 3-5 second rushed to my secondary firing position just in time to see the mice running pell-mell for the hole. Adapting, I adjusted my lead and targeted the largest mouse and pulled the trigger as fast as I could, getting off three rounds before the mag went dry. A squeak of pain told me I had registered a direct hit. Yet, despite being shot and wounded, the mouse made it down the hole. Note for the AAR 2. Penetration appeared to be something of an issue. Note from Nick: That’s what she said. “Tommy! What the hell is going on!?!?!” My (ex)girlfriend asked with a start, K’s girlfriend (now wife) and Boon quickly joined her in glaring at K and I as we were about to conduct our AAR and battle damage assessment of the kitchen. Note for the AAR 3. Noise and light discipline for the unit needs to improve. “Well you know those mice I was telling you we were having a problem with, babe,” I started in, trying not to notice the beginnings of a glare on her face. “K and I planned an ambush so we could get rid of them.” “You did what!?!?” K’s girlfriend (now wife) exclaimed. “UH! You guys are idiots! I’m going back to bed,” she said as she walked back into his room. “Tommy… you actually thought this was a good idea?” my (ex)girlfriend said, full-out glaring at me. “DUUUUUUUUUUDE!” Boon said, stretching the emphatic syllable like he always did when he’s either pissed or shocked. “Look at the floor!” Sure enough the linoleum tile and trim inside the beaten area showed clear signs of the battle. There were dents and chips all over the section of floor between the cabinet and the fridge. “It’s not that bad,” I said conducting my own battle damage assessment. “It’s hardly noticeable,” I continued. “I’m calling the landlord tomorrow,” Boon called over his shoulder as he headed back to his room muttering something else under his breath, assuring that there would be no second operation. “Did you get any in the laundry room?” K asked hopefully. “Yeah man I hit one but I don’t think I killed it,” I told him excitedly. The fact that I’d hit a mouse somehow, some way, made me feel like the mission wasn't a total failure. “You guys are idiots. Tommy gimmie your gun and come back to bed!” My (ex)girlfriend said, echoing K’s better half’s sentiments. A quick look and smile from K told me all I needed to know. “Fine,” I said handing over the pellet gun. “Night dude,” I told K as we both headed back to cold beds and pissed off girlfriends. Boon did call the landlord and later that week they sent out the handy man to put down some poison. For my role in the incident I was deemed the one that had to be at home on my lunch break that day. I still maintain we could have gotten them with a second ambush based off the lessons learned from the first mission. Namely clue Boon in and keep women out of our bachelor pad. Copyright of Tommy |
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