A New Arrival

[⊕ Owen Pearson]

The truck bumps against the improvised road. It has been a long trip, the driver just following the road, stopping every one in a while to talk to soldiers. In the back seat, Owen napped with his face pressed against the glass. The truck hit a pothole and Owen's face was slammed against the glass surface. He woke up and felt the bruise forming on his cheek. He was lucky to have gotten any sleep at all with the bad roads they had followed to the base.

The Driver said, "Only a half kilometer to go". It was almost as if this man had driven right into the pothole to force Owen to awake from sleep. They kept moving down the road as the base came into sight. It was a cluster of buildings probably created from a small neighborhood of abandoned houses.

They stopped in the center of this military center. The driver told him the building he was to go to, and abandoned him in the middle of the strange neighborhood.

He began to walk towards the building, his duffel bag of things on his back.

[Daniel Brennan]

The jeep skidded to a halt in the large concrete area in the middle of the base. Other jeeps and transport trucks were constantly arriving and leaving the area and there were groups of soldiers gathered around everywhere, the new recruits waiting to be told where they should go and the older veterans trooping to their respective dorms. Daniel and four other soldiers jumped out of the jeep mumbling thanks at the driver who had kindly given them a lift and started walking towards their barracks'.

Daniel walked carefuly towards his building, trying not to get run down by the ignorant drivers. A figure ahead of him appeared to be walking in the same direction as him and he jogged to catch up with him. If there was going to be a new face in his barracks, then he wanted to be the first to meet him. "You heading over there?" Daniel asked while guesturing at the building. "I'm Daniel Brennan, by the way", he grinned.

[⊕ Owen Pearson]

"Yes, I am heading there", Owen said in order to answer the question of the man who came up from behind him.

After he heard the stranger introduce himself, he introduced himself also, "I am Owen Pearson, I was just transferred here."

He kept on his way to the old building. The weather was clear, but the newspaper he had read before leaving had said that rain was on its way through the area. He was happy that it was holding off; this would mean that he would probably get an informal tour of his temporary home.

The door to the building creaked open, he held it for Daniel. The building must have been the HQ. It was cluttered with maps, people, and paperwork. There was barely room to walk.

[Daniel Brennan]

OOC: Just an note: we usually write in past tense here. Like: "The truck bumped against the improvised road" rather than "The truck bumps against the improvised road.
Thanks.

Daniel smilled as the stranger introduced himself simply and he tried to put the name and face to memory. He would probably forget the man a matter of hours after meeting him, but atleast he was trying...

They two walked the rest of the way to the building in silence. Well, silence from them: the other was full of shouts of greeting and the bellows of training sergeants at recruits. The sounds had to fight for space in the air, each one having to be louder and higher pitched then the rest. It was why Daniel tried to avoid this area whenever possible.

They reached the building and Owen politely held the door open for Daniel. He nooded his thanks and stepped into the building. He stood there for a second, waiting to see what Owen was going to do. "So, Owen." He said, trying to be friendly. "Where are you from? Obviously the states, but what part?"

[⊕ Owen Pearson]

OOC: Sorry about that, I seem to always have at least one mistake with tense in my posts. It's really a zen thing, "Thinking in the now" (yes, I did just come up with that connection). I will try to improve on that. <= Defiantly the coolest smiley.

"Oh, I've been from many places", Owen said to Daniel. He was not sure what to say, as he was going wherever he could hitchhike a ride to. He realized he left it very vague.

He went up to the main desk, or at least what he thought was the main desk with everything crammed into the room. There was a older woman sitting there, her hair slightly grayed. When Owen asked where he was to go to, she answered him politely and directed him towards an office in the back. He headed towards the door of the office on the other side of the packed room.

[Daniel Brennan]

Daniel's eyebrows twiched downwards into the slightest frown as the American corporal avoided his question. 'Oh, I've been from many places' What was that supposed to mean?! He didn't announce his confusion outloud, he just smiled slightly and looked on as Owen asked an old British lady at a desk where he was to go.

So far he had the impression that Owen wasn't much of a talker. At all. That was fine with Daniel, though. An evil side inside of him actually liked intimidating that newer recruits and the quiet ones were always easy to scare. Although this guy wasn't much a of a new recruit, so he would be left alone. Probably.

He started talking again as they walked past the main reception and into a hall. "So, Owen. What division 'you stationed in?" He said, eagerly, trying to get into a bigger conversation.

[⊕ Owen Pearson]

When Daniel asked about his division, Owen realized that he had forgotten that, but he decided to be honest and say, "Yeah, I forgot that during the ride over here; you know I just have to forget one thing...Oh well."

He squeezed around a desk that was taking up most of what he thought to be the walkway. He knocked something off of the desk, picked it up, and put it back on. The user of the desk began yelling at him for doing that, as if he had not realized that Owen had no other choice for getting across the room.

He continued walking to the door, barely making it around two more desks. It wasn't a very long distance to go, it just was cluttered with so many people and objects. He made it to the room and asked Daniel, "Are you going to come in to?"

[Daniel Brennan]

The two men walked down the busy, loud walkway; trying to avoid knocking into people too hard. A large brute of a Sergeant thundered down the hallway and Daniel had to nearly jump up on a nearby desk to escape from being pulverised to a pulp on the ground. The desks owner gave him an amused look before pushing him off.

"Yeah, I forgot that during the ride over here; you know I just have to forget one thing...Oh well." Owen was saying to him. Daniel raised his eyebrows. Forget? How could you just forget what division you were in! Unless he had been moved around so often between different Divisions that he hadn't bothered remembering the one he was in now. Daniel tried to help him remember, "Well, the main divisions around this base are the third infantry and the Desert rats. Any of them ring a bell?"

[⊕ Owen Pearson]

After hearing Dan say, "Well, the main divisions around this base are the third infantry and the Desert rats. Any of them ring a bell?", He remembered what division he was a part of as if a lightbulb had just appeared over his head.

"Oh, that's it. I am in the Third Infantry", said Owen. He then thought about it for a short while and remembered what Company he was in and continued with, "I think that I'm in Bravo Company." It was as if he had just had an epiphany of sorts.

He walked in through the office door and held it for Dan to come in. The office was a large sized office and made Owen wonder why the people in the main room were so crowded together. The walls wee very beat up with many shades of wallpaper showing and multiple colors of paint patching the walls.

The man in the room was sitting at his desk and looked very pleasured to see Owen. The man asked, "Are you Corporal Owen Pearson?"

"Reporting for duties", said Owen sounding very much as if he was a young private.

The man laughed at how Owen used this phrase forcing Owen to turn a light shade of red. The man noticed Dan and said, "Oh Dan, I didn't see you at first. Would you like to show Corporal Owen around the base as I complete his paperwork?

[Daniel Brennan]

Daniel grinned slightly despite himself as Owen suddenly remembered what division he was in, He was starting to like the quiet Corporal, and he was pleased that they were in the same division. "Well, I'd like to give you a warm welcome to the Third Infantry, Owen. Although I myself am in Alpha Company, so we might not really see each other much. Unlucky you having to serve beneath that pompous fool, Lieutenant Ealing! Patterson is a good commander, but he'll have you court-marshialed if you say as much as one bad word towards him. Lieutenant Riley is the best o' them though. Although he may not be as good a tactition as Patterson, he's friendly enough to be your brother and he really understands where the ordinary soldier is coming from..." Daniel trailed off happily, in the middle of describing the traits of the officers.

Owen started conversing with a one-legged division Secretary called Alan Robinson (His close friends knew him as "Stumpy". Daniel gave an inaudible sigh of exasperation at Owen's "reporting for duties". He had a lot more to learn about life in this division. However, he didn't hold it against Owen, he merely grinned and nudged him with his elbow. Stumpy noticed Daniel then and suggested he show Corporal Pearson around. "Well, that's Ok with me" Daniel answered happily. He tilted his head to look at the paperwork Stumpy was working on to see what dorm Owen was in. "Come on Owen, see-ya Stumpy!" He called over his shoulder as he left the room having found the right information.

Back out into the corridor he went. He took a right turn through a door which brought him into a short empty hallway. At the end stood a side-door to the outside which he walked through. "This is mostly an administration building, your barracks is over here" He said to Owen. and started walking in the direction of another smaller building.

OOC: Sorry if a sorta left you behind there, but I wanted to speed up the thread's pace a bit.

[⊕ Owen Pearson]

"Well, that's Ok with me", was Daniel's answer to the question. Owen was happy that he was going to be shown around by someone he knew instead of by a complete stranger. After that Dan said in a joking manner, "Come on Owen, see-ya Stumpy!" Owen assumed that the man's nickname was Stumpy, but he could not figure out why the name would have been given as the visible portion of the man looked completely normal.

Owen quickly followed Dan as Stumpy give a loud sigh that pushed them out of the office. Dan had sped down the hallway and Owen practically ran in order to catch up to him. Owen caught up just as they went through a door and headed to the right. They went through a short hallway and outside through a side door. Just as they went outside, Dan started the tour by saying, "This is mostly an administration building, your barracks is over here." He looked at the smallish building that Dan had mentioned. It seemed to be in worse shape than the building that they had just left. The siding was peeling of and graffiti still lased the outer walls of the building. It had appeared that the building had been given a bit of upkeeping but still was in pretty bad shape.

OOC: Don't worry about it, it was getting slow.

[Daniel Brennan]

Owen walked alongside him silently, not saying a word as the two headed towards the building in front of him. The building was one of the worst ones in the whole compound. The walls were convered in a mixture of different wallpapers from down through the ages, but they had peeled off so much that it was hard to tell how many different layers there had been. Where there wasn't "wallpaper" there was a plain green/white paint. Of course, this had mostly peeled off too... Daniel knew what the inside looked like because he had been in there a number of times before. The outside was much the same as the insids, except there wasn't any wallpaper.

He decided to actually be true to his word and start telling Owen where things were. "Over there is the Track N' field where you will have to go most mornings at about 6AM. That low building over there is the Enlisted mess hall: breakfast is at seven AM, lunch at 2 and Dinner at 7PM. It's advisable to eat whatever you get no matter how bad it looks." Daniel gave a short laugh and grinned at Owen. "Nah, it isn't actuallyu that bad!" He assured. His face took a thoughtful look. "Actually, the cooking here is very good now that I mention it." He shrugged.

[⊕ Owen Pearson]

Like a lost puppy, Owen continued to follow Dan around the compound. A field came up along the right, muddied and worn down from the many people who walked across it. Dan motioned towards it and stated, "Over there is the Track N' field where you will have to go most mornings at about 6AM." As they passed by a building that was a lot like the administration building except for the strange smells wafting in the air around it. Dan pointed towards the odd-smelling building and said, "That low building over there is the Enlisted mess hall: breakfast is at seven AM, lunch at 2 and Dinner at 7PM. It's advisable to eat whatever you get no matter how bad it looks." Owen laughed at the "advice". Dan continued with, "Nah, it isn't actually that bad!" Owen laughed a bit harder at the epiphany. Then, Dan said, "Actually, the cooking here is very good now that I mention it." which made Owen laugh very hard at Dan's sudden realization.

[Daniel Brennan]

A bemused expression came upon Daniel's face as the Corporol started laughing. The bemused expression turned into a grin as Owen continued laughing. All the laughing was making him feel very full of himself. It would probably be better if Owen stopped. Owen started to laugh even louder (Somehow it was possible) and Daniel just stared at him with an eyebrow raised.

"Okaaaaaay..." Daniel said after a while. "What was I do- Oh yeah, the tour!" He said, fumbling around in his mememory to try and remember what he was doing. Sometimes his memory could be comparable to that of an old lady. Luckily, not when he was in battle...

"Well, that smaller, nice looking building over there is where the officers sleep. You wouldn't want to be found even looking at that place in a wrong way. If you did... well, you would probably be the man in the division who was most familiar with the latrine's!" He laughed at his own joke. "Down there is a seperate building where the officers have their offices. Occasionally you might be called down there to be briefed on some mission."

Daniel looked around and tried to remember anything that he had missed out. "Oh, yeah and over there is the prison block. You really don't want to find yourself in there!" He thoguth for another few seconds before shrugging, "Well, I think that's practically everything..." He lapsed off into silence.

[⊕ Owen Pearson]

While Owen laughed a little too hard for the joke that was made, Dan had interrupted him with a very confused but slightly upbeat, "Okaaaaaay...What was I do- Oh yeah, the tour!" Owen quickly stopped to avoid making too big of a fool of himself and waited to hear what Dan was going to point out next in the informal tour.

Next Dan pointed to a fairly new looking building and said, "Well, that smaller, nice looking building over there is where the officers sleep. You wouldn't want to be found even looking at that place in a wrong way. If you did... well, you would probably be the man in the division who was most familiar with the latrine's!" After hearing the small joke Owen made a brief chuckle that was more like an upbeat sigh than a laugh. He was still was feeling a bit humiliated from his previous laughing session.

Dan notioned to another clean-looking building and continued with, "Down there is a seperate building where the officers have their offices. Occasionally you might be called down there to be briefed on some mission." After a few moments, Dan continued with, "Oh, yeah and over there is the prison block. You really don't want to find yourself in there!" There was a short pause and then Dan finished the tour by saying, "Well, I think that's practically everything..."

Owen turned and asked, "So, should we head back to the office?"