False Alarm

Late last night as I was sleeping I was jolted back to consciousness by the screeching sound of the camp siren. The siren is referred to as the “big voice” and it is used to sound the alarm in the event of enemy attack.

So here I am sound asleep and I hear the unmistakable sound of the sirens blasting in the dead of night. My immediate thought was,” Mortar attack!” and I quickly jumped out of bed and started heading for the bunker. Despite my sleep induced grogginess I quickly realized there was another noise that was noticeably missing…the sound of mortar rounds exploding. (This is an important point since no one would know to sound the alarm until after the first mortar round had impacted).

At about that moment the siren fell silent and was quickly followed by the “all clear” which indicates the danger has passed. As I stood there in nothing but my shorts and flip-flops I was completely befuddled by what had just occurred. “Surely that wasn’t a drill” I thought to myself as I made my way back to bed. It took me a few minutes to get my heart rate back down, but I soon drifted back to sleep.

The next morning I found out the truth. Some klutz in the TOC had bumped into the siren control panel and set it off.

Not cool. Not cool at all.