Dreamland

Collateral Damage

I'm working for a civilian contractor on a military base, we're installing these stuctures made out of large metal containers that are being lifted in by helicopter. We're in a poor foreign country, hot, dry, maybe somewhere in the Sahara.

I'm with the ground crew, the choppers lower the containers down to us and we attach cables to them and muscle them into place before they drop them into their final position. Then the other roughnecks weld them to the rest of the structure.

The chopper hauling in the next piece is about a mile away, crossing over the local village which consists mostly of tin roof shanties. The hook on the cable breaks, and I can see the container falling, crashing into the hits, raising a cloud of dust. Several seconds later I hear the low BOOM! like the delay between distant lightning and thunder. I'm hoping nobody on the ground got killed...

I see the chopper landing in the distance, and a couple guys get out and hook the stucture back up. They lift it and are back on their way, flying towards us. They lower it down, and our crew leader yells out to us, "Check the box for damage before you drag it into place!"

I walk underneath and look, the metal is dented in a few places, but looks like they should be able to weld it OK. The other guy with me looks at the container and says, "Coulda been worse, last one they dropped landed on some villagers. I had to clean the meat off it before they could weld it."