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The porpoise is doing very well on the Brigade Staff. As it turns out, he understands Army doctrine and the planning process very well. In fact, he’s even been able to teach the other people on the staff a thing or two. Here he is teaching an OPD/ NCOPD session (Officer / Non-Commissioned Officer Professional Development):
After all of my unsuccessful attempts to train the porpoise to do something useful, I finally had to confront him today.
“You can’t carry a weapon,” I said, “you can’t drive a vehicle, you can’t walk, and you can’t even wear a helmet. Do you have ANY skills?”
The porpoise made his usual series of ear-splitting high-pitched noises, and then he did this:
That’s hardly a useful skill! As a matter of fact, it’s kind of scary that I didn’t know about this before I tried to take him on that night patrol. With all those flashing colored lights, he could have given away our position. It could have been a disaster!
What on earth could I do with this soldier? After much thought, I decided that I would do with him what the humans seem to do with people who lack any useful skills… I assigned him to the brigade staff.
I think he’ll fit right in.
Since the porpoise was having trouble doing dismounted patrols, I thought maybe it would be better if I trained him to be a HMMWV driver. As you can see, that didn’t work out very well either. *SIGH*
I’m continuing in my attempts to integrate this new soldier into my squad. Today, I tried to take him on a dismounted patrol. The porpoise can’t carry a weapon because his flippers won’t fit into the trigger guards of anything we have. I suppose he could swat at the butterfly trigger on a .50 caliber machine gun, but I haven’t tried that yet. He still can’t figure out how to wear a helmet or a uniform, either. About all I could have him do is carry the radio. He was excited to do that and let off a bunch of high-pitched noises that hurt my ears. I told him he’d better not make noise like that while we were patrolling.
We started our patrol just before sunset…
Unfortunately, we were barely outside the wire when the porpoise suddenly collapsed from dehydration.
I had to perform emergency first aid…
We quickly evacuated the porpoise to the medical clinic. The medics took care of him and in a few hours, they released him. He was fine, but they gave him a couple days in quarters to finish his recovery. Here’s a picture of me stopping by to check on him.
I feel bad that the porpoise had to suffer all that, but it’s his own fault. The Army Safety Center recommends that in Heat Category Five, porpoises should consume at least two quarts of water every minute. I told him this, but he just wouldn’t listen...
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