By Lt Col Martin Bishop, US Army
NOT a bad posting, this Greenland one. Cold but you’re inside for most of it. However I do fear that any day now I’ll be ordered to do something really f**king dumb.
There’s about 150 of us here at Pituffik Space Base, you see. Pretty much all long-distance surveillance specialists because that’s what the base does. Strategically it’s very important. It’s an intelligence nexus. Unfortunately, America isn’t.
And our commander-in-chief, I fear, has the wrong impression. He believes there are thousands of us and that we’re heavily armed elite Special Forces combatants awaiting the order to execute a hostile takeover. An order that will soon come.
‘Capture the leader and deal with any resistance with extreme prejudice’ it will say, or something similar from an action movie. Our natural response of ‘What, Jens-Frederick Nielsen, the professional badminton player? And there isn’t any’ will be unwelcome.
Instead we’ll have to venture onto the sub-zero streets with guns, which will be so embarrassing when we’re pointing them at the woman who imports our Coors specially, and tell functionaries we’re in charge now. They’ll be so disappointed in us.
Then someone, probably my boss Julia against all her better instincts, will have to send a ‘Mission Accomplished’ message and we’ll be instructed to hold our positions. Meanwhile nobody will be keeping an eye on the weather or long-range missile deployment.
Then what? Who’s going to bring us food and DVDs? He can’t station an aircraft carrier off the coast, it’ll get stuck in pack ice. Plus there’s the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol who actually are an elite force, despite the name, and would love a bit of guerrilla warfare.
Nonetheless, we’ll follow the orders from a man who knows nothing about our situation or the world. I just won’t be able to meet Sara at the local bar’s eye anymore, that’s all.
