So, you guys know I have my idea for a Diorama, but what is the description and background story? Well here’s the skinny:
We deployed to an un-disclosed location to make 5 buildings. They sent me, the plumber, to help the carpenters and electricians. Everyone is psyched to knock these structures out because we might not have to stay the full 6 months if we finish early. The kicker is, we only have enough steel to erect two buildings, and we are waiting on more steel to clear customs. Yeah, I said erect, get yer mind outta the gutter! We put up the first building, 103’ by 30’. No problem. Steel has not left the port. We knock out the second, same size. Still, we have no steel. We put up a third of the third building and ran out of steel. So the legendary REDHORSE unit is in theater, but with no materials; we can’t work. The powers that be task us to work on several projects inside the tent city, to include a movie screen/ backdrop and a two-story deck. BTW, the deck was sweet!!! So, we start loading our tools and equipment at the job site to bring back to the tent city, and someone grabs a sheet of plywood and spray paints a sign to display on our abandoned job site with partially complete building. The sign says, “Will work for steel!” The crane is shutdown and the place looks like a ghost town. We were all so mad at the fact that we were ready to rock, but had to extend our stay due to a hellacious logistical nightmare, the sign just felt so right being there. Those same powers to be felt differently, and the sign was gone a few hours later. We posed for a picture next to the sign with our pockets turned out and our hats extended in a panhandling fashion. The diorama with the sign as a centerpiece came immediately to mind.
The diorama, as I see it, will actually have several guys “on break” sitting near the unfinished building, trying to throw rocks into a hard hat (a very popular downtime activity). I really wanted a crane to be there, static display and all, but have yet to find one. The job site will be coned and roped off, as it was. The rope and chain rigging that kept the building square and plumb will be there, tied to unusable rolls of steel sitting on wooden pallets. Some AGE ground-crew equipment will be in there, as well as some shovels, oxy-acetylene rig, work bench that we built, and scratch built concrete forms with stakes and the turnbuckles that kept the forms straight. I suppose it’s best that the crane is not available, because I want the focus put on the “sign”. It is going to be the title of the diorama. I wanted to build a diorama that meant something to me, as well as something that is true to the era and technically accurate. This was a time that truly impacted my life. I missed Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, my second daughter’s birthday, and Valentine’s Day. My wife was nice enough to send me my 29th birthday card, which told me to enjoy the last year of my twenties! She’s so sweet!
So let me know if you have any suggestions to this, I have already recieved some great input towards the figures, but I would love to hear more suggestions towards it all. Thanks for reading this long, drawn out post!!