I is for Iron Man
They had been in such a rush this morning that they had deployed without their wake up cup of coffee, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to see that sleep deprivation and under-caffeination was a really bad combination. Luckily Drip did have a solution to one of the two problems. As his fellow Smokejumpers cleared a line the forest floor to the mineral soil, he drained his canteen a couple of gulps.
Then Drip made an announcement to the group. "Does anyone need their canteens refilled?"
Both Dynamite and Blackout did, so Drip collected them and headed to a nearby stream. He filled the canteens with the cold, clear water, then dropped an iodine tablet in each container to disconnect the water. Last, he pulled out some instant coffee packets. He added two of the packets each canteen; then he paused thoughtfully. He still had plenty of packets, and there was no reason for him to be stingy with the caffeine…especially when the captain of his team was involved. Pulling out another five coffee packets he dumped them all into Dynamite's canteen and headed back to the fire line.
"The bottle needs another 20 minutes before it done disinfecting." Drip indicated as he dropped off his fellow jumpers' water and went back to work.
Everyone worked quietly for a while. They were tired and just wanted to get the job done so that they could fuel up and sleep. Most the jumpers spent the time ruminating on their own thoughts, but Drip was preoccupied with waiting. The wait proved to be worth it. Dynamite took an absent-minded gulp from her canteen, which was followed by an impressive geyser of liquid as she half choked on the unexpected flavor.
"Drip!" Dynamite coughed out as she tried to suck in air.
"Yes." Guilty party paused from where he was removing a thicket of underbrush, and tried to act like he was innocent.
"Next time, warn me when you decide to serve up a canteen of Iron Man." Dynamite mocked glared. She took another sip of the bitter brew, fully prepared for the slightly gritty liquid in her canteen. Then, like the rest of the team, the smokejumper captain got back to work.
Term- Iron Man- When doing field work we had a saying, 'Coffee is necessary for science, while beer was necessary for fun.' Turns out this is also true in the wildfire service. When you can't get a hot cup of joe they will make up for the lack of caffeine by putting instant coffee packets (sometimes several of them) into the cold water in their canteens. The wildfire fighters I know tend to call this concoction Iron Man, the Air Force Pilots call it combat coffee, and the Marines simply refer to it as Breakfast.
