The Convertable War Board

For those of you not in the military, when a base commander tells you to do something, you DO IT!!  While I was stationed at Camp Bucca, the FOB commander, a great guy, asked me to make him a “War Board.”  He wanted a bulletin board that he could have a normal display of routine paperwork, but when we had an emergency (either a detainees escape, IDF (indirect fire on the FOB), or a riot at the detention facility), he wanted it to be able to flip over, and opened up so there would already be all the base maps and SOPs for the event.  It needed to be lockable so people couldn’t see it normally.

So this is what I came up with. It’s inspired by the old time chalk boards in school.  There were a few challenges in building it.  One was that I need to scrounge all the materials.  I was lucky to get the two main pieces of plywood for it.  The hinges are made from heavy duty tent spikes that I cut down.  The locking mechanism came from a broken wall locker.  (I had to re-key it to work with a key I found as I didn’t have the original key for it.)  In fact, this entire stand was made with items found in the metal scrap yard.  (Yes, all the wood was in there as well.)  Talk about re-purposing!

One of the messy parts was painting it.  Iraqi paint is garbage.  It’s meant to be cut down with diesel fuel!  What a mess, and talk about a nasty smell.  I had to paint it indoors and I thought I was going to die by the time I was done!

I wish I would have thought to take pictures of it while I was building it, but I didn’t know about ‘ilbes back then!
Enjoy!

Note, I was inspired to post this (and other) slideshow as a result of Frosty865’s question.  Here is a link to it…
https://www.instructables.com/answers/Does-anyone-know-a-good-site-for-DIY-for-deployed-/

And here is a link to my current blog as I’m deployed in Afghanistan.
http://www.megageek.com/blog/Mob2009afg.nsf

Also, feel free to PM me if you have any questions on it!