On a recent deployment to Southern California, Sgt Stitches gave Marching Orders to two of his recent boot camp graduates, TroupB-B and Foon, to drill new recruits in Manhattan Beach. TroupB-B enlisted the help of her two trusted geo-puppies, Private Peter and Private Chip, to help run the Los Angeles Boot Camp.
“Hut, 2, 3, 4, hut, 2, 3, 4…” If Foon’s favorite thing to do was geocaching, his second favorite thing was drilling the new recruits. “Ok you dirt bags! When we’re done marching, you can drop and give me twenty! But for now…. HUT! 2! 3! 4!…”
Just then, TroupB-B came up to Foon with Private Peter and Private Chip in tow. “Wooooo woooooooo wooooooo!,” said Private Chip. Foon gave TroupB-B a quizzical look, at which point TroupB-B translated the howling of Private Chip: “I’ve got another cache for you to hide, Foon.” said TroupB-B. “Private Peter will take over the drills.”
With that, Private Peter stepped up and shouted, “All right you maggots! Let’s see some sharp marching there! HUT! 2! 3! 4!…”
Foon, TroupB-B, and Private Chip continued to march around the parade square while Private Peter continued the cadence, “HUT! 2! 3! 4!…”
TroupB-B leaned towards Foon and said, “You’ve been having trouble with the codes we’ve been using lately, so I’m just going to give you the numbers. Here is the key to get them in the right order.”
TroupB-B gave Foon a piece of paper with the following key:
north EF BG.DCA
ABCDEFG
west FGA ED.HBC
ABCDEFGH
“Now listen carefully, Foon, because I’m also going to give you two sets of numbers. The first number in each set is A, the second number is B and so on… You think you handle that?”
“Yes Ma’am, TroupB-B!”
With that, TroupB-B leaned over and whispered the numbers into Foon’s ear. All the while, Private Peter continued “HUT! 2! 3! 4!…”.
“Did you say the coordinates were 2347?” asked Foon.
“No! And keep your voice down…the coordinates are classified!” TroupB-B leaned over again and whispered the numbers to Foon again.
This time, Foon leaned back and whispered the numbers back to TroupB-B.
“OK, you’ve got them… now you had better go write down those coordinates before you pick up the cache and head out to place it.”
Foon repeated the numbers to himself as he headed back to the barracks.
The sounds of “HUT! 2! 3! 4!…” rang out behind him as he headed back to the barracks.
“Let’s see, that was a seven and a four and a two…”
“HUT! 2! 3! 4!…”
“…or was that a 2 and a 3 and a 4…”
“HUT! 2! 3! 4!…”
“or was it 3 1 1 3 1 1 1 2……”
When Foon got back to his office he frantically scribbled down the numbers running through his head.
31123115311331141213 311831143112311321322112
“Oh no! Not again! TroupB-B is going to kill me! All that counting really messed me up!” Foon searched his memory for how he ended up with those numbers. “Let’s see, I got to those numbers from here…”. Once again Foon scribbled furiously until he figured out how he got to the previous set of numbers.
111211151113111423 111811141112111311222112
“Whew! I think I can recover the whole thing now,” Foon thought to himself. “Just two more iterations and I should be back to the original set of numbers!” When Foon was done, he did indeed have the original numbers. His paper looked like this:
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31123115311331141213
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311831143112311321322112
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111211151113111423
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111811141112111311222112
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??????????
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??????????????
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???????
(original numbers)
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????????
(original numbers)
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ABCDEFG
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ABCDEFGH
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north EF BG.DCA
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west FGA ED.HBC
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Relieved to have avoided the wrath of TroupB-B, Foon took the new coordinates and bolted out to place the cache.