Visiting another base?

[imwithrebel]

How easy, difficult, or impossible would it be for a character to visit a military base that they are not stationed at? If it matters, the character visiting is John Sheppard (Lieutenant Colonel, US Air Force) and he will be visiting someone at another Air Force Base. While the characters have worked together previously (on Atlantis), they do not

Comments

[anonymous]

For someone already in the military? Super easy. All you need is your military ID to get on base.

If you mean the gate guards, no, they won't tell him where to find the person (they wouldn't even know; bases are huge). He could theoretically wander around base looking, but again, bases are huge, and some buildings are secure-- he wouldn't be able to just walk in. I'm not familiar with Peterson itself but looking at google maps, there are 20-30 buildings there.

Also, if he's in uniform, a random Lt. Col just wandering around buildings looking lost is going to draw attention.

I think your best bet is probably to have Sheppard find out what building this person works in and then stake out the parking lot, or something.

[imwithrebel]

Well that's better than I feared! I was afraid it would be impossible enough to the point of it seeming more believable that they randomly run into each other in a town near the base.

Sheppard would be coming straight there from Atlantis, so he'd be wearing his classic black shirt/gray pants ensemble and probably wouldn't have any reason to change before finding who he's looking for.

I guess my question now really is how can he find out what building this person works in? Where would he go and who would he ask to find that out? Would they just tell him this information freely or is he going to have to explain his purpose for being there?

[anonymous]

If he knows the organization the person works for already, he could just look it up online-- base maps are usually pretty easy to locate. If it's a super secret squirrel organization that isn't listed on the base maps, he could ask around the people he works with to see if anyone knows where it is. I guess he could also call the Peterson phone operator? That said, I seem to recall Sheppard was in Colorado Springs for a little bit before they left for Atlantis, so there's a very good chance that Sheppard has been to Peterson before-- if nothing else, to go to the base exchange and/or commissary (they sell cheap food, gas, etc there).

If he's going straight from Atlantis, you could also add in a detail about him having to look all over the place to find his military ID-- it's one of those things you wouldn't need on Atlantis, so I could see him tucking it away somewhere and forgetting where he'd put it.

[justhuman]

As the other poster said, active military don't usually have to justify why they are on a base unless they are trying to access a secure area