Commentary: Camera and costumes leads to crying and cops Published June 6, 2016 By Airman 1st Class Jessica Weissman Minot Air Force Base Public Affairs MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. -- Usually, whenever I'm tasked with a work order, I'm not particularly excited about it. I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching Airmen win awards and learning what they do for their job, but sometimes they're just another job. On the flip side, when unique opportunities come up, I usually always volunteer my time to go photograph the event, even on a weekend. Last month at our weekly meeting, my supervisor mentioned iMagicon, a comic convention, was coming to Minot, North Dakota. I had never been to a comic con before, so when asked, I immediately volunteered to go photograph the event. On Saturday, April 25, 2016, a group of friends and I decided we would all go so we could spend the day together, I could capture a few pictures, grab a bite to eat downtown and then come back to base. When we got to the convention center of the Holiday Inn, we had no idea what to expect being in Minot. When we pulled into the parking lot, we saw a little kid dressed up as Iron Man, so we knew we were in the right spot. As we walked in, we saw booth after booth of games, costumes, action figures, the whole nine yards. We walked around the front convention room for about 20 minutes and as we were watching some kids play, we noticed heavy traffic coming from a hallway in the back corner of the room. We decided to follow suit and see what the fuss was about. After a short stride down the hallway, we came into a gymnasium-size convention room with more people, more costumes and more booths. This is where the fun began. There were at least 10 tables set up for people to play Magic in the front corner, where I noticed my supervisor and his family were playing, martial arts instructors conducting "ninja training" in the back, six or seven TVs set up for gaming on the left and a Stormtrooper holding cell to the right. As we walked around we looked through comic books, experienced virtual reality goggles and stood in awe of some children magically creating villages on Minecraft. I captured pictures of just about everything in this room, and as the night progressed, I photographed the costume contest. Let me tell you, some of the costumes were spectacular. The competitors ranged from ghostbusters and transformers to butterflies and knights. The contest consisted of age categories, infants and toddlers, youth and adult. As the contest started, I hopped to the front of the crowd, right next to the judges' table and stage. I captured images of every contestant and reactions from the judges and the crowd. While we were waiting in between contestants, I captured images of some attendees, including a child who, it seemed like, saw a lightsaber for the first time as he stood in awe of the glow. This was by far my favorite image of the night. As the night ended, I made contact with some people to be sure they got the images I captured of them, showed my supervisor a few good images I captured from the costume contest and left for the night with no plans set for the rest of the evening. As we left the venue, we decided to go grab a bite to eat and hang out downtown for a few hours. We went to Fuddruckers's, got some burgers and talked about life. After we ate, we decided last minute to go to the pet store and finish up the night bowling before we went home. As the night progressed and we were having fun out on the town, we decided to go to Rooster's nightclub, where a good majority of our friends were. We hung around at Rooster's for two or three hours and then our group decided they wanted to go to Sports on Tap. Since everyone was leaving, we decided that we would go as well. We got to Sports and stayed there for an hour and fifteen minutes until we decided to leave. After a long night, we slowly walked to my friend's truck, laughing at all of the fun from the day. On the way, we passed multiple cop cars, who were prepared for anything to happen, as Sports is known to have a tussle every so often. When we reached the truck, I opened the passenger suicide door and as my friend got into the back seat, she noticed something wasn't right. "Jessie, your bag is gone," she said. "What," I exclaimed. "You are joking me right? Come on, that's not funny." "I'm being serious. It's gone." In an instant, a rage of panic, anger and confusion came over me. I jumped out of the passenger seat, nudged her out of my way and began to search the vehicle for my camera bag. Sure enough, it was gone. At this point, I'm crying my eyes out in the front seat. My two friends re-search the vehicle as if it would pop-up out of nowhere after our first two checks. Before going inside earlier that night, we had pushed the black camera bag between the passenger and back seats and placed a large digital-camo duffel bag over top of it. With slightly tinted windows, we were sure the equipment would not be seen inside the vehicle and no one would try to break in. As we began to search the outside of the vehicle for entry marks, I immediately turned to my friend with anger. "Didn't you lock the truck when we left?" I bitterly asked. "Of course I did," he said. "You know I always make it honk at least three times. I like to exaggerate things." I was not feeling his humor, as I was still crying hysterically. At this point, we decide to immediately report the incident to the police that we passed on the way out. We quickly walked over to the police, and informed them of the situation. They walked over to the vehicle and respectfully interrogated us to try to get as much information as they could. As we ended with the Minot Police, I immediately called my friend Kris who had gone through a similar situation a few years back. He reminded me that I should call my supervisor, so I did. Since it was nearing 1 a.m., I was honestly not expecting him to answer, and he did not. I figured it was going to be hard to understand me, so I did not leave a message, instead I called another NCO in my shop. Thankfully she answered. In a very sleepy voice, she cleared her throat and whispered, "Hello?" In a hurried and panicked voice I basically shouted at her in one breath, "Sergeant, my camera got stolen. I don't know what to do. I tried to call my supervisor, but he didn't answer. I didn't know if I should have called you." As I continued to ramble nonsense, she stopped me with her calming voice, "Weissman, breathe." I breathed in through my nose and let out a pulsating sigh as tears were still streaming down my face. "Did you call the police to make a report?" she asked. "Yes, they were here already because we're at Sports." "Okay, well there isn't much more you can do tonight," she reminded me. "Talk with Kris about his experience and we can get you started on Monday with paperwork to get things figured out." As we ended our conversation and I started to settle down, we headed home after a long, eventful evening. As I think back to this night, each day I realize the importance of safeguarding my equipment and vow to never let such an event happen again, as long as I can control it. There are many precautions I can take to ensure this doesn't happen again, such as don't leave my equipment unsecured in my vehicle or ask a wingman if they can watch my gear if I don't have enough time to go home. As a new Airman, leadership continues to push the importance of safeguarding my equipment, and sadly I learned this lesson the hard way. For the rest of my career, I will never forget to keep my equipment locked up and secure.