Posted: 7/21/2006 4:30:12 PM EDT
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So I'm taking a dump in a porta potty here on Ft. Lewis, and when I'm done, I walk outside and start to panic cuase I can't find my IBA. WTF? Takes me a second to realize where I was. So being the good soldier I am, I look around to see if anyone saw me acting stupid. Cool points still intact but damn, I've been back over a year now. Second incident, I'm taking a power nap on my desk in the TOC, as I've been up for about 20 hours and I jump up from a dead sleep and knock over my chair. Everyone is looking at me like I have 3 heads and purple hair. No specific memory but I recall that mixture of emotions when something goes really bad like an explosion and I reacted subconciously. Lost cool points on that one. Happen to anyone else? |
| I just got done with AT. First time since I left the box that I have worn full battle rattle. I was issued an M9 instead of an M4, I guess it's either a perk or they no longer trust me with an M4. So anyway, for the first few days I had mini panic attacks whenever I realized I didn't have my M4 on me. Fucking conditioning. |
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So, Im driving down the highway and I'm making a very conscious effort to stay in the traffic lane. My wife starts yelling at me, and I'm like WHAT? I'm driving in my lane! She's yells back "Yeah but your doing 115 MPH". DOH! Everytime the guys in my old unit saw a dog, they'd start barking at me. My wife is like WTF? I still hold the Iraqi feral dog record. At least I didn't put one of my kids in the back of my truck facing the rear. |
haha, i was at the qualify range the other day and my M4 had a bent sight post that i didnt notice until i got out there. so i passed it off to my first line that was on his way back to the company. for the next three hours i freaked out about every half hour when i didnt have it with me. |
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lets just say i have a miserable fourth of july every year. it's not the shows that are scheduled and all, it's the retards with bottle rockets and mortars thta feel like popping em off whenever they damn please. oh, and i run red lights CONSTANTLY to the point where my wife will tell me Red Light, when we're approaching one. |
Don't feel bad, I haven't been downrange yet, and I do that too. The fucked up thing is, my wife is so conditioned, she responds with "good right." 
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Hahaha and when you shoe them away, they buzz up around your head until they settle back down! Ahhh the smell of the hadji shitter trucks.... |
Be glad you don't have the "shit burner" detail. |
LOL kinda reminds me of the epiphany i had the other day while eating chow. Ever wonder if the fly that you shooed away in the Prota is the very same fly that just landed on your chilimac.  Everyonce in a while ill wake up in the middle of the night freaking out and wondering why im not in uniform and where the fuck my gear is. Get that "oh shit" feeling like when you have formation and got one minute to gear up before your late. |
Be especially glad 
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Ours got mortared, 2 WIA (minor RTD within the week) from the SST escort detail, imagine the guys explaining how they got there purple hearts. After that KBR would not drive it. We also lost 3 porta potties to mortars. Still wonder were my M-4 is when I get out of the truck. |
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Every once in a while I'll be sitting down eating dinner, and then I'll freak out because I can't find my bowl of ice cream. It's then that I remember that I'm not in Kosovo anymore, with their six delicious flavors, and that I only have one in my fridge, to be eaten after dinner. |
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Porta-potty story: There I was, the Back 40 on Ft. Campbell, circa summer '99. I was slotted as the BN S-2 driver/RTO/clerk/Bitch-of-all-trades. So, we're out in the Back 40 for an FTX and the Deuce decides he wants to do some OPFOR stuff against the gun batteries as they're doing night air assaults (did I mention that I was an FO, assigned to 3/320 FA at the time). Well, one particular night, Alpha battery is coming into an LZ, and we set up around the perimeter of it. As the first chalk lands, we fire it up pretty good. Myself and two privates from the TOC wait for the third Chinook to release the gun, and we run up on it as the bird is setting down to unload the gun crew. As the crew is running off the 'hook, we fire them up, with a SAW, pointed right up the ramp of the bird, less than 50 meters from the ramp. (Needless to say, had it been the real-deal, that would've been one messed up Shit-hook. So, the LT calls ENDEX and we make our way off the LZ and back to my Hum-vee. The first lift derigs their guns, and lines up on the tank-trail running alongside the LZ. Then the second lift comes in. We go back out and fire them up a bit, nothing spectacular. After that, we return to the truck and pull up behind the gun battery. I'm driving with NODs on, and see little white spots all over a couple of the trucks and guns. It takes us a few seconds to figure out what happened. When the second lift came in, the rotor wash knocked over a porta-john, sending it's contents all over the battery. Oh, the Bty FDO (Fire Direction Officer), was standing alongside one of the trucks when it happened. Apparently, his guys didn't like riding around with him that night, for some odd reason. (The Deuce got a huge laugh out of it, because he and A-bty's FDO weren't exactly buddy-buddy.) Just thought you'd all get a laugh out of it. |
I just spit soda all over my CPU screen on that post. I refuse to go into porta potties after Iraq. Ill shit in the woods first. I lost twelve pounds every time I went into one of those hot bastards. I had to train my body to shit at night so it was only 90 instead of 120 degrees. |
I know what you mean. You can also immediately tell if Hadji has been in there; for some reason they stink it up with a different smell. Of course dirty footprints on the toilet seat and an empty water bottle in the piss funnel are a dead giveaway. Sometimes they miss and shit all over the seat and leave it there.  Like many here, I've used a number of those plastic out-houses, on FOBs between Arifjan (in Kuwait) to Speicher to Caldwell, and some of the literature and poetry scrawled on the porta potty walls were creative and dare I say, quite impressive. I regret not taking photos of them for posterity. Heck, I could have published a book titled, "Thoughts of a Soldier: an Anthology of Latrine Poetry in Iraq." |