Ten Things You Only Understand if You've Deployed, but Wish You Didn't
The dark side of that COIN…
This is a response to the great listicle that ran in Task and Purpose last week concerning the things that you understand because you deployed. This is a similar list, but instead concerns all the things you wish you didn't understand…It started when I read the original list to my all-veteran carpool. Of course, the ideas and memories poured out thick and fast. These are some of the best.
1. That moment where you’re in the shower and the incoming alarm goes off.
Yeah, that one. Where you have to choose between saving life and limb from incoming rockets or mortars by getting down on the floor, or running the risk of contracting an unknown biological disease by getting within a foot of that nasty shower floor. Tough choices. We all choose the possible mangling of limbs over the certain contraction of some as-yet unheard of mega-virus. A similar variant of this is if you are on the john when the alarm goes off...
2. You can’t sleep because the Air Force does engine maintenance at night.
Mainly only familiar to those on FOBs with air bases. But every damn time. You finally got some time to sleep, maybe even a full night. Your head hits the pillow, you begin to count sheep, and all of a sudden a tornado apparently touches down somewhere on base because everything is shaking and all you hear is WHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR from the F-16's afterburners. I’m convinced that it’s the way the Air Force gives payback for all the jokes directed against them.
3. Choosing between a shower and hydration because you’re so low on bottled water
Sometimes you can only endure the stench of body odor and whatever the hell those fumes are for so long before you have to make the tough decision. This conundrum is unfamiliar to most POGs (Personnel Other than Grunts) like myself. We have our own unfortunate memories, such as, That One Time There Was No Hot Water in the Shower For a Day.
4. You’re in a gun truck, on a long convoy, your gunner has to go to the bathroom, and you’re in the seat next to him
For those who are unfamiliar, the gunner is standing up, in a harness in the turret, so his or her business is at eye-level. When nature calls, nature calls. Your gunner has been on the road for eighteen hours, just like you, and is tripping off Ripits, candy, and dip. All those Ripits sure go through the system quickly. If you’re lucky, this experience only results in seeing your buddy do his thing into an empty water bottle. If you’re unlucky, you might be holding the ammo can as he relieves the pressure of some of KBR’s finest.
5. You find a hair in your dinner from the chow hall
Is that a hair? In my Noodles Jefferson? This is where you want to shut down the brain, otherwise it will leap to conclusions that will cause you to dump your tray in the trash and be ill. Is the hair yours? Did it land there when you were walking to your table? Or is it from that 124 year old ex-mujahideen who served you your food? And where on him did it come from? As I said, shut the brain down.
6. Toilet paper on deployment has been replaced with sandpaper
Doesn't matter where you go, the DoD has supplied only the finest grade sandpaper for its troops. Mix this with the way that KBR’s food goes through you and it’s surprising why you don’t see more people limping around the FOB.
7. After 1300, there are no toilets that work
Somehow, even though toilets are cleaned daily even on the nicest areas of Bagram around Disney Drive, they are all clogged by 1300. Completely clogged. So much so that there are piles of toilet paper escaping the bowl. You stare at it, trying to comprehend how such a thing could happen, until you are interrupted by a local national who approaches said mound of TP, ascends it, and continues to act as though the whole machinery is still operational. Democracy.
8. Had he lived today, Van Gogh would’ve been in the Army and doodled on latrine walls
I've said it before: someone could make an awesome coffee table book with pictures of latrine art. An X-rated book, yes, but it is truly art for art’s sake. You learn all about the anatomy, and what goes into where, and sometimes wonder if perhaps that shouldn't go into there, especially because that diagram looks painful. Or the long-running conversations between customers of that particular stall or portajohn, which plumb the depths of philosophical discourse and ask the probing questions about an individual’s sexuality that are rarely seen on daytime TV.
9. Trying to shave in between a local national gargling on his toothbrush and a third country national taking a footbath in the sink
Truly a moment where you wonder how in the world it got to this point. As you try to shave to reach that zenith of discipline as laid out in 670–1, you are greeted with the dulcet tones of deep hacking from one side, and the stench of, “my god, what is that fungus…is it leprosy????” from the other.
10. Taking a leisurely number two in a portajohn and hearing the unmistakable sounds of “self love” from either side of you
See also, “Why is my neighbor’s bunk squeaking.”
Last, but not least, the moment where you finally found a clean portajohn, where you brought your own toilet paper, and are hopefully going to take a number two that is actually solid for the first time in months, and then you hear it. From both sides. The product of General Order Number One. This is the moment you have in your head when you put your fist through a television when an Army commercial comes on once you’ve gotten back home.
Because no one understands the horror, man, the horror.
