In writing about daily life in Iraq, I neglected to write about Gatorade bottles. Specifically, empty Gatorade bottles. I never went anywhere without one. I never had to use the one I kept in my backpack whenever I boarded a helicopter flight, but I always had one.
Neither Blackhawks nor Chinooks have latrines. And as some of their crew like to say, "We can stay up for hours." In any case, I made sure to hit the latrine before boarding every flight and had that bottle just in case the Blackhawk had to stay up longer than I could wait.
In all the convoy training we did at Fort Sill and in Kuwait, I had that same empty bottle just in case that convoy kept moving.
And I kept an empty bottle in my CHU, just in case. . .
My commander once announced that he only relieves himself three times a day. Any more than that is a waste of time. I agreed with him in principle, but in actual fact, I am 57 years old and that kind of schedule is a long way in my past.
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Three times a day. I get up about 3 times every night!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a trac commander on a M113A1 in the engineers...when we trained in Ft Irwin, I always had a Gator Aid bottle...used it many times when we couldn't stop. (we did have to keep hydrated.)
ReplyDeleteA question from the ignorant: why not pee over the side?
ReplyDeleteNick--Riding inside an armored Humvee there is no side to piss over, and I don't even want to think about the accident report if you try to pee out the door!!!!
ReplyDelete