Fort Campbell, KY (2006)
“Okay be back here at 0900. Don’t forget 10 minutes prior. Platoon Attention! Fall out!” Everybody dispersed and headed for their vehicles. That’s when it happened. I took two steps and like a Tyson double hook to the body I felt it in my stomach. I got hit with with the Bee Gees. The bubble guts. I had to quickly assess the situation. Okay I live about 10 minutes away but with this early morning traffic and the bubbling rate it quickly became apparent to me that I was not going to make it. Like a pilot making an emergency landing I had to put this baby down somewhere or risk a catastrophic accident. Okay okay. Just like reading a map I had to orient myself to my surroundings. Where am I? I’m in the 4th BCT barracks area. The new Band of Brothers barracks and it was mostly empty since most of the division was deployed to Iraq. I moved to my left and I moved to my right. I had to find a location to drop a deuce. Or in this case drop a cluster bomb…let off a shotgun. Okay you get the picture.
I tried several doors but they were all locked. DAMN!! By now the situation was getting serious. I was at the point of no return. My initial assessment told me that I was not going to make it to the house so I lost precious minutes looking for a drop zone. So now I’m too far from my car to try and haul ass to the house. Finally I found an open building. I burst into the lobby and there was a Specialist at the front desk. I asked him where the latrine was. He pointed and I took off running. I heard a voice in the back of my head like a radio transmission. “Bravo Whisky this is Mike Foxtrot you’re coming in too hot! No time to land this baby you gotta drop it where you can!” I ran into the stall, slammed the door and went into a hover. The voice said “Cut sling load! Cut sling load!” I let her rip and like Kurt Kobain’s brains there was shit matter everywhere. But it was all INSIDE the bowl. Yes I got skills. After avoiding what could have been a disastrous morning I had another problem. In my haste to drop a deuce I had not made sure I had all the required materials. Namely toilet paper. Fuck! Think soldier think!
I’m not about to rip my t-shirt. Plus that new material is hard to rip and I don’t have a knife. Luckily I had on a PT hat (watch cap). So I did what I had to do and wiped with the PT hat. I couldn’t flush it so I figured I would throw it in the trash. Well the CQ failed to do his job ‘cuz there was no trash bag in there. So I laid this shit stained PT hat on top of the toilet. There you go Currahee. Next time put toilet paper in the stalls. As I walked by the Specialist at the front desk I told him he was out of toilet paper and I’m out of a PT hat. He didn’t get it ‘cuz he just had that dumb look on his face. I walked out and went to the house to take a shower.
That reminds me of another bowel movement story at Ft. Campbell yet again. It was 1999 and we were getting ready for a Division Run. That’s 20,000(?) soldiers running four miles in formation. So of course for that many people running at the same time things are orchestrated. Units have to be set up at certain places prior to the start of the run and they all fall in as the procession runs by. I was there waiting in the cold and POW! The bubble guts hit me. Once again I had to find a location to relieve myself. At the time Campbell still had these old WW2 style buildings. I remembered the Replacement Company was right down the street and I had stayed in there when I first got to Ft. Campbell a few months earlier. Well first I tried to use the latrines at the bus terminal on post. It only had one stall and some motherfucker decided to take a shit the same time I had to. That’s when I ran even further to the Replacement barracks. I went in through the back door. Went to the stall did my thing then I looked up at the sign on the door. The toilet was broke. Almost simultaneously the front door on the other end opened as some soldiers were walking in. Like a soldier behind enemy lines I had to exfiltrate. I slipped out the back door like a thief in the night. I left them a little surprise. I can picture the janitor now. All pissed. “Who the f*ck shit in here? Don’t y’all see the damn sign?” I ran back to my unit and got in formation. One mile no sweat, two miles better yet…..
Cut sling load: Military term for taking a dump. Originally came from the command Air Assault soldiers use to order the helicopter crew chief to drop the cargo load carried underneath the chopper.
Dude! I'll be back in 10-15, I've got to go cut sling load something fierce.
CQ: Charge of Quarters.
