Urinal


In Germany even the warmest months get cold enough for a sweater. If your lucky the afternoon will warm up enough for a swim but, for the most part the summers mild at best. After years of serving exclusively in western Europe my unit was chosen to take part in an exercise in Turkey. The planning began immediately, our readiness officers spending months plotting our every move. Finally in the middle of August we were loaded into a C130 and flown down to a desolate air strip in Incirlik, Turkey. After taxiing the plane stopped and the rear hatch was opened. Still excited we grabbed our things and filed out of the plane. Then it hit you, the heat, it was so intense, so draining, within minutes the majority of us were conformed into something resembling a pack of zombies.
A week later found us busy setting up camp in an arid and dusty valley in possibly one of worst places imaginable for intense manual labor, 100 yards from the runway. The heat still persisting, the NCOs finally gave in to our nagging and agreed that we could to take our shirts off. Almost simultaneously, the wind picked up. Not that that offered any relief. It was like standing in front of a hair dryer, to make matters worse it kicked up the dust which stuck magnificently to the sweat and suntan oil, a filthy combination indeed. Not that we would shower or anything. We were being temporarily put up in a 5 star resort so, at the end of the day, we would file out of the bus and jump in the pool to cool off. You could literally watch the water change color.
Upon our arrival in Turkey we were briefed on the dangers of heat exhaustion and over exposure to the sun. The NCOs stressed that we needed to constantly drink water and went as far as to tell us not to work if their wasn't any. Later we were rebreefed on the water issue, the NCOs altering their message now telling us to pay attention to our bodily signals and to only stop work if we felt ill. As it turns out our water consumption had been grossly miscalculated. And that wasn't the worst of it, a backhoe, which was to dig a 50 yard long continually drooping trench to a 9 feet deep 10 foot square hole for a makeshift septic tank, wouldn't be arriving till further notice. The NCOs driven by horror scenarios of the 500 man reserve team (who we were making the camp for) being forced to use 3 porta potties, decided in spite of their multiple briefings about staying out of the heat, to begin with corrective action immediately. Desperate to avoid this type of hard core labor we came up with a counter suggestion of doing the work early in the morning and late at night. This was laughed off as an Airman's suggestion.
In retrospect, they didn't handle the situation very tactfully. First of all, no one knew anything about a backhoe till they announced it. Then the decision to begin with the dig at 11:00 didn't seem to correspond with the daily message about the dangers of heat exhaustion, but everything was all fucked up anyway.
A lot of guys from my team were picked for the dig, I was one of them. We would take turns loosening up the soil with a pick axe, while the other shoveled away the rubble. A tape of Motor Head was played over and over setting the mood of the dig, all of us outraged at how an exercise of this size could be organized so poorly, conscious of the fact that it was our sweat that would cover that up. I would lift up my pick axe high above my head and drive it into the ground with all my might fantasizing about how it would look sticking in that fat fuck of an NCO Meats head who was watching us from the air conditioned bus. After just minutes, everyone was covered in sweat and wishing they were somewhere else. I thought of how ironic vacation brochures are with their pictures of the sun, here I had all the sun and blue fuckin sky I could ask for and it was just hell. We ended up spending the entire afternoon digging, finally around nine in the evening the last pipe was laid. We grouped together anxious to get back to the hotel for a bite to eat a few beers and of course our swim. However, a last minute decision to debug the bus, that had been sitting around all day empty, except for Sgt. Meat, would postpone our trip back to town for another hour. Finally in the bus, exhausted, hungry and angry we flopped into our respective seats.
The next morning after breakfast we had the pleasure of filling in the trench that we had dug the previous day. Finally late that afternoon the plumbers announced that the Urinals could be used. Proud of all the work we had done and egger to see the end product we gathered around what turned out to be four pipes coming out of the ground that you would piss into. That's ok, hay it worked, only, they were all the same height from the ground. That's right, some field regulation stated that the piss pipes were to be a certain distance from the ground, so that's how they were laid out. Seems that the guy who was responsible for that reg. forgot that people come in different sizes. As you can imagine these piss pipes were to come under heavy criticism within hours of use. They were virtually useless for the real short and tall guys. What could be done? The hardcore regulation guys stuck to the book suggesting that the shorter guys use a box. That got fired down pretty quick, where they may have been short men, they were men with egos, soldiers, and they didn't like the idea having to have step up to a urinal like a little kid. The problem actually went unsolved for a few days. The original way they addressed the problem was to tell the people with height problems to use the toilets. That didn't work either, they all just ended up pissing next to the pipe. In fact so many people were pissing next to the piss pipes that the male soldiers were briefed on pissing into the hole. No one cared though. The group as a whole was fed up with the leadership that couldn't even come up with an acceptable solution to the piss pipe problem. Finally someone came up with the brilliant idea of reworking the pipes so they would be different heights from the ground. After lots of quarreling about weather this was the right thing to do, the suggestion was finally acted upon. The pipes were then reworked and the urinal problem was solved. Well, almost solved, guys were still pissing next to the pipe just for fun and it was stinking and attracting flies etc. We were briefed again about how they had fixed the height of the pipes for us and how it was our duty to the hygiene of the camp to piss into the hole. That night, the night before the reserves arrived, the urinals, or better said the piss pipes, were fitted with a decoration that inspired the troops to hit the hole. Someone made cardboard cut outs of women's faces. The mouths of these women were cut to be able to slip over the pipe allowing the pisser to piss right into mouth of the women. This improvement was seen positively by nearly all male soldiers. It was a hit, everyone now had a lot more pleasure using the pipes. Even the officers.
One day Butch arrived accompanied by her replacement, Butch was a female senior master sergeant, first sergeant, who was getting ready to go to another base. The official reason for her arrival was that she was going to motivate the troops. That was good, no one actually liked her. She spelled trouble, her pure existence was based on prying into the lives of people she didn't see fit for the service in the hopes of finding something they were doing that she could document. The real reason she came was so she could go shopping, the dollar went real far in Turkey. So, why not let uncle Sam flip the bill for the trip? The trick in getting down their was to convince the commander that she needed to conduct official business. That shouldn't have been very hard seeing how the commander was a man hating dike, who had two tone hair. Anyway her game plan sounded something like this.

Fly down to Turkey and have lots of suckups kiss my ass for a few days while raising hell.
Go on shopping spree for a week in Ismir.
Come back to camp.
Write some letters of reprimand, for morals sake.
Hop back in the military plane with all the shit I bought and fly home.

Sounds like a good deal doesn't it?
The news of Butches arrival made the moral sink lower than it had already been. This would mean a lot of stress. Where until then we had been more less left alone after duty hours, her arrival meant an end to leisure time. The first thing she wanted was a complete inspection of the camp. This she did accompanied by her replacement First Sergeant, (female) their clerk (female), the new Captain (male) and Sgt. Roderick (male, and a kiss ass). They were explaining how the tents were put up, how the floors went in, the running of cables etc. My guess is, the story about the backhoe that never arrived due to poor planning was left out. Anyway, they did mention that the trench for the run off water was dug out by hand. That impressed her. She immediately wanted to know more. The best was, she insisted on going in to see the piss pipes. I could overhear the kiss ass Sgt. and the Captain trying to convince her that they weren't worth seeing. Only, they were wasting their breath. No, she insisted on seeing the urinals. Sgt Roderick was sent in beyond the barrier to make sure no one was pissing, and yelled for them to come in.
'O my God! What the hell is that!?'�
that was Butch, we could hear her loud and clear from our tent, she had just discovered what the Captain and Sgt Roderick didn't want her seeing, the ladies with open mouths. She was appalled, and worse than that, she was embarrassed in front of her replacement, who she bragged to about how well she had her troops in order. Peering out the tent, you could see the Captain trying to explain while the first sergeant who had turned white with anger, looked straight ahead her lips pressed together. Her replacement looked down avoiding eye contact with the Captain, and the clerk was busy franticly writing something down. The first sergeant didn't seem too interested in seeing the rest of the camp and quickly retired to her tent after having a talk with the NCOs in charge about proper military behavior. The next day she had her things packed in a plane and she left. That was really too bad.

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...