Much is made of the physical and emotional hardship, sacrifice, and loss that come with serving in our great military. Rightly so. But when groups of old service buddies get together, a fly on the wall is more likely to hear laughter than complaints.
The Army introduced me to some difficult experiences, and it also gave me some of the best laughs of my life. Sometimes both came from the same experience.
While serving in Farah, Afghanistan, in 2004, I was, like many lower enlisted personnel serving at remote outposts, inducted into the Stinky Order of Burning Poop, or SOBP. On bases with no permanent septic system, soldiers had to provide their own sewage treatment to prevent the spread of sickness. It was awful.
We’d pour about half a gallon of kerosene into the removed contents of the port-a-john and ignite it. It had to be stirred for several hours. The stench was so fierce that the first sergeant ordered the work to begin at 0300 while most soldiers slept.
One morning at 0500, I stood guard on top of a giant shipping container near our compound’s south gate, my friend and teammate, Pfc. Weigand, on duty with me. Soon enough, the early morning air turned foul. The burning had begun.
Pvt. Anders and Spc. Micklin, two soldiers whose job it was to keep radios and satellite communications working, had so enraged the first sergeant a few weeks earlier that he assigned them to permanent SOBP detail. The two approached us, each holding a metal loop handle on either side of the barrel bottom containing the smoking ashes. This they were to dump in the desert outside our compound.
“Put on your armor and Kevlar,” I said, citing base policy that was usually overlooked at night.
“Yeah right, Reedy.” They laughed.
It was a silly rule. After all, my whole job since 0100 was to ensure the desert near the compound remained empty and dead. Unless the Taliban had acquired cruise missiles to fire from extreme long range, there was no danger out there. But Anders had made everyone mad the day he broke a crucial satellite receiver, killing our email access, so I didn’t feel too bad messing with those guys.
I nodded. “Cpl. Reedy, I’m sure you meant to say. Gear up.”
They did.
“I have two more hours on this post, and I’m not going to smell that stuff the whole time, so take it far away.”
They proceeded about 50 yards, which was far enough.
Guard duty was boring and we found amusement whenever we could to avoid committing the biggest sin of all, which was falling asleep. So we tormented the guys with the stinking ashes. “Farther,” I shouted, ordering them to double and redouble their distance from the compound. “Keep going.”
They walked a hundred yards more, Weigand and I laughing the whole time. Finally, I gave Anders and Micklin permission to get rid of their burden.
Instead of simply tipping the barrel to dump out the ash, they swung it back and forth.
“One. … Two. … Three. … Heave!”
They swung too far, whipped the barrel upside down above their heads, and gravity did the rest.
Instantly, they dropped the can, jumping and dancing around, brushing their arms, chests, and faces, spitting and sweeping their ash-ridden tongues with their dirty fingers. That morning, Weigand and I laughed until we could hardly breathe. Fighting to breathe was the one thing we had in common with the poor guys out there in the ordure. We enjoyed their disaster. They did not.
In war, soldiers break the boredom and fear with laughter whenever and wherever they can find it. We definitely found it that morning. I’ve never witnessed anything as outrageously ridiculous as when the SOBP gave itself that ashen shower.
Trent Reedy served as a combat engineer in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a year’s tour of duty in Afghanistan.
