SALUTE TO SATIRE
BY AJ LECOURS
THE SHIT SHOW
Esteemed reader, today we devolve. For the purpose of clarity, we are going to resort to the lowest form of humor imaginable. Something that has been making children laugh since the beginning of time. So, I strongly advise you to buck up and drive on.
The real story isn’t always pretty. As a matter of fact, it is shit covered. Afghanistan is the perfect setting for this story. Shit country with shit people and a shit war where I can do my shit job.
I returned from mission. Hot, sweaty. My ACU top and undershirt were wet to the touch after I removed my body armor.
The night had done wonders in cooling down the air, but my body seemed to still be playing catch up. I grabbed a water and a crystal light lemonade packet. These things made my deployment. Lemonade on the go. Fucking amazing. Somebody needs to contact the guy who created those single serve packets and give him a goddamn medal. Lord knows I would if I could.
I sat down on my twin mattress. My M240b machine gun was lying on the bed next to me. This is like the middle brother between the .50 cal and the 5.56 caliber bullet of the M249 machine gun. I took off my shirt and top and hung them from a knob hanging on the backside of my door made for this purpose. I knew from prior experience that it was best to hang them out until you could get to the laundry. In a bag, they just seemed to fester.
Now that I was in some semblance of comfort, I started the laborious task of cleaning my crew-served weapon. Crew served, being somewhat of a misnomer, as my entire military career, I had been the only one carrying, cleaning, and firing the “crew-served weapon.”
The weapon got disassembled into its base components, and then I hand cleaned each piece individually. There were a lot of pieces. It was a labor of love though. Not love for the weapon, rather love for myself. Each piece of my kit needed to remain in top shape for the next mission. I have known people whose weapons had failed them at a critical juncture. Mine would not (except of course that one time when it did, but that is another story altogether).
About halfway through, I got a tingle in my intestines. The tingle quickly turned into a kick in the guts. I could barely stand up. I was in so much pain. Luckily, the bathroom was set up as a trailer thirty feet outside the door of my hooch (read building I live in).
I exited my room, grabbing my 9mil and padlocking my door. Bathroom emergency or not, no one was stealing my weapons or trying to take me without a fight. I risked a fast step, then resorted to a sort of half bent over slow twisty walk, that you typically see in children who have to pee.
Oh god, it hurt. I opened the first stall I came to. I drop my pants while sitting down. Or at least I was trying to sit down. My body was just about in the shape of an L laying upside-down. My pants were around my thighs, and my ass was facing the wall when it happened. My god did it happen.
Diarrhea. Explosive. Shit cascaded from my ass like rain from the heavens. It seemed like an eternity of poop splashing up against the walls of the stall and all over the toilet. I had crapped so hard that a small toilet shaped silhouette could be seen on the wall. Toilet paper could not clean this mess, and, worse, I thought, it was going to come again. I could feel the second wave building up, but no way was I putting my relatively clean cheeks on that self-created cesspool.
I did what any of us would have done, I scooted over, pants around my ankles, on to the next stall. I sat down on this pristine toilet and looked at sad brown lumpy piles of shit under the stall door.
I commenced wiping as I said a quick word of thanks to my Lord and Savior for being a two-stall latrine. It was at this time Pistols came in. I knew it was him because I heard the trailer door open then an immediate, “WHAT THE FUCK??????”
“I know,” I replied, “saw that when I came in here. Luckily, this stall was clean.” I finished my business, washed my hands, and walked away. Pistols, whom at first I thought was waiting for the cleaner toilet but turned out to be awestruck, just stared in disbelief. He proceeded to drag everyone in the squad over to the bathroom so they could marvel at the wonders of my incognito masterpiece.
Now seemingly gallons of shit lighter, I returned to cleaning my weapon.
Years later, I had met up with Pistols, and we were talking about Afghanistan. Somehow, the conversation drifted to things we have had to use to wipe our asses down range. Socks, shirts, underwear. Gauze (him), Four single dollar bills (me). Pistols looked at me and said, “Do you remember that guy that shit the toilet—that was fucked up.”
“Yeah, I remember. Must have been a local national. They never did quite learn how toilets worked.” He laughed. I laughed. My secret safe. My shame hidden.
UNTIL NOW!
AJL - USA
* EXCERPT TAKEN FROM STAY CALM: THIS IS WAR BY AJ LECOURS