Sea Stories - Guess the Story

I know I haven't posted many sea stories - only the cockroaches so far, actually. But here's a quick an easy post that should be fun. The marine in this photo is then-LCpl Melang. He is in Saudi Arabia in the middle of the desert doing something. Your part is to guess what it might be. Right or wrong, I'm looking for humor - so a good guess is a funny one. After the weekend I'll update this post with the true story behind this photo.



Edit 4/2/07:

Here are the good humor awards:

We have some potential foodstuffs here. Transposer from Blogster speculated on the possibility for this to be a white lightning distillery to curse the bad guys while Irishkungerod from Xanga speculated that he was churning butter.

There was also speculation that there were profits to made out there. BroinJC from Xanga considered that loose change could be found buried somewhere out there.

Kymmeigh at Xanga came up with my favorite. She wondered if perhaps Melang wasn’t sweeping the desert. This would be on par with some of the endearingly asinine orders passed down from much higher up the chain of command. I could hear some brown-nosed junior officer comment, “There’s entirely too much sand in this desert! We need to clean it up before the General’s inspection.” (I’m sure the Colonel doesn’t have this problem.) Of course, by the time it would get to a junior NCO, like I was, overseeing the operation, I would have to make the comment just for GP, “Hey, Melang! What’s your stinkin’ problem!?! You missed a spot right over there! …and there! …and there!”

Of course, those of you who guessed that Melang was burning poo guessed correctly. We had portable open-air 4-holers. We dug a hole next to ours for urine because urine doesn’t burn very well. We would designate two holes for use for two days. Every other day we would burn the two receptacles (we called them “honey pots”) we had been using as well as the pit using “mogas”, which I was told was a mixture of diesel and regular fuel. The burning waste was stirred with a spare tent pole. We would also burn our trash because we had no regular trash pickup. Then we would put lime in the bottom and let them mellow for the next two days while we used the other two holes.

Here’s the story. In the photo you will notice a mound of sand and a shovel on the right. This is from the hole dug for the purposes of burning the trash. After it was burned, we would fill the hole back in and cover the ashes.

We had built the camp and established the camp guard. For some logistical reason it was determined that the cooks would have their own camp outside of the main camp. For chow, they would load up a hummer and come into the camp to serve it in an area designated for this purpose. They always had extra and would offer it to our guards as they departed. We stocked this extra food and would snack on it or trade it at the gate with the drivers of supply trucks for additional supplies. We traded some to the Seabees for building supplies and built furniture (tables, chairs, shelves, etc) and floors for the hooches. We also dug a refrigeration hole in one of the hooches and were able to keep some foodstuffs relatively cool. Someone had eaten a sandwich and considered the bread to be old. The last few slices of the loaf ended up in the trash.

We had a Sergeant (not me – I was a Corporal at the time) who had always seemed like pretty stable guy. However, you never know who’s going to snap. He came by the burn site while the trash and honey pots were burning and noticed the bread that someone had thrown away. The flames had not yet risen to the point where the bread was to be burned.

“Hey! Someone threw away some perfectly good bread!” he exclaimed. He went up to Melang and grabbed the stir stick. Now the end of the stick had a long metal tip for the grommets on the canvas panels of the hooch. The Sergeant used this metal tip to spear the bread and hold it over the fire to toast it. When it was done, he plucked the bread off the stick and ate it. Of course we asked him how he could eat poo. “It’s burning. It’s sanitized,” he said.

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With our extensive food pantry, we had to fend off the desert mice. These mice had a tuft of fur on the end of their tails. Every last one of us had a throwable knife and were itching for practice. Every time a mouse entered the hooch we had to watch our feet because knives would follow the mouse along the ground. Outside, we had designated a burial area and made a small sign marking the resting place of our “confirmed kills”.

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On a more reflective note:

We were requisition experts. Aside from trading at the gates, we had learned to play the system and had set the camp up with a couple of TV/VCRs. Some had their VHS collections sent and we would have movie night not unlike what you might have seen on MASH. We had made an antenna out of com wire, but the only thing we could pick up way out in the middle of the desert was CNN. Go figure. We had also managed to land ourselves a field laundry and shower tent complete with a water purification system and holding bladder. Going out to the shower, we wore flip-flops. This kept the spread of fungus and other transferable foot maladies to a minimum. The problem was once one stepped outside the shower tent and trudged back through the sand to the hooch, one’s feet were covered in sand necessitating the final washing of one’s feet at the hooch in the little foot tubs we had bathed out of before.

5 Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.
6 So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, "Lord, do You wash my feet?"

7 Jesus answered and said to him, "What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter."

8 Peter said to Him, "Never shall You wash my feet!" Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me."

9 Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head."

10 Jesus said to him, "He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean;

(From John 13)

For Christians, it doesn’t matter how good we are in this fallen world. We cannot become perfectly clean because we still live here. We are dependent on Christ to make us clean.

Sea Stories

Over on Xanga, the Colonel has been visiting and recent posts have brought to mind some stories from my time in the service of our country.

Introduction to Sea Stories

Despite the deep tradition inherent in the military, things can change quickly. The tale is told of the recruit on his first day in boot camp, while yet in forming, who sat down next to a second recruit who had arrived a day earlier. The first recruit expressed his bewilderment at his new surroundings. The second, eager to bring this new arrival up to speed, said, “Well… back in the ‘old corps’…”

Because of the pattern of change in the military, a tradition of lore helps to maintain a sense of continuity among units. In the Marine Corps, the accounts that make up this body of lore are called “sea stories.” Sea Stories are mostly-true accounts of humor, valor and extraordinary occurrences. This post marks the first of perhaps many sea stories to come from my experiences in the Marines.

(As a note, the only people who cuss worse than drunken sailors are drunken Marines. It should be a foregone conclusion that Marines, while typically honorable in duty, are often rough, harsh, brash… the precise adjective may not exist. As such, I’ll tidy up the language and accounts for public consumption. Also, while these stories are not explicitly Christian, they tell of a culture still alive in the US where thicker skins prevail and people are trained to live life in the most difficult situations.)

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Cockroaches

In boot camp, there was a special board where recruits could pin photographs of their girlfriends back home. This board was called a “hog board”. It was ostensibly for motivational purposes. The idea was the eventual realization that a recruit’s girlfriend wasn’t worth undue attention while he was at boot camp.

I didn’t contribute to the hog board.

A few photographs that went up on the hog board were perceptibly not girlfriends. One such was obtained by a recruit while our platoon was working a week of mess and maintenance around the base. I was assigned to the permanent personnel chow hall with a few others. I worked in the serving line next to a Corporal of obvious Scottish descent who called me “screaming eagle” for no apparent reason.

When the mess area (dining hall) closed from meal hours, we adjourned to the scullery (where dishes were washed) and pot shack (where large pots were maintained) to clean up. The pot shack was actually a separate room of the building. The reason it was separate was quickly apparent to us. The large scale cleaning of food from the pots attracted bugs… cockroaches to be precise. There was a significant population of them in the pot shack.

One day, one of the permanent personnel on base, a Lance Corporal, offered an attractive photograph to one of the recruits (I don’t recall his name – we’ll call him “Stevens”) so that he could hang it on the hog board. The stipulation was that he sample one of the six-legged delicacies that scampered about the pot shack.

Recruit D’Orville was the member of my platoon assigned to keep the pot shack at all times. D’Orville was from New York City. His father was French, his mother was from the Dominican Republic and he was naturally tri-lingual. He also had a sense of humor. Once one of the Drill Instructors, sensing an opportunity to rag him, asked him where he was from. D’Orville responded with an earnest-sounding, “This recruit is from the moon, sir!” After stifling a chuckle, the DI walked off realizing the game was over with this recruit today.

D’Orville grabbed a cup and went around the pot shack filling it with cockroaches, just so that our hog board hopeful could have his pick of tasty delights. We all gathered around to view the event. The Lance Corporal held up the photograph for motivation. D’orville held the cup up and Stevens rooted through it to find his preference. Slowly, Stevens opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. He placed the creature with its back on his tongue and its legs kicking for freedom. His tongue quivered as he slowly drew the bug into his mouth. Just as he got it halfway past his lips, it flicked its wings enough to break the surface tension of the spittle on Stevens’ tongue and the cockroach fell to the floor free…

…followed by, STOMP!!!. The Lance Corporal’s boot came crashing down on the hapless insect. “Ooh. Sorry about that. I guess you don’t get the photograph.”

“I can still eat it,” Stevens pleaded.

“Sorry. It has to be alive.”

I think the lance Corporal eventually let him try another one.

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Another cockroach story took place in the chow hall behind the Band barracks at Camp Lejune. I was told that this was once in the Guiness Book of World Records, but I have been unable to find it.

Apparently, a cockroach once became too large and heavy to be accommodated by the tensile strength of the ceiling tiles in the chow hall. A Staff Sergeant had obtained his tray of food and sat down to eat. Just then the ceiling tile above him gave way and a cockroach nearly a foot long fell into his tray of food. An officer on duty who had been temporarily relieved from post for chow drew his firearm and shot the beast.

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If you’re thoroughly disgusted by these cockroach stories, let not your heart be troubled. These are the only cockroach sea stories I know that are worth telling.

Well… maybe the time in San Antonio we played soccer with a live cockroach…

…

Nah.