The author can be reached at stories@mudcub.com --------------
SHIT Squad (Part 1) by Mudcub
We were picked because we were short and dirty. No seriously... I found out later that the NCO searched through military files looking for guys with one or more hygiene violations. Guys who didn't like to bathe... whose uniforms were found to be less than perfect. It didn't take too much looking to form a squad of a dozen of the smelliest motherfuckers that ever entered the army.
We didn't actually volunteer for the duty. Instead, we were kind of "suggested" by our existing units. Maybe our former commanders got tired of us stinking up the bunks. As for me, I seemed to get along with most everyone. I loved to pull latrine duty. But nobody ever let me work in the kitchen!
We pulled six weeks of training before we were sent to Afghanistan. I didn't know how long those six weeks would be. The squad leader "staff sergeant McKine" was a rough motherfucker: ex-special ops with three tours of duty in Vietnam. Later, he told us some stories that were blood curdling. Those tunnel rats really had it rough.
But our mission wasn't going to be a walk in the park, either. Within minutes of arriving at the training site, McKine gathered us all in a room and explained the situation.
"A weapons cache was found underground right in the middle of Kandahar," he started. "The biggest we've found yet, and it was right in the middle of the city."
He punched his finger in the air for emphasis. "Right. In. The. Middle."
McKine turned around and continued his speech. "Soldiers had combed the area many times over the preceeding weeks and never found the cache. Do you know why?"
All of us guys looked at each other. Nobody was brave enough to venture a guess.
McKine spun around with tha answer, "Because everything was put down the shitter."
Kandahar has an extensive sewer system. You might think it's a primitive city, but it's the second largest town in Afghanistan. People have been living there since before Alexander the great in 350 BC. In the next two thousand years, millions of people had carved into the rock below the city. The city literally sat on a warren of tunnels, hallways, cesspools, and huge vaults. Rumor had it that enemy combatants were living permanently in the tunnels, only to pop up occassionally, kill a US soldier, and go back down again.
The US military knew this, and yet they let it go on. Why? Because none of the grunts wanted to go down there. The terrorists took advantage of this, and started to build secret walls on the inside of their latrines, since they knew nobody would bear the stench and search very long.
We were going to change all of that.
McKine continued. You may think Muslims are dirty. After all, few middle eastern cultures use toilet paper. Instead, they eat with their right hand, and wipe their ass with their left. Let that be a reminder the next time you shake hands with someone! However, McKine lectured, you shouldn't think they are dirty people. The Koran is full of dozens on injuctions on hygiene... direct words from the prophet himself on bathing and purifying the body. In fact, most muslims have an incredible fear of dirt and filth. We were going to use that fear against the terrorists. We were the team to get things done.
Training began the next day before the sun was up. But it didn't make a difference anyway, since we spent the next fourteen hours underground. Army engineer had built a series of tunnels similar to the ones we would be patrolling in Kandahar. McKine showed us what a latrine pit looked like, and how to detect false walls. As well as booby traps. Even in pitch darkness, we could feel our way through those small corridors, armed only with a pistol and a knife.
At the end of the day, none of us changed clothes. We just at our food standing up outside the mess hall, and then fell into bunks exhasted. No showers that night, or even the next ay, even though we were all caked head to toe in dirt, mud, and shit. McKine said the first guy to shower would be the first guy kicked off the team. This was certainly going to be an interesting duty.
The next day came my favorite part... blowing shit up.
Literally blowing shit up. Many of the guys had explosive training before. I didn't, so I had to sit in a hot stinking classroom for a few hours learning about different kinds of explosives from a demolitions expert. I got to put my knew knowledge into practice... setting some charges in a small well that was full of about 50 gallons of human sewage. Of course I had to dig my hands down into the muck to set the charges correctly, and when I pulled my hands out, they were covered green with rotting muck. I wiped them off onto my pants as best I could and kept going.
I thought I was far enough away when I pressed the detonator, but I misjudged how far shit could fly. The whole mess rose into the air, and cam crashing down on all the guys around me! Everyone was covered head to toe with stinking feces. Man did I get in trouble for that!
If you were claustraphobic before the training, you quickly got over it. Or you washed out. Some of those tunnels were incredibly small... a foot in diameter over long curving distances. At the end of the first week, I was crawling down a really tight passage, when all of a sudden, my gear got snagged on something. I couldn't move forward or backward. My arms were out in front of me, but I could find any leverage to push. My legs were trapped, and I could wriggle back to where I was. I was starting to panic, trapped in the solid darkness, when all of a sudden, I saw McKine's face in front of me. He had come down the other direction to look me right in the eyes.
"You got yourself into this mess, soldier." He said coldly. "You get yourself out of it."
And with that, he was gone.
I screamed in the darkness, thrashing my body from side to side trying to get free. I really lost it. But then I calmed down. This was the way to start a tunnel collapse. Plus, I was using up all my energy. Instead, I relaxed as best as I could, trying not to lose control again.
In fact, I must have slept a bit. My legs were growing numb, and that worried me. I realized I was thirsty, so I licked the walls around me. Without a light, I had no idea what they looked like, but they tasted gritty like mud. Enough liquid went into my belly that a few hours later, I had to piss. Why wasn't anyone coming to rescue me?
So, I pissed myself. And shit myself, too... a runny mass that bunched up sticky in the crack of my ass. But the relief of relieving myself was nothing compared to my realization that my now-soaked BDUs were slicker against the rock than they were. It's like I was a greased pig. With all my energy, I wriggled forward an inch. And then another. And I got past that tight spot, and crawled, exhausted, to the surface of the tunnel.
An entire day had gone by while I was trapped underground. When I reported back to McKine, he gave me punishment duty since I had missed an entire day of training! That was really something. But it taught me that I could survive when trapped, I just had to remain calm and work things out.
The next several weeks were more of the same. Man, I'd had never been so dirty in my life. Part of the training was desensitizing ourselves to the smell and feel of shit. Since we would be crawling around inside septic tanks, and worse, McKine wanted us to have no fear of filth. One exercise was we had to strip down and throw our clothes into a big pile. Man it was funny to see all of the guys naked. Black faces streaked with layers upon layers of shit and grime. Hands sticky with tar and blood. But where our uniforms protected us... all the guys were white and wrinkly. We looked like we were half-painted.
Then, McKine made us swap clothing. Luckily, we were all close to the same size, since everyone was shorter and smaller than the military average. But it was pretty disgusting to put on someone else's soiled uniform... damp and pissed in already. It smelled weird, and until I got used to it, I walked around with my arms sticking away from my body, trying hard not to touch myself.
Part of the training as learning to live off eating shit. Like when I was trapped in the tunnel, sometimes mining crews get separated from an exit route and have to keep themselves alive for days until rescue reached them. McKine explained that the human body could live for three days without water, and three weeks without food. However, even if you could live that long without eating, you'd grow too weak to help yourself. Instead, he told us that if we were ever trapped underground, to eat all the shit we produced. Not only can every meal be re-digested three or four times until all the nutrients were gone, but the average dump has as much water content in it as a juicy orange. Even a dry turd has that much liquid, and you might not guess it.
Yeah, before the course was over, we all ate shit. Our own, and each others. It was no big deal. A little bitter. But if my choice was to die or eat shit, I know I want to survive. I'm glad I was trained to do it, and I would eat shit if I thought it would save my life.
Besides, after weeks of crawling through tunnels half-filled with raw sewage, it not like none of it got into my mouth. A lot of time when crawling through a low pasage and trying to breath, I know I swallowed a bunch of the stagnant muck. It's a miracle that none of us got sick. I know there were drugs they sometimes gave us throughout the training, so they must have worked.
Did I have any sex during this whole time? Nope. A lot of guys have fantasties about hooking up during basic training, but I have to tell you it just ain't so. Every night, I was so dog-tired, that I didn't even have the energy to jack off. Again, maybe they put something in the food... I dunno.
At the same time, even though I wasn't having sex with my squadmates, we all quickly learned to take each other for granted. I became really familiar with everyone's body. If you were every cold when we were sitting someplace waiting for an exercise to start, nobody though it odd to grab the nearest person an snuggle up next to them. It's strange... I learned to trust my fellow soldiers completely, but also I learned to USE them. I'd fid myself using someone as a footstool without a second thought.
Again, this is not a big deal... I just wanted to comment on it, because it's kind of weird. Anyway.
Finally, six weeks had passed, and I had been drilled on my new explosives training, as well as marksmanship, tunnel engineering, and even some history of the region. We were ready as we would ever be. Next stop was Afghanistan.