Cheesecake and Wet Underpants (1312 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.65 on 19 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Sunny (View user info) at 2005-05-24 13:38:00 EDT
Some of you may remember me, most of you probably won't. I'm deployed to Baghdad right now in support of OIF-3 (whoo HOO) so I thought I'd share a few of my experiences thus far. Now, keep in mind that I am a female, a chemical lieutenant, and I have about as much freedom to do anything cool as Martha Stewart. I haven't fired my weapon yet (my entire company is down 1 bullet...an accidental discharge, which is not nearly as funny as it sounds) and I haven't been outside the wire, though I think I have one of my infantry buddies convinced that it would be a good idea to take me with him on his next patrol. I told him I would be his 50-cal gunner, to which he responded, "According to the army, you need a penis for that." I'm really going to have to look that one up in the regulations. I think he's making it up.
Anyway, we've been here for about three months. At the end of our first week in country, I got to hobnob with the bigwigs.
Before I get to that, let me set the stage. Every day, I went to the gym. I worked out for two hours...50 minutes on cardio (usually running) and then a little over an hour on weights. Sometimes I threw in some plyometrics for good measure. I was reliving my glory days as a rower...every time some horny idiot hit on me with the famous line, "Were you an athlete in college?" I blessed them with a pleased smile. Then I told them to go away.
Many a young soldier's hope of poontang has been crushed beneath my pink size 9 running shoes.
Anyway. The fitness center was very nice for being in a tent. There was a good selection of cardio equipment, a large TV and stereo system, and an excellent weight room. You might have been tempted to forget where exactly you were, if it weren't for the shaved heads and semi-automatic weaponry. Let's face it, in that kind of atmosphere there's really only a couple of places you could be: Iraq or a Neo-Nazi commune.
Like I said, the fitness center was extremely nice, but it's no Gold's Gym. There were fans, but it was just starting to get hot enough there that one working out strenuously would sweat roughly one's bodyweight in fluid. Add that to the fact that I owned three physical training uniforms, which required me to reuse each uniform three times before it went in the laundry...this resulted in a pretty smelly young lieutenant at the end of the third day. Keep this in mind.
On the way back to my trailer, I met one of the other lieutenants, 1LT Frederick Cooper, walking towards the command center. Apparently someone had called an impromptu meeting, and my attendance was expected. 5 minutes ago. I walked up to the CP, and my commander turns to me and says, "What are you doing? We have to leave in 15 minutes! Go get changed!"
Confusion is a common state during deployment. If you aren't confused, you probably aren't paying close enough attention.
"We have to be at a brigade social at 7pm! We're having dinner with the brigade commander!"
Oh holy Jesus. I hauled ass back to my trailer and gave myself what is commonly referred to as an "infantryman's shower". This consists of stripping nekkid and wiping off the worst of the grime with baby wipes. Powderfresh babywipes. There really wasn't anything that could be done about my hair...I could only pray that no one would get close enough to notice either the smell or the fact that it was drying in stiff, salty clumps. I slapped on some deodorant and ran back to the CP.
The brigade social was being held at a little oasis behind the DFAC called "The Goat House". It was very pretty, don't get me wrong, with lots of palm trees, a canal of water and saints above, grass. I'd almost forgotten that the ground is supposed to be green. They had a buffet line set up with food they'd gotten from the DFAC plus an assortment of deserts...including a chocolate mousse cheesecake that I ate two pieces of and felt a little ill after...plus trashcans filled with a variety of soft drinks and near-beer. I don't understand the deployed person's obsession with near-beer. I don't drink beer because it tastes good. I mean, it can taste pretty good in the right context, but if you aren't getting the buzz out of it, it really isn't worth the calories. Especially not when there is mousse-cake to be eaten. People here though LOVE near-beer. It's BECK'S, for cripe's sake, but they drink it like it's the nectar of the gods. There's even a rumor going around that if you drink 30 cans of the stuff, you'll get drunk. 30 cans. 30 cans of non-alcoholic Beck's. I leave you to ponder the ick-factor.
Brigade socials are pretty common. They are supposed to be times for the officers of the unit to get together and schmooze. Because my company is the only chemical unit in a brigade of engineers, what usually ends up happening is we stand in the corner like the ugly girls at Spring Formal. I wasn't in much of a mood to schmooze with my underwear and sports bra sticking to me like wet toiletpaper. Gross feeling, I don't recommend it. I would talk to Major Adams a bit (he's the S-3 of my battalion...S-3 is operations, they are the ones who come up with training schedules and things like that) because for some reason the man had decided he liked me. The battalion commander, LTC Landry would stop by and chat with us because he thinks that makes him more approachable, and Matt would drool over LT Riley or whatever other short blonde girl is in the vicinity. I only mention this because Matt stands next to me commenting on the hotness of all these random lieutenants, making me feel a little like the slave-merchant from Gladiator and that at any moment he's going to accuse me of selling him queer giraffes.
Do boys not realize that there is NOTHING more obnoxious than listening to them rhapsodize about how hot all these other girls are? Even if you aren't consciously attracted to the male in question, your ovaries are still sizing him up as a potential sperm donor. Occasionally your ovaries will take over your brain and make bitchy comments about the other girls concerning the amount of fat in their ass, etc. Menfolk think we're just being catty, when in reality it's just biology. Like lusting after chocolate or shoes, we are helpless in the face of our hormones. It's hard to make bitchy comments about girls in DCUs, though...they're so shapeless and unflattering anyway, that'd be like rubbing lemon juice into a papercut. Even my ovaries are not that cruel.
Speaking of DCUs, muslim countries really missed the boat. They should make their women wear army uniforms rather than burqas. At least with a burqa, there's a sexy element of mystery. Fluttering cloth, kohl-rimmed eyes, the occasional flash of ankle...at least you're still obviously female. In DCUs it's easy to get mistaken for a man. Women in DCUs - saltpeter for today's army.
Where was I? Oh yeah. At a brigade social the brigade commander (a full bird colonel), will stand up and say a few (thousand) words imparting his wisdom to his troops. Our colonel, whose name is escaping me so let's call him Napoleon because he was three feet tall, welcomed us all to the brigade and told us a little bit about the units we were replacing. I'd go into more detail about his speech but I was too busy trying not to laugh when I found out the brigade's mascot is the Mighty Seahorse.
After the colonel's speech came the presenting of the Golden Shovel. Every unit has something like the Golden Shovel. Sometimes it's called the Broken Track Award, sometimes the Cracked Diamond, but the meaning is always the same. The recipient of this item did something fucked up and his shame has been prostituted to the unit for their amusement. People can nominate themselves or others for the award. The story has to be true but you can embellish it a little, and the person who the story is about is not allowed a rebuttal. Applause and laughter determines which of the nominations wins. Every month the award changes hands.
After the Golden Shovel (which was extremely lame...the guy who won had cussed out a captain over the radio...what a comedy goldmine) came the hallowed Standing Around Smoking Cigars part of the evening, at which point I and a couple of the other LT's bugged out. We wonder why the enlisted folks resent us when we're standing around drinking near-beer, schmoozing rather than working, smoking Cuban cigars. The army's a little weird sometimes. Some officers forget to take care of their soldiers in their rush to take care of themselves.
Anyway, that was my evening: cheesecake and wet underpants, which is a great name for a band.
Sunny
User Reviews
Submitted by phuzzygish (user info) at 2005-05-25 10:43:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
HAHAAHHAHAAAAHAHA!
Hdley, that's the funniest fucking chirp I've seen in ages!
Submitted by HadToBeDone (user info) at 2005-05-25 10:25:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Sunny (user info) at 2005-05-24 23:17:43 (#)
Ranking: 0
If you don't like it, write your congressman. I didn't join the Army to be a REMF, a Fobbit, or whatever. Unfortunately, the Pentagon has decided that the American public can't handle women dying in combat, so most of us are confined to the "safe zones" -- there are a bunch of kickass females running around off the FOB doing cool things (mostly medics and pilots) but as I am neither a medic nor a pilot...well.
On a more hilarious note, the Army, something like 40,000 troops behind in its recruiting efforts, is considering restricting females from an additional 150 job specialities, AND making us stay in Kuwait when we deploy. Can you even IMAGINE an all female base? *shudder*
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Wait for their cycles to sync up and let em fight 4 days a month....
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2005-05-25 10:09:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Nice to see what type of shit we're paying for the military to indulge in.
No wonder our country has a deficit problem.
Submitted by Sunny (user info) at 2005-05-24 23:17:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by icepigs (user info) at 2005-05-24 16:43:31 (#)
Ranking: -2
They send you all the way over the Iraq so you can go to a fucking Social??? Geez. Must be nice being in the military and having a pussy. Wake up, go to the gym, go to a social, go to bed. A hell of a lot better than wake up covered in sand, dig trenches, get shot at, go to bed covered in sand
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If you don't like it, write your congressman. I didn't join the Army to be a REMF, a Fobbit, or whatever. Unfortunately, the Pentagon has decided that the American public can't handle women dying in combat, so most of us are confined to the "safe zones" -- there are a bunch of kickass females running around off the FOB doing cool things (mostly medics and pilots) but as I am neither a medic nor a pilot...well.
On a more hilarious note, the Army, something like 40,000 troops behind in its recruiting efforts, is considering restricting females from an additional 150 job specialities, AND making us stay in Kuwait when we deploy. Can you even IMAGINE an all female base? *shudder*
Submitted by Maddog (user info) at 2005-05-24 17:17:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Reminds me of my days back at Ft. McClellan, (except for the sand, tangos and near beer). Good post
Submitted by icepigs (user info) at 2005-05-24 16:43:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
They send you all the way over the Iraq so you can go to a fucking Social??? Geez. Must be nice being in the military and having a pussy. Wake up, go to the gym, go to a social, go to bed. A hell of a lot better than wake up covered in sand, dig trenches, get shot at, go to bed covered in sand
Submitted by jumpinjellyfish (user info) at 2005-05-24 16:21:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very cool post.
But not cool enough to make me miss the military!
Good luck...come home safe.
Submitted by nitty34 (user info) at 2005-05-24 15:54:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Not a rating high enough for all you do over there.
Thanks.
Submitted by strider (user info) at 2005-05-24 15:43:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Haggard (user info) at 2005-05-24 14:26:28 (#)
Ranking: 2
I never knew women's ovaries could tell them to do anything. I learned something today.
Submitted by rurumon (user info) at 2005-05-24 14:30:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
thank you dave barry.
Submitted by Haggard (user info) at 2005-05-24 14:26:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I never knew women's ovaries could tell them to do anything. I learned something today.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2005-05-24 14:06:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-05-24 13:58:26 (#)
Ranking: 2
Awarded experience?
No. I wish. Those are typically the things that you talk about and laugh over a few drinks years later.
Submitted by Vulva (user info) at 2005-05-24 14:02:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Thats why I did my time in the NAVY. Suffer through the gay jokes and you go it made, my ass rode around in a submarine during the war...but thanks anyway - I'm glad you guys do your job. Dont get killed - *salutes the hot lieutenant*
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-05-24 13:58:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2005-05-24 13:50:39 (#)
Ranking: 2
The Golden Shovel is an engineer thing. Typically given for fucking something up royally. For example, raising the box on a dump truck and taking out power to the entire village that you're working in, or getting a battalion sized convoy lost in the woods in the middle of the night for over four hours, only to have them get to where they need to go by driving through a civilian residential area.
Awarded experience?
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-05-24 13:56:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great Post!
Submitted by jgreening (user info) at 2005-05-24 13:53:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Just because...
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2005-05-24 13:50:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The Golden Shovel is an engineer thing. Typically given for fucking something up royally. For example, raising the box on a dump truck and taking out power to the entire village that you're working in, or getting a battalion sized convoy lost in the woods in the middle of the night for over four hours, only to have them get to where they need to go by driving through a civilian residential area.
Submitted by phronemophobia (user info) at 2005-05-24 13:50:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
<3 from USA.
Submitted by swamp_donkey (user info) at 2005-05-24 13:43:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Iraq sucks. I got sand up my dick hole.