True Story
One day, while I was stationed in Bosnia, one of the female soldiers told our team lead that she needed to go to sick call.
When asked why she needed to go, she responded “Female Trouble”.
Being a typical American male, and a fairly sensible one at that, he decided that he didn’t need or want to know any further details, and sent her on her merry way.
The next day another female soldier in our unit needed to go to sick call, and cited the same reason. The day after that two more needed to go.
Our team lead was starting to get suspicious, and asked for more details.
Which lead to a Specialist describing her internal workings and related issues in more detail than any of the male soldiers ever wanted to know. I think I blacked out for a little while there. (Seriously, ladies, we don’t want to know, please don’t make us.)
Over the course of about a week nearly every single female living in the camp had gone to visit the medical clinic. The mystery illness that was sweeping the female part of our population turned out to be urinary tract infections.
This was a problem that could be treated fairly easily, but still begged the question of why nearly all the women got them at once. And the job of solving this mystery evidently fell to our Sergent Major. Who was many things, but not particularly knowledgeable or curious about the plumbing of the fairer sex.
And so, thinking hard on the subject he managed to identify the problem, and come up with a solution for it.
As any female you know could tell you, when they go to the bathroom they have to make sure to wipe front to back. Because otherwise, and mind you this is a technical term, they could wind up getting some doo-doo in their hoohaw. Which can cause an infection. I suspect that this fact was quite possibly the extent of our Sergeant Major’s knowledge on the subject of female biology based on what happened next.
He determined that the entire female population of our camp, which consisted of dozens of fully grown women, did not know how to properly wipe. And so he called all of the female soldiers to a formation, so that they could have a class on the subject.
Just to make sure that this is sinking in, I will repeat myself.
The man had decided to lecture a large group of adult women on how to wipe their own asses. Women who were sick, and therefore cranky. And who had access to automatic weapons. On the scale of very bad ideas this scheme fell somewhere between “New Coke” and “Let’s store poisonous snakes in my pants!”.
Folks I couldn’t make this sort of thing up if I tried.
Later when wiser heads addressed the problem, it was determined our showers were using gray water. Precautions were taken to fix the problem, and the ladies were gently talked out of their plan to stick unpleasant things into interesting parts of the SGM’s body.
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January 22nd, 2009 at 11:21 pm
“And mind you this is a technical term, they could wind up getting some doo-doo in their hoohaw.” Yeah that was a little too technical for me could you dumb it down for me?
On the scale of very bad ideas this scheme fell somewhere between “New Coke” and “Let’s store poisonous snakes in my pants!”. I sense a quote for a new shirt.
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January 23rd, 2009 at 1:24 am
Yes! Shirt nomination: “Lets store poisonous snakes in my pants.”
plumbers quickly – would have solved that problem in a jiffy
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January 23rd, 2009 at 3:10 am
I’m not sure if there is any scientific basis on this, but more than one of my female friends has observed that after a while of extended exposure to each other (read – a few months) a group of women who have had spent a LOT of time with each other (say, rooming in, sharing dorms, or even just school best friends) will end up with closely timed ‘that time of the month’.
Nonetheless, this made me go into an insane fit of giggles.
What is gray water? *curious*
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Stickfodder reply on January 23rd, 2009 3:17 am:
I pretty sure gray water is poo and pee water.
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shadowdancer reply on January 23rd, 2009 3:32 am:
ewwwwwwwwww… okay, thanks. >.<
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Podmunki reply on January 23rd, 2009 3:57 am:
Gray water is water that has been used for anything that is not (and i repeat NOT) been flushed down the toilet. For example, dishwater, bath water, and laundry…..water. you get the idea.
Captcha: He peculiar…but not as much as me
Tzanti reply on January 23rd, 2009 3:55 am:
No, over here at least, that’s called brown water. Grey water is usually rainwater, untreated river water, etc.
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Jim A reply on January 23rd, 2009 5:35 am:
What Podmunki and Tzanti said. It’s lightly used water which is suitable only for flushing toilets with. Which is probably why there was a pipe of it going INTO the latrines. Some idiot contractor probably didn’t realize the difference.
Stickfodder reply on January 23rd, 2009 1:27 pm:
Oh ok I wasn’t sure.
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ArchaicDome reply on January 23rd, 2009 7:43 am:
And while our cycles will tend to run together when co-habitating (for a long time, though, not just a coupla months), that really has no effect on the pathogenesis of a urinary tract infection.
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shadowdancer reply on January 23rd, 2009 5:52 pm:
True but when a woman says “Female trouble” I, even as a female myself, will think “That time of the month.”
Urinary tract infection … never had it, but I hear it’s made of pure ow. =_=
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Minty reply on January 24th, 2009 9:41 pm:
Unfortunately, the truly nasty ones are the ones that don’t hurt at all until they back up into your kidneys. Now, a kidney infection, that’s OW.
Phantom reply on January 23rd, 2009 10:37 am:
And, of course, when you least want it, it happens.
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Speed reply on January 26th, 2009 12:45 pm:
The camp I was at used water from the Sava River. For some reason they couldn’t clean it up enough to drink it, but reasoned that it could be used for washing bodies, hands, etc., even tho there was fecal matter in it. My Captain insisted on using that water for brushing his teeth.
Two things come to mind: He’s the reason people make jokes about military intelligence, AND,
I understood why tigers sometimes eat their young.
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Ben reply on February 11th, 2009 8:57 pm:
What you’re talking about there is called the “Mclintoc Effect”. I’m fairly cetain I spelt that wrong.
It is a real and common phonomenom.
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January 23rd, 2009 at 6:41 am
“One day, while I was stationed in Bosnia” this similar to “One time, when I was at band camp…”
BTW, today is national pie day.
Captcha: man plucky
Why yes, Skippy is rather plucky.
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January 23rd, 2009 at 7:39 am
Surely the Sergeant could have done a bit more fact-checking than THAT? :p
Dous Stewart: He dous what?
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January 23rd, 2009 at 7:39 am
Surely the Sergeant could have done a bit more fact-checking than THAT? :p
Unconfined we: WE’RE FREE!
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Alex reply on January 23rd, 2009 7:40 am:
Whoops. Double post. It’s early in the morning. Leave me alone. >.<
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January 23rd, 2009 at 9:54 am
Ah the joy of recieving embarassing lectures from a man who has very little idea what he’s talking about. I will admit, though, the lecture I got for giggling hysterically when my male TI kept demanding to be let in and I kept refusing, so he used his key and discovered that most of the girls were returning from the shower (He turned bright red, which is why I giggled). So, I was lectured on innapropriate laughter. Another time when it is bad to giggle is when you are getting ‘counseled’ and he trips over his own feet and ends up sprawled on the grass. Or when he puts his flight cap on backwards after he stands up, trying to regain some sense of dignity. Ah, Basic training was fun.
Captcha: Inform Studs… of what?
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Kat reply on January 24th, 2009 8:20 am:
I had a DS straight out of DS school when I was going through. He took a group of us to give blood one time, so we formed up and marched over to the place, he goes inside, comes back out and says to us, “They’re still setting up, they want us to come back in 30 minutes to half an hour” Then he caught his mistake, turned pink, got down and started doing pushups in front of a group of about 50 privates all trying out damndest not to laugh.
Just to put it in perspective, this is the same guy who got in a fight with the coffee machine in the d-fac on morning when it wouldn’t give him his coffee. When he finally got it he took a big drink of (very hot) coffee and announced to everyone “Hey privates, always remember, Coffee is HOT!”
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Minty reply on January 24th, 2009 9:54 pm:
I’m sure he tortured you beyond belief, but other than that, he sounds pretty interesting.
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cdawg reply on January 26th, 2009 6:04 pm:
When I was Lost in the Woods (anyone in the Army knows what that means) for AIT I got to witness and be a part of the wildest (and most unprofessional) thing I’ve ever seen. Our company’s female E-6 DS and some other company’s male E-7 DS were in our barracks, pissed at eachother for some reason, while we were out in formation looking in, and got into a full scale fist fight in front of 100+ privates. First, because the female E-6 was our DS, and second, because we just watched a man hit a woman, about 30+ privates, including me, immediately broke formation and rushed in to break up the fight, and in reality ended up just beating the living dog piss out of some E-7 male DS who hit our E-6 female DS. Absolute chaos for about 3 minutes, we ended up literally throwing his ass out of the barracks, and we were all back out in formation sitting down by the time the MP’s showed up. No privates got in trouble but two ended up in the hospital….and you can imagine how pissed the 1st Sergeat and Commander were and the ensuing paperwork…
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January 23rd, 2009 at 4:53 pm
>> Our team lead was starting to get suspicious, and asked for more details.
…
>> (Seriously, ladies, we don’t want to know, please don’t make us.)
One thing I learned long ago; NEVER ask a question if you don’t want to hear the answer. You asked, she told you. Your own damned fault.
And ladies, no, those pants don’t make your ass look fat; your ass makes the pants look fat. Don’t ask me again.
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Damien reply on April 6th, 2009 10:05 pm:
My stepson has Aspergers and gladly gives out information to questions that shouldn’t have been asked if you didn’t want to know the answer or asks questions that you don’t wish to have to answer. An example is from his teenage years asking about if his Dad had trouble with fecal matter sticking to his hair on his arse.
Captcha Smaller Rangers = would be harder to shoot at
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January 26th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Gray water is reclamation of water used in the washing of dishes and the sort. Black water is the reclamation of water that has been used for human waste.
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