Be Careful What You Wish For

Submitted by: The Gunny

Combat has been described as long periods of boredom punctuated by brief moments of extreme terror. That’s an apt description, but it’s not all-encompassing. During my time in Iraq, there were indeed long periods of boredom, but there was always the unknown, the fear, the anxiety, the missing of loved ones, and the many tricks that the mind plays on itself. There were also many instances of irony and humor that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

From the moment that our unit began assembling on the Kuwaiti border, the “embedded” reporters were everywhere. They were anxious to get a story, some good pictures, and catch that elusive “big break.” There were reporters from every media venue that one could think of, and many that I had never heard of before. Just about every country was represented, and it was not unusual to see a civilian vehicle with “T.V.” painted on the side in large, crude letters, driving along with a group of military vehicles. Once the invasion began, and the shooting started, the reporters became a little less abundant. I guess it didn’t take long for them to figure out that getting shot at isn’t much fun. In fact, the reporter that was embedded with our platoon bugged out after we took our first casualties. She claimed a family emergency; some distant cousin or something.

For the duration of the war, my driver and I did everything together. Not because we were great friends, although we became quite close, but because it would have been foolish to do anything alone. One thing that was a two-man operation was taking a crap. Any time that one of us felt the urge to recycle an MRE (Meal Ready to Eat), the other would tag along to provide security. The act of taking a crap was quite an extensive operation. We were wearing chemical suits, and they were a pain in the butt to take off and put on. My driver and I had a wooden ammo crate with the ends busted out that we used as our “crapper.” One of us would dig a small hole, place the crapper over it, and sit on the crate to do our business. The other would keep an eye out for bad guys.

One fine morning, about four days into the war, I felt the need to take a crap. Our platoon had been moving throughout the night, and we had halted near a small village so that the engineers could clear some mines that were ahead of us. I took advantage of the lull in the action, and my driver and I began our “dump-ex.” We moved a few feet off the road; I dug my hole, and dropped my chemical suit to my ankles. I was chit-chatting with my driver as I carried out my morning constitution. “Man; how come the t.v. reporters always interview the officers? How come we can’t get some of that action?” I asked.

“I don’t know Staff Sergeant; maybe we’re not pretty enough,” my driver replied.

We would often see reporters interviewing various staff officers and such. Many of the officers that we saw with television cameras pointed at them were from support elements that were pretty far removed from what was really going on. We both thought that was a load of crap.

“Man; I wish they’d interview us. That’d be a hell of a deal, wouldn’t it?” I asked.

“Yep. We’d be famous for sure,” he said. “Hey; check that shit out Staff Sergeant!” My visibly excited driver said.

Just after he said that, I looked up to see a white Toyota sedan coming down the road with “T.V.” spray-painted on the side. As it pulled up to our location, I saw that there were two female reporters and a camera man inside. They appeared to be very pleased to see two Marines that they could film “in action.”

“Holy shit; we’re gonna be on TV. Staff Sergeant!” my driver blurted.

There I was with my chem suit around my ankles, taking a dump, and looking straight at a carload of Japanese females filming the whole thing. “Yeah. This is just perfect,” I said.

“You’ll be famous for sure now Staff Sergeant,” my driver said, giggling the whole time. “I guess you should be careful what you wish for boss!”