First all names have changed to protect the guilty

So there I was at a base we were reoccupying in Northern Iraq that we had abandoned back in aught 10-11. We were a horizontal construction unit (USAR) and we were sent up to assist the 101st getting this base operational (setting up T-walls/hesco barriers, repairing and clearing roads, ect…) for the push to Mosul. We would get incoming 2-3 times a week and the CRAM system they had was fraked up (they had techs trying to fix it the entire time I was there) literally never tried to shoot down incoming until a good 2-3 minutes after it already hit and the loud speaker announcement only worked about 1/4 of the time. Our SOP was to high tail it back to our living area (really big semi permanent tents with AC) as they were the only place that had the little concrete bunkers (inside the tents) so far and it was easier to get accountability that way. At about lunchtime one day the CRAM actually warns us theres incoming coming by a whole 10 seconds before it hits and we head in. Once we’re in the tent and get all accounted for I see one of the privates doing a little dance right by the doors so I walk up to him.

SPC Me “Mooney what the hell are you doing?”

PVT Mooney “Sarge (I was 36 at the time joined late when I was 32 so I would get that a lot), I was just about to make a class 2 download had my hand on the porta johns door (literally 10 feet from the tent) when we got the alert so I turned right around an came back”

SPC Me “Man, you should have just went in and did your business and then come in for accountability.”

PVT Mooney “I couldn’t do that, you have to come in as soon as you hear incoming.”

SPC Me “Whatever man, you do you, shouldn’t be too much longer for the all clear (usually 5-10 mins at most 20)”

I go over and start bullshitting with the rest of the E4 mafia and wait for the all clear. This time one of the other unit’s soldier decided to play Fuck Fuck games so they couldn’t get 100% accountability so an hour and a half goes by and still no all clear and PVT Mooney is dripping sweat and is at this point doing what looks like some sort of Irish Jig combined with Ballet and PRT. Getting worried for the kid I go up the platoon sergeant who a bit of a tight ass especially right now since he had been getting it from higher about us being behind schedule (not our or his fault higher kept changing our scope of work with sudden projects that needed to be done time now so we kept getting pulled off our original mission)

SPC Me “Sergeant, PVT Mooney seriously needs to go the latrine, he seriously needed to go an hour ago”

SFC Bass “Nobody leaves the tent until the all clear.”

SPC Me “Sergeant, he’s about to shit himself. You really need to let him go, somebody can stand at the door and keep accountability on him while he in there.”

SFC Bass “Nobody leaves until the all clear”

SPC Me “Roger, Sergeant”

Me and a few other soldiers for the next half hour try and convince either Mooney to just sneak out or convince the platoon sergeant to just let him go. Mooney suddenly sprints back to his little bunker area and dumps out one of those flat rate USPS boxes you get care packages in, puts it on his cot drops his drawers and then you know. What came next was the most god awful smell I have experienced in my life, CS gas would have been preferable. Everyone in the tent is gagging and rushing for the doors (which we still were not allowed to exit) or putting our gas masks on, which were pretty ineffective as whatever that smell was made up of was a chemical weapon our masks were not designed for. Took a good 2-3 hours for the smell to either dissipate or destroy our olfactory nerves enough that we no longer noticed it.

So after a couple days of mildly ribbing on Mooney for trying to kill us all with friendly fire the base CO puts out a memo (that we dubbed the Mooney Memo) to ALCON, that our platoon sergeant had to read aloud to us while the CSM was standing behind him watching, that went something like this.

ALCON

An incident has come to our attention that during the last incoming a soldier wasn’t allowed to use the latrine until the all clear. Going forward all soldier are to be allowed to use the latrines as needed no matter if the all clear has been sounded or not. In addition per AR cuz-123 subsection whatever. Defecating, urinating, or expelling of bodily fluids of any sort is prohibited in the living areas and subject to UCMJ action.

Signed LTC Steve Rogers

So yeah fun times