**The wife told me I should tell people there is some adult language in this post and that it may not be appropriate for young people.  However, it is appropriate for people that act their shoe size and not their age**

To commemorate the Year of the NCO and the 234th Army Birthday on June 14th (suck it Marines we beat you by almost five months), SSG Brian Raley would like to share his experience with a simple little First Lieutenant who walks into a trailer full of Staff Sergeants.

As we work diligently in our annex trailer, a LT walks in the door with a smiling face, having no idea exactly what he was about to experience.

He came by to recruit help to clean a latrine. The catch is, this latrine has been in existence for over a month, had never been cleaned before. Plus, it has been in heavy use by Soldiers, DOD Civilians and local nationals. Needless to say, it was a “sh!t hole.” The pun was intended. Most of the toilets were overflowing with left over poo and toilet paper. There wasn’t a single square inch of the latrine that wasn’t completely covered in dirt and there was still some construction clean up needed as well.

The poor LT started by telling us a story about how he has been trying to get a company, which is contracted to clean latrines on post here in Basra, to add our latrine to their daily rounds only to find that our particular latrine is not added to the contract and it could be several weeks before the contract is complete. I don’t think he realized he was talking to a trailer full of hard core NCO’s. He found out rather quickly. After all, there is only one Soldier out of six that is below E-6 in our trailer.

The reaction started as SSG Sassypants gave a condescending laugh, then SSG Maryland chimed in, “Are you f*cking crazy!” Sassypants quickly followed with, “Why is this latrine contract just now coming out? How long has it been in negotiation? Why was the damn thing even built without some very smart military planner realizing that we may need to find a way to keep the damn thing clean? Sir, I guarand@mntee you that if we clean that latrine, you will find a combination pad lock installed on it and signs letting all know that this latrine is specifically for annex personnel only and no local nationals are authorized to use it, period.” After all, Soldiers can be nasty sons of b!tches, but gauging on what I saw left in the toilet, our diets simply don’t produce that kind of excrement.

So, being the good NCO’s we are, we went to clean the toilet, but only after we told the LT that we weren’t touching sh!t (yes, another pun intended) until we had the proper cleaning supplies. The good LT showed up a short time later with latex gloves, cleaning solution, mop bucket, ect… The poor guy made the mistake of hanging around while we got to work. As we, “made it happen,” we made sure to communicate how things are going to be done from here on out. The LT did what any LT should do when they are surrounded by seasoned warriors known as the “backbone of the Army.” He nodded his head in agreement and said, “roger that.”

All in all, we made fun out of a sh!tty situation. (I’m just full of those puns!) Each stall was equipped with an asshole cleaner. The kind only found in dirty ass countries like those that litter the middle east. Ohh, and of course, France. There were also drains built into the floor, so we took full advantage of the a$$ hole cleaners and used them to spray the entire latrine down as we cleaned. Grown-a$$ men were essentially having a contest to see who could be the silliest. The only thing we have to be thankful for is we didn’t strip down and have a blown out water fight.

I assured this Lieutenant who is the OIC of our annex area that this is the first and last time this group of motivated NCO’s were performing this particular duty. I’m pretty sure he understood.

This post is tagged Dirty Bathrooms, Latrine, SSG Brian Raley, Year of the NCO