Clean Enough for Government Work

Someplace in that title is a good title for a novel. I can see it now, a mysterious insider in the government spills the beans about . . . nah, I’ll keep the plot to myself and make millions.

This, instead is about some of the best showers I ever got to take.

Oddly, I’ve taken thousands of showers, but only a few remain in my mind. Here’s two of them and that’s probably because at this point in the game, they were a luxury item.

We’d deployed to Saudi Arabia as part of 1st Armored Division. It was called then Operation Desert Shield, and would remain so for a few months.

Shortly after our arrival, we moved to TAA Thompson and a few days before the invasion of Iraq, up to FAA Garcia.

We’d all expected spartan conditions out in the desert. After all, the life of a division MP isn’t all stand around and look good.

When we arrived at Thompson, a few mile outside the town of Al Qaisumah, we found 501st MPs was assigned to a small cluster of large tents. Each tent housed a platoon and associated gear. A slightly smaller tent housed the headquarters (Supply, CQ, Captain and 1st Sgt, that kind of stuff).

We had latrines that harkened back to the old two-holer that our great grandparents enjoyed. Only we did our business into cut down 50 Gallon drums. Everyday these had to be emptied and the contents burnt, a task that is about as disgusting as it sounds.

We also had relief tubes which were nothing more than PVC pipe buried in the sand at an angle. The idea was you relieved yourself (works only for male soldiers), and your urine ran down into the sand. The folks back home thought those looked pretty cool, but truth was they began to stink after a while.

Then we had the burn pit. We burnt stuff on a daily basis and no matter where you were, the smoke seemed to follow. The wind could be blowing north, and you’re south of the burn pit, and the smoke would still blow into your tent. I remember someone said smoke follows beauty. I guess that’s what we all got for being so damn good looking!

It’s safe to say that within a matter of weeks our tidy little camp smelled like the county dump mixed in with a backed up sewer.

Thanks God, we’d all gone nose blind.

Perhaps one of the biggest things we soon missed was hot water. While it is more than possible to shave using cold water (you can even dry shave. That’s an experience I highly recommend), it’s doesn’t exactly leave you feeling shaved. Since we were living in tents with Mogas fired stoves, every morning, someone filled up a metal bucket with water. It was put on the stove, and if we were lucky, it was hot after we’d come back in from the morning Stand-To in the foxholes. We’d each get a canteen cup full of water from the bucket, and shave in it.

Afterwards, you washed the cup out as well as you could. Then you poured coffee in it, drank it, and hoped you’d cleaned it out good. (Can I get a “YUCK!!!!” from someone?)

A couple of weeks after we got there, two shower stalls were delivered to our unit. Everyone began to smile. The best we’d managed was a little damp cloth washing, and while it cleans you, there’s nothing like a shower. Of course the showers sat unused for several days. I mean, what’s a shower with out water.

A few days later, water trucks came and filled up these large barrels on top of each shower. The unit’s mechanics had gotten out the heaters and installed them. These were gas fired stoves designed to be immersed and heat up the water. So, they fired them up shortly after the tanks were filled, and the process of warming up the water began.

Everyone is smiling and happy because we’ll get to go to bed clean that night.

That evening, everyone is directed to fall out by platoon and we’re all looking forward to this. The showers allowed one to step inside into what might be called a change room, hang up their clean uniform, strip, and get in the shower.

We’d been directed to take “Navy Showers.” Folks who have served on navy ships might be familiar with this. You step in, get wet. You turn off the water and lather up. Then you rinse it off. If you’re under the shower water for more than a thirty seconds, you’re wrong. The idea is that fresh water is a precious commodity. Preserve it.

We didn’t have any issues following that directive and as things turned out, we had little choice. The water came in two temperatures. Freezing cold and scalding hot. There was no way you could stand it for any more than a matter of seconds.

That was probably the shortest shower I’d ever taken. And I don’t recall the water trucks ever coming back to fill them up again.

We were back to warming water on the stove.

About a month and a half later, and not long before the jump up to FAA Garcia and our linking up with the battle Central, the LT came in. I noticed an odd look on his face and a quivering of his lip. I thought maybe his MRE was threatening to have a boomerang effect on him.

But that wasn’t it.

He’d walked into the tent and got a good whiff of us.

The next day we were directed to grab a clean uniform, a towel, and shaving kits. We had no clue why.

We drove several miles and came to a place called Log Base Alpha.

And they had showers!

Huge tents had been set up with wood pallets as floors. Showers had been set up, and the supply of water was seemingly inexhaustible. Okay, maybe not. But there was none of this get wet, soap up, shower off. We could actually enjoy a good minute or so Hollywood shower with water temperatures in the Goldilocks zone.

I tell, you, it was heaven on Earth. There is no feeling like the dirt and dust washing off your skin, your pores opening up, and your skin being able to breath.

I even got to wash out my hair! It felt so great someone started singing in the shower and before long everyone joined in. One of the guys even tried his hand at some Italian opera. For the record, he wasn’t bad!

I’d forgotten what it felt like to be clean!

We went to shaving tables with mirrors, broke out our razors and scrapped the stubble off our faces.

While we shaved, several of the girls in the unit came up. Women had their own showers, and like us, they’d gone without a decent cleaning in some time. They’d shampooed and stood at the shaving tables with us, bushing out their hair.

It was like standing next to a garden, and all we could think of was, “So, that’s what a girl smells like.” I remember asking one of the girls if I could take a good whiff of her. She didn’t object and so I put my nose up to her hair and enjoyed the fragrance of herbal shampoo in a girl’s hair.

I hadn’t taken any aftershave with me to the Gulf. After all, you’re not going to need it in the middle of the desert. It’s also a bad idea from the tactical sense. But one of the other guys had. He poured some Old Spice into my hand and I splashed it on. The burning of my freshly shaved face felt wonderful. I combed my hair, put on my BDU top, and my combat gear. Picking up my ruck, I started walking towards the Humvees.

I felt human again.

Like me, everyone else was taking their time getting there. We knew the minute we got in and started down the road, the Saudi dust would cake us again.

And that’s exactly what happened.

But at least we were clean for a little while.