Grandpa’s War – Part 9 – The Smell of a Woman

If there’s one thing I missed while deployed, it was a shower.

As a kid, I was cursed with stinky feet. And since I was a cowboy and worked hard, I sometimes smelled of BO plenty. To this day, I shower daily. And while the feet no longer smell like blue cheese, I take good care of them.

The Dew Drop Inn was the last shower I saw for some time. At TAA Thompson, we didn’t have them right away. We had stands to wash and shave at. Water was heated on the stove. But space was limited. We’d tried to heat up a large bucket of water for everyone, and that seemed to work. But a bucket only goes so far. We’d fill the basin with water and share it. So, while you’re scraping your stubble off, you’re putting your buddies on.

Back in WW II, Korea, and ‘Nam, soldiers used their helmet to bath out of. You can’t use Kevlar helmet for the purpose, and more often than not, we simply used our canteen cups. You’d then rinse the cup good and make coffee in it.

I know. “YUCK!”

Eventually we got showers, but I was only able to use them once.

It had been weeks since we showered. The showers got delivered and the mechanics set up the water heaters. Trucks came in and filled them. The water heaters were started and the lines formed for the showers.

Unlike the showers we had at battle central, these were fully enclosed. You went in a small room, stripped, stepped into the shower, and turned it on. We were doing Navy showers. You step in, get wet, wash up, rinse. If you have the water on for more than ten seconds, you’re wrong.

As it turned out, we couldn’t enjoy the shower much. It had two settings, ice cold and scalding hot. I love hot showers. But enjoying these was impossible. Standing for any more than a quarter second under that water could have caused severe burns.

We were back to the basins rather quickly afterwards.

It was about a month and a half later. The LT came into the tent. 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.

Yep. We’d gone nose blind.

Despite our best efforts, we were in need of a serious cleansing. 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 hot 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 open up and your skin is able to breath.

I even got to wash out my hair (what little I had)! We got frequent haircuts since we wanted to be very careful about lice or other unwanted guests.

It felt so great someone started singing and before long everyone joined in. One of the guys even tried his hand at some Italian opera. Pavarotti he wasn’t, but he wasn’t bad!

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

We went to the shaving tables with mirrors, broke out our razors and scrapped the stubble off our faces. It felt like heaven to wash off our faces with warm water.

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.

While we shaved, several girls in another unit came out. 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 tables with us, bushing out their hair.

I was standing next to this cute brunette. She smelled like a garden of wildflowers and a field of lavender in the spring. “So, that’s what a woman smells like,” I said to no one in particular.

I turned to her and said, “At the risk of sounding like a total perv, can I smell your hair?”

She smiled and then held her hair up in a pile above her head in a flirtatious invite. Then and with a soft voice, said, “Please. Go right ahead.”

I put my nose in her hair, inhaled, and enjoyed the smell of her. With my eyes closed she was the most amazing thing I’d ever smelled. No flower on Earth smelled better than she did at that moment.

I could have stood there smelling her hair all day long.

But we couldn’t. We had to get back.

I took one final breath, thanked her, and grabbed my ruck. Truth be told, I wasn’t alone in smelling hair. It was delightful moment we all shared.

We started back to the HUMVEEs.

We took our 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 we were clean for a little while.

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All photographs Copyright – Richard L. Muniz