On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Two weeks later and 500 miles to the east, Tarō Gomi was born, in the capital city of Tokyo.

Thirty-two years later, the now world renown children’s book Everyone Poops was published. By Tarō Gomi.

While its pith and unabashed honesty won the hearts of millions of children and adults all over the world, perhaps the most beautiful aspect of its title is that it provides us an immaculate segue into a profoundly filthy subject AND the intended theme of this post: poop stories of U.S. military veterans.

We originally were going to center this post around a useful hack, doing your “biz” in the woods, and simply provide the following graphic tutorial on how to dig a proper “cathole” (via Lifehacker):

cathole photo

But then we stumbled on something that was posted on Reddit a few years ago, and almost immediately, this cathole class seemed like the smallest of small potatoes.

Please be wary, however, and put what U.S. Air Force veteran and current San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich calls “appropriate fear” in your pocket. Because these are tales (taken with a grain of epsom salt, naturally) about former service members “making”, and we don’t mean a cake.

But rather, a doo doo pie (we told you this was going to be squalid/amusing).

Here are the ones that stood out (text is unabridged aside from cleaning up the cussing with asterisks) …

Peanuts:

Out of boredom I ate two cans of spicy patriot’s choice peanuts. I was the loader on a tank moving north in Iraq in 2003. Needless to say we weren’t stopping for potty breaks. I had to shit into the .50 stowage box in the turret while moving up highway 1(Tampa). We were still taking contact from irregular IA forces. So on top of the turret would have been a nogo. My gunner banned me from eating spicy peanuts for the rest of that deployment. It was the worst sh*t of my life.

Worst of times. Best of times:

WORST: Afghanistan 09. Takin a dump in a MRE bag in the back of a moving RG-31. Fairly typical story, but allnin all not enjoyable at all.

BEST: Now heres the gold boys and girls! During a 2 week long FTX my POC set up on a hilltop. Perfect location. Some trees and scrub to hide from the commander, but a good line of sight to all of our launchers. I decide to take a sh*t and walk off into the brush. I find this tree with a perfect “U” shape in it. I sit my ass down, and enjoy the view of rocket valley whilst pooping. And I sh*t you not, (hehe) a god damn bald eagle flew by me. It was almost a religious experience. The most majestic thing ive ever seen.

Almost heroic:

Was the TC/Arm operator in a buffalo in Mosul ’07-’09. Had a trooper who had some of his bowels resected as a result of childhood illness. Because of this, he sh*t. A lot. Frequently.

It wasnt uncommon for us to be out the wire for 12+ hours, and on those days, this guy just couldnt hold it. Well during one of those times its night time in a dangerous part of town, and he’s having a poop crisis. He starts emptying out an MRE box and lines it with a trash bag then takes it to the back of the buffalo. My driver thinks it would be hillarious to brake check him in mid squat. He’s right. Its hillarious, but the turd rolls everywhere.

So he gathers the turds up and chucks the box out of the buffalo on to the side of the road. Vehicle behind us spots box and calls “all stop”, summons buffalo back to interrogate a suspicious box.
Despite knowing what it was, we go back to check it, and sure enough, turd box landed right next to a pressure plate IED that I had missed because I was laughing too hard. 18 month deployments suck.

Poo-land Springs:

This happened not once but twice. I was in the turret of a humvee when it came. We were waiting on EOD to get there to blow up an IED we found. With no where to go I cut off the top of a water bottle and went right there in the turret with 100’s of Iraqis in their cars all around. To top it off one time I didnt quite make the throw to the trash pile on the side of the road and a car ran over the open topped bottle spraying my excrement all over the road.

The trustbuster:

First full day being back in the states after 9 months in Afghanistan. Night before my section leader takes us to Texas roadhouse. That morning we start reintegration through med. It’s time to leave and I have a rumbly, I trust it was a fart and give it a push. I was wrong. Texas roadhouse all down my leg. So my platoon had to wait while I showered and changed. Knowing that we were running late, I rush down the stairs, and miss the last step. My platoon Sgt and another e6 had to carry me to the van. Ended up with sprained ankle that swoll up to the size of a football.

Chopper watcher:

At Yakima Training Center, no port a potties so my buddy and I drove a humvee 200m out and dug a hole and bent the e-tool, half my cheek on it to sit…and this assh*le MEDEVAC Blackhawk flew by, circled around and hovered there watching my take a dump while I’m flipping him off and cursing.

Smooth & silky:

Oh I got a great one. So my unit was deployed and I was voluntold to play op4 for WLC, it was actually pretty fun there was a lot of people not knowing what to do so we had a lot of just chill time. Well just so happen I had to take a chili and macaroni sh*t while we had a platoon of infantrymen come through my station. My buddy was shooting off blanks and kept screaming Rob! What are you doing? I was squatting down while trying to avoid the platoon. I had nothing to wipe with so I looked and saw a parachute for an illum round and proceeded to wipe vigorously.

The soundtrack:

Afghanistan 2011. We had been on an overnight patrol/OP/patrol thing for two days. I had to sh*t as we were stepping off the morning the trucks dropped us off. I held it for 72 hours until we got back to the PB. Once we stopped I ran to the port-o-sh*tter. While undoing my belt the siren went off, “INCOMING INCOMING INCOMING”. But I wasn’t having any of it. Most rounds hit far off, but a couple were close enough to sprinkle the sh*tter with gravel. I was hunched over, grabbing my ankles as a sticky, slow moving turd wiggled it’s one 1/2 feet out of me.

Trucks refueled as I finished her, and had restocked in time for me to jump in again as we rolled back out.

Additional detail: Our roll-back song was Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA”. It had been started in the motor pool as I ran for a sh*tter and was just finishing when I hoped back in the truck. It was a rough few minutes, for everyone. I was worried I’d catch shrapnel and die sitting in a port-o-sh*tter.

Next time you have an issue, think of these service members, and remember that they not only risked their life for their country, but they sacrificed the convenience of indoor plumbing and still got it done in the crappiest conditions imaginable.