I just looked up at my shiny new UNC Alumni Association calendar, filled with page after page of lovely pictures of the Old Well, and realized Saturday is Jan. 17.
Jan. 17? What the hell happened Jan. 17?
Funny you should ask. But since you did, let me tell you a story. A heroic tale of daring do and bravery in the barren, treeless wilderness of a far-off land. A chronicle, if you’d like, of my time in the desert.
An epic of sheer, insane boredom punctuated by moments of pure, concentrated terror.
Let’s call this saga: “The stupid shit Marines do when they’re trapped in a desert combat zone with absolutely nothing else to do until the air war is over.”
From Jan. 17, 1991 when the air war began and lasting for about a month, we were stuck in Saudi desert with nothing to do. Nothing to do, that is, except make sure our gear stayed as sand-free as possible (not the easiest task, I’ll tell you), dig a new hole for the shitter every couple of days, stand guard duty every night, wait (and wait) for the mail every day, sleep and devise mischievous ways to pass the remainder of the day.
If you’ve ever heard the saying “Idle hands are the Devil’s playthings,” came from, well, idle hands have nothing on board Marines.
My platoon, Maintenance Platoon, excelled in that last category, mischief, and the best one we came up with was the eating contest. But, since its no fun buddyfuck the guys in your own platoon, we had to farm out the mischief to the other platoons in our company and battalion.
The first challenge was the Great Spam Eating Wager of 1991. One of the guys in Mux* Platoon claimed he could eat five cans of Spam.
I’ll say that again: Five. Cans. Of. Spam.
Sixty ounces of Spam.
The faux meat product was sliced and fried, wagers were made (with the boys from Maintenance covering the action), and the eating was commenced. Right now, as I think back, there’s something truly funny about an eating contest involving a predominantly pork meat product taking place in Saudi Arabia.
Anyway, Lance Corporal Anama, the eatee, was going strong. One can down. Two cans down. Three cans down without a problem.
He began slowing on the fourth can, though he earned the grudging admiration of the onlookers as he choked down that last gristly, salty slice from can number four.
For those of you keeping score, that’s 48 ounces of Spammy goodness that’s gone down his gullet at this point.
There were just six 2-ounce slices remaining between him and everlasting fame or bottomless shame.
One down. Closing his eyes, he forced his throat to swallow. Twoooo down. Sweat beading on his forehead. Threeeeeeee down. Eyes glazed over with the thousand-yard stare of man who’s seen too much Spam in his life. Fouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuur. Dooooooowwwwnnnnnnn.
Two slices left. Like wafer thin mints, they waited to pass his lips and bring him eternal glory.
Then, as if he could see 10 seconds into the future, his eyes grew wide and his jaw clinched tight.
Turning to his cheering platoon mates, Anama said simply, “Sorry guys.”
The past then crashed head-on into the future as he leaned over and began puking. And kept puking. Puking until he puked up all 56 ounces chunky, undigested Spam. You could still see the teeth marks in some of the chunks.
Sitting there, cooling in the desert air, the congealing pile of Spam puke looked like nothing else in the world but an unwanted lump of pink concrete.
The good thing about the desert? If you happen to have a puddle of pink, concrete-looking Spam puke, you can just grab your e-tool (that’s e- as in entrenching, not e- as in electronic), dig it a shallow grave and move on.
Move on, that is, until you need it again. The Spam puke, not the e-tool. You wouldn’t think once it’s been eaten and puked you’d ever have a need for Spam puke, but you’d wrong.
Oh. So. Very. Very. Wrong.
Two days later, a Marine Reservist from Indiana thought he had a winning idea and boasted he could eat two cans of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. The big ones, like the ones they use in cafeterias. (Interestingly, Dinty Moore, like Spam, is a Hormel trademark.)
Never ones to back down from a challenge, and knowing there was still a pile of money out there to be won, Maintenance again took on all comers and covered all the bets.
Not wanting to lose and, most likely, because the guy was a Reservist, not part of our company and we really didn’t give a crap about him, we did what anyone would do when large sums of cash were on the line.
We played dirty.
As the first can of stew was disappearing down his gaping maw, we all fired up smokes to fill the tent with a haze the likes of which have seen since the smoking ban cleared the air at the Dubliner and the Capitol Lounge. We were having an effect, but not enough. We needed more power. More cow bell I say!!
So out came the e-tools and two of our guys went off to quickly search for the unmarked grave of the Spam puke, exhume it and resurrect it’s vast powers for evil. Pure unadulterated evil.
Long story short, it’s pretty damn close to impossible to keep your cookies down while you’re eating your second can of greasy beef stew with the stench from a bucket of two-day-old Spam puke filling the smoky air.
After touring the Marine bases in the South Pacific during World War II, Eleanor Roosevelt was asked her impression of the Marines she’d met. Her reply is classic: “They have the cleanest bodies and dirtiest minds; The highest morale and lowest morals.”
Truer words may have never been spoken.
*Mux is short for multichannel which, in the days before the mobile cells they now construct, was the only way of sending phone calls over the radio. Each system could handle eight, yeah, eight, calls at a time.
Think back to the family vacations of your youth. All set? Good. Imagine if you will this scene: A family of seven, trapped together in a, now that I think about it, brand new, not-even-a-month-old brown Chevy Caprice Classic station wagon (the one without the wood panelling).The location? Well, we were somewhere up in badlands of Wisconsin and had just toured a cheese factory. To commemorate this visit, the Dew family had purchased several pound-sized bags of cheese curds to snack on during the journey back to our vacation cottage in Fish Creek. For those who don't know what a cheddar cheese curd looks like, here's a picture. As anyone who's been on one knows, on a family road trip involving five children (or any number of kiddies for that matter), there are good seats in the family truckster, and there are bad seats in the family truckster. As we left the cheese factory, I scored the best seat in the car: right behind the old man while he was driving. Why was this the best seat, you ask? Well, it's pretty damn hard to drive and smack the shit out of the kid behind you at the same time. Can you see what's coming up (yeah, I meant that) here? Never. Ever. If the situation arises, allow your children to eat cheese curds (which are pretty tasty, btw) while sitting behind you in a moving vehicle. However, should you ignore me and fail to follow this advice, and then hear the words, "I don't feel too good," make sure you pull over immediately. I mean: Right. This. Very. SECOND! I know my dad was thinking he probably shouldn't have ignored me a few minutes later. You know, as he was wiping my rebooted cheese curds (some larger than a penny) off the back of his head and neck before he got busy scraping them off the upholstery of his shiny new car.There is a silver lining (for me at least): It's really tough to punish one of your kids for puking on you when it's your own fault for not pulling over.
The scene: a sultry Friday evening during the summer of 1990 (early July, if I recall correctly) at Camp Lejeune in coastal North Carolina.
The players: five Marine corporals—Kruger (the guest of honor), Holst, Craig, Bob and, yours truly, the Foggy Dew.
The situation: a lot of beer, some bad judgment and an exceptionally poor sense of direction.
The event: Kruger’s farewell as he bids the Corps goodbye after four years of faithful service. He’s heading home to Wisconsin for some well-earned fishing and not being in the Marine Corps.
Don’t get me wrong, we all loved being Marines but, like all Marines everywhere on their first enlistment, we also loved the idea of getting out of the Marine Corps. When you hit the six-months-to-go mark, tradition allowed you to put up a calendar and begin marking off the days, and Kruger’s was down to his last weekend at Lejeune.
To celebrate Kruger’s gettin’ out the decision was made, and this is going to sound pretty stupid and lame but it wasn’t, to head up to the bowling alley on base to roll a couple frames while partaking $1.50 22-ounce beers.
Many. Many. $1.50 22-ounce beers. In fact, we were doing more drinkin’ than rollin’. When you’re a Marine corporal, well, that’s a pretty good Friday night. Beer, bowling and buddies.
About halfway through the evening the best, truest and most prophetic line my ears have ever heard was spoken.
“Hey Kruger, ya know what? Ya know what’s gonna happen now?”
Slurp some beer and add silly/nasty grin.
“You’re gonna be home in Wisconsin gettin’ ready to celebrate your last day of terminal and somebody, somewhere in some Godforsaken place is gonna throw a war.”
More beer. More taunting:
“You’re gonna wake up on your last day of terminal to the phone ringing and it’s gonna be Capt. Whathisnuts telling you to come on back ‘cause we’re deploying some fuckin’ place.”
“Go fuck yer’selves [Dew/Holst/Bob/Craig]," Kruger said with a terrified look, "If that shit happens, Whathisnuts is gonna get my answering machine telling him I’m in Canada fishing.”
Well, we all know how this story ends. About three weeks later, on Aug. 2, 1990, the late Saddam Hussein decides he really needs Kuwait’s oil more than the Kuwaitis do and invades. A massive coalition is built and Saddam is asked nicely several times to leave Kuwait. He refuses all of these polite requests. He and his “elite” army then get their collective asses kicked out of Kuwait and southern Iraq and the guys leaving Kuwait City then have the shit bombed out of them on the “Highway of Death” heading back to Baghdad.
Kruger did, in fact, get called back from his terminal leave, but he didn’t deploy with the rest of us. He ended up staying at Lejeune to nurse maid a whole bunch of FNGs who joined our unit, but didn’t get there in time to share in the glory of our great victory over the Iraqi army.
[Note: They say if you have to explain a joke it’s not funny, but really, this is. Why? Well, a little background on enlisting in the American military: When you hear about folks joining up for three, four or five years, it’s all a lie. They’ve all joined for eight years whether they know it or not. Part of it’s active (the three, four or five years), and part of it’s inactive (the five, four or three years remaining to equal eight). It’s this inactive time that scares the shit out of you because, until it's all over, they still own your ass. You’re the first poor sonofabitch they’re calling back when they need extra bodies. To hell with the Reserve and National Guard, the inactive ready reserve guys have all been on active duty and all, generally, know what they’re doing. This is what’s happened and is happening to a lot of guys today (stop loss), and this is exactly what happened to Kruger. And, being Marines who are deploying to a war zone, well, we all laughed and laughed at Kruger’s plight. Just like Animal Mother said in Full Metal Jacket, “Better you than me.”]
So, on to the TMI part of our evening’s entertainment.
The five of us staggered back to our barracks and hit the rack. Tomorrow was Saturday and we had some more drinkin' to do.
I fall into my rack (nautical terminology for bed) and the world promptly starts spinning like a 33 LP at 78 rpm. “Jane, stop this crazy thing…”
Then the little elf in the control room in my brain is hitting the emergency release button for every pressure relief valve between my lower intestine and my sinuses.
A lightning fast decision loop is started and completed and the answer’s not good: I’ll never make it to the head (nautical terminology for bathroom) in time…but hey, the floor’s tile, I’m already facing the open floor in the middle of my room and I've got a mop in the corner and I can just clean it up in the morning.
In retrospect this was a good, logical solution to my dire situation. Unfortunately, the decision was based on one badly flawed premise: That I was facing the open side of my rack and toward the center of my room…but like the clock on the nuke in any Bond movie, my time was running out.
The decision had been made. The switch closed. The flow reversed.
Yep, I gloriously puked up $10 worth of $1.50 beers at point blank range toward a cinder block wall. Six 22-ounce beers = more than a gallon of cold, golden goodness, in case yer interested. It’s one of those moments you now briefly wish you had on video, and are then immediately glad you don’t because your kids will never be able to find it while digging around the attic of your hard drive.
The amazing thing was when I cracked my eyes open the next morning I looked out into my room expecting to see a pool of slowly cooling and congealing vomit. But I saw nothing.I was confused. Very. Very confused.
“Maybe the puke elves visited in the night and cleaned up for me,” I thought. “Or, maybe…wait a minute, what the hell is that smell? Why’s the wall covered in…awwww, crap, it’s all coming back now.”
I made myself get up right then to clean up the mess. Aside from cheeseburgers, lots of water and a handful of Motrin, there ain’t much on God's green earth that’ll kill a hangover faster than having to clean up your own puke at 8 a.m.
Thankfully it’s pretty easy to clean still-damp puke from painted cinder block and linoleum tile. While I still would have like to have aimed 180 degrees in the other direction, at least in aiming at the wall I kinda contained the mess and it was a lot easier to clean up.
Still wasn't no fun, though.
I just looked up at my shiny new UNC Alumni Association calendar, filled with page after page of lovely pictures of the Old Well, and realized Saturday is Jan. 17.
