BOOTCAMP!

Back in the halcyon days of yore, when I was a US Marine Recruit, we were given tons of training to defend this fine Republic we call 'Murika! There was lots of bullets and bayonets and close combat drills and lotsa "PRAC!" Prac was PRactical Application and Comprehension over various milestones of Marine Corps history, as well as tactical theories, sanitation, medical knowledge, COC, as well as Marine Corps issues of the day.

To be honest, I hated almost all of bootcamp. It was long and very difficult and most of the people there I could not connect with. I was the only college educated person in my platoon. I was the only liberal-minded person in my platoon and I was the only fat person in my platoon. Even though I lost over 40 pounds by graduation day, I was still the biggest person in my platoon, by far.

Now, I will say there were a few things I liked....

I liked the marching and drilling, as it was wonderfully musical and performance based in nature and I am a performer at heart.

I LOVED wearing the uniforms, as they were very cool.

I ADORED being around all men for 1/4 of a year, as that is a rare experience. Men being in the company of men (who are not in jail,) creates a dynamic that is without the desire to "preen" for women. It's hard to explain, but it was and has been the only time in my life where I have been in the company of only men for a sustained period of time. It was awesome, actually.

I also learned to LOVE the "O Course," especially at about Week 9, as I finally had the upper body strength to navigate up and down all the netting and climbing ropes and overhead ladder shit they made us deal with during our constant 4+ hours of physical training per day.

HOWEVER... The thing I really didn't like during my bootcamp experience was RFTD.

I. HATED. IT.

RFTD stands for Remote Field Training Deployment. It was only about a week long, but it was in the suck. And by "in the suck," I mean it was outdoors. And by "outdoors," I mean it was everything this black-assed, inner city boy from the rubberized aluminum jungles of Detroit found beyond appalling.

Bugs...

Slugs...

FireAnts...

Hairy Spiders...

Hairy Snakes...

Hairy Grass that could cut your calves...

Nighttime freezingly intense temps...

Sleeping in those freezingly intense temps IN TENTS...

And rain... lots and lots of rain.... By the end of RFTD we were all human petri dishes. I swear, I believe I caught a fungus during all that rain and camping bullshit that I have to deal with to this day.

During RFTD we had to do long hikes, called humps, in full battle gear, and wearing 75-pound Alice packs. The humps didn't bother me. I could do 20-mile humps just fine. Humping was zen-like and hours could go by and I didn't notice. My feet never hurt. I even dealt with Mt. Mutherfucker well.

Well... fairly well.

Actually, I am lying. Mt. Mutherfucker kicked my ass.

During one of the more tortuous 20-mile humps, we were met by Mt Mutherfucker at the very end and there I damn near died.

Mt. Mutherfucker was a 700-foot hill that was sooooo steep, the bill of your head cover (cap) would regularly touch the ground as you tried to mountain goat up that bitch. You were literally climbing on your toes for the majority of the hill. Still... I made it up and down Mt. Mutherfucker with only a busted lip as payment, (and 6 field-stitches in said lip,) when 3 other Marine recruits and I fell about 145 feet, after a stumble while heading downstation from the peak. Hey, a win is a win, even if it's ugly! And I got down that nasty ass hill in record time, which was cool, as my thighs were on fire.

The worst part of that shitty little week-long RFTD love-fest was there was NO PORCELAIN! This meant I had to #1 and #2 outside. I could #1 just fine. I had the tool for that. Just point and click. No worries. It was #2 that had me all bungied up.

Citizens of Kabin-Nation, listen to me now and hear me later....

I could not (would not) shit'n da woods.

I am not a bear. I'm not a beast.

I could not (would not) shit'n da woods

I'm not a hare. I'm not a priest.

"No. Shit. I." said I, I said.

I'd rather have you kill me dead.

"No. Shit. I." said I, I said

Let me eat a round, instead.

Shitting in the woods is not my thing, gurls. I pulled a Nancy Reagan and just said no.

The day before RFTD we started feasting on MREs, which stands for Meals Ready to Eat. MREs were dehydrated, high-calorie consumables, when, mixed with a little water, made a very yummy slime porridge that filled you up quickly and gave you energy to burn. I'm pretty sure there was cocaine in those packages, as I felt amazing after downing a MRE. I wanted to run those humps.

The special treat that the MREs had, that I wanted and regularly traded my yummy dessert slime for, was the small container of Peanut Butter and Crackers. I would eat 3 packages of the PB and Cs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And I would down no water. By the time we got into the field, I was plugged tighter than a play by John Paul Sartre, for there truly was No Exit.

The other 150 or so recruits would stop for bathroom breaks with their K-Bars and their leafs and I would just mosey behind a tree and hang out for 5 minutes. It was great...

Until day 5...

I then started toxifying. My temp shot up and my belly distended and I was losing steam. I could not keep up with the humps and was uncontrollably sweating. I was literally turning into a Superfund site.

By Day 6, I was praying to the god of shit. I was dropping trou and squatting my big ass behind trees, in front of trees, out in public, it didn't matter... There was no more pride. No more shyness. No more nervousness. Hell, if ABC was broadcasting my shitting live, with a studio audience and announcers, and a HD stream to 1 billion viewers, I would not have cared in the slightest. My fear of shitting had been cured! It had been cured by my overwhelming desire to not explode. The problem was that by No Shit Day 6, I was like the 405 freeway, at 6pm, on a Friday, during the playoffs, in Los Angeles. There was a parking lot up my ass. Nothing was going anywhere.

Eventually, I started shaking uncontrollably, as my temp spiked to 104.5. I was in trouble. So, I got medevac’d to the clinic and the little Phillipino PA looked at my X-rays and said, quite chortlingly: “Recruit Thomas, you are definitely full of shit.” Then he chuckled.

”I will give you an enema and I am sure it will take care of the problem.” I was willing to do anything... At that point, all I could see was brown. I felt like shit stink was coming out of my pores, like one who drank too much gin.

PA Gitano took me to the recruit commode to give me the enema.

THE!

RECRUIT!!

COMMODE!!!

Not a private bathroom, but a recruit bathroom, which had about 150 recruits, from the class ahead of us, who had just finished RFTD, and were LUXURIATING IN, at the time. The DIs had allowed them time in the porcelain oasis to relax and unwind. The recruits in there were talking and laughing and having a wonderful time, until they saw me walking doubled over to one of the 25 OPEN toilet seats in the commode, followed by a medical professional, dressed (I swear to GOD) like a bomb disposal expert, with the gown and plastic face shield and hood, with 2 enema bags the size of footballs and the insertion catheter, which was about 6-inches long.

All talking ceased...

Everyone was doing the math.

This was going to be fucked up...

And they all had a front row seat to the end of the world.

”Recruit Thomas, please bend over the toilet.” said PA Gintano, in a now library silent commode, with 150 witnesses in totally rapt attention, all saying to themselves “WOW! This is a totally fucked up scene. I am so glad this is not me.”

”You will feel a slight discomfort.” he said, as he tried to get the cath up me arse, like a good pirate. Then, 30 seconds later, he said “Please... try to relax.” as there was no room at the inn. The next thing this man did was fucking diabolical... He squirted this lube called PROBE all over the catheter, until it was dripping like what should be the end of a porno movie... and he then, without poetry, nor flowers, nor so much as a Jolly Rancher for me to suck, he shoved that catheter up my ass SO FAR, I felt like it made it to my brain stem.

Then, I felt like I was being filled up, like air going into a tire. I thought I was going to burst off the end of the catheter and fly around like a balloon running out of air.

“You are going to feel a pressure... That is the fluid going inside you. You will feel the need to defecate immediately. Do not do this! You need to hold the fluid inside you for 10 minutes.” As soon as he said that, the catheter blew out of my ass and PA Gitano was covered in my scrumptious ass juice. NOW I understood why this good doctor was in this weird looking bomb disposal outfit. I guess I wasn’t the only person that had a blowout while being filled up in their no-no place.

“Recruit Thomas... You MUST hold the fluid inside you!" He said irritatingly. "Now, we must do this procedure again.”

OhMyGodInHeaven!

I hear the now familiar rip of paper and sloshing of fluid and uncorking and corking sounds of what was going to really happen again. For a minute I thought I heard fizzing and he was taking a beer break.

Squirt goes the PROBE on the cath...

In we go... Anddddddddddddd......Eureka! If I had tried to swallow water, it would have just spilled out my mouth. I was truly filled to the rim.

And after 10 totally silent minutes, with my 150 new best friends.... sploosh! Log Jam clearing...

Red Alert downgraded to Yellow Alert.

The engines spooled back from critical.

Life support back on-line.

All systems back to normal, Captain!

Even so, I got 48 hours bed-rest for the trouble, and I remained with my platoon, which was unheard of, but my DI loved me, because he saw that I was trying AND I was a really good teacher and could get the really rock -stupid Marines to pass their PRAC exams, which made the DIs look fantastic.

Such is life, shipmates. Happens all the time.

I'm sure we have all have a cath stuck up our ass in the middle of an open-air recruit bathroom, with 150 or so of people you didn't know, yes? Fun times!