Showering With Friends?
Minds out of the gutter!
Can NOT ignore Jonn’s recent post. In my defense I was was writing and missed it.
This has been discussed here before, but I aim to get a bit specific. Sure, this has been cussed and discussed in grand terms and likely with the best of intentions – usually also ignoring or dismissing That Elephant in the Room: SEX!
With all the PC changes going on in our Military even I managed to sorta overlook something fundamental. Every ship I was on in the 60’s had some things in common. Officers had their facilities in Officer Country, Chiefs had The Goat Locker, and pretty much everyone else shared the heads. Taking a leak… might be others also doing so. Taking a dump, you could chat with others while sitting. Even seasickness and discovering what your shipmate had for lunch wasn’t all that unusual – especially getting underway the morning after a good liberty.
I adapted to showering, etc, with others of my gender in school sports. About the only new thing in The Navy that required some minor adaptation was the occasional Salt Water shower… turns out Prell shampoo would lather nicely though.
Flash forward to today. How much of our Defense Budget is being spent on simply providing facilities for female and gender-unspecified folks. It really is a potentially non-trivial matter. Jonn’s Angel – the A-10 is being dumped maybe to fund that latrine with the pink lace shower curtains.
WWI comes most easily to mind… Dig extra trenches for the “others”?
Mind you – racial integration in the military was handled, but that IS a kinda loaded parallel at best. Still, I don’t recall ever hearing any scuttlebutt about two sailors necking while on watch, etc, whatever their racial derivation. Well… maybe in a jocular way.
Lookit, people can, and have, adapted to a rather large variety of alternatives when presented with no other alternative. Many, if not most, have required a blood badge to accomplish that though. Wonder how much blood will be let to make the PC world happy.
Reckon I’m one of them straight geezer reactionaries. Two competent, capable individuals of different genders can most certainly share the same MOS and work side by side in many environments… but not EVERY environment. Shipboard life in the “old days” being the only area I can discuss reasonably, I should probably shut up now. I’ll leave you with one image. It requires some time warping, but it does linger. A General Patton slapping some sobbing transgender GI.
Category: Geezer Alert!
Maybe I’m not as old a geezer but I recall back in the day (geezer alert) of the early 90s aboard the USS Ranger, the head had individual shower stalls and toilet stalls. So actual showering with friends.
But this was down in the Marine Detachment berthing so I have no idea what those pier queer squids were doing in their spaces….
edited “So no actual showering with friends”
Kittyhawk was the same way with all the berthing areas. Individual showers in all.
I still can’t help but think it will be nothing but trouble in the end. I saw it happen in training squadrons and with those you would go back to your barracks in the evening and there was always someone trying to sneak into the womens barracks or some other shit.
We would also worry about the guy who would always drop the soap – and he used liquid soap so it was harder to pick up.
Stacy0311 you were MarDet aboard the Ranger? I served in MarDet on the Ranger a little before your time 67-69 prior to my tour “Down South”. Was the highly polished EGA still embedded in the deck at the bottom of the ladderway? I assume the Detachment was still below the forward mess deck which doubled as a bomb assembly area when on Yankee Station.
1980 – 1989: three ships; no women onboard; showered regularly; always separated by at least a shower curtain and thankfully never forced to shower with another man … I hear they do that now!
One of the neat things about going from an AF NCO to an Army warrant was as an officer things were co-ed but as an NCO they were not. While at Fort Lee Club School I had to share a joint bathroom entered from a bedroom on either side with an attractive female AF 2nd lieutenant. That proved to me there was a GOD, and thank you, thank you, thank you.
That’s because officers are supposed to be gentlemen, you animal.
So… did you get to see any naughty bits?
They say a gentleman never kisses and tells. Good thing you were a Warrant Officer, so I post the same question.
Club Manager…So…how good looking was the 2LT? I’m wanting details ya know.
Log warriors!
I was deployed on three LPHs(helo carrires. Two were converted from WW2 ships, Valley Forge and the Princeton. The more modern Iwo Jima. No curtain or dividers for showers or commodes in the junior troop area. Joe
When I arrived at Parris Island we were told to strip and entered an outdoor shower. We were dusted with god knows what. This was a large fenced in area with pipes overhead with the sky and sprinkler nozzles about ever 3 feet and 6 to 8 rows of pipe. 10th Marines were all in open squad bays. The head had a dozen shitters sticking out of the bulkhead. No partitions, no dividers of any kind. You took a shit right next to your butt buddy. Pissers were one long trough with a pipe running the length of it dripping water. Showers were one large room with a shower head about every three feet. Double racks the entire length of the squad bay. You learned how to jerk off without waking up the entire platoon. Everything you owned fit into a wall locker. To this day that way of life creates some strange moments. You know that public restroom with one toilet and one urinal on the wall? I never lock the door when I go in. Most often if another guy opens the door while I am taking a piss he reacts as if he just caught Mother Teresa masturbating. Some kind of screech is bellowed as they prance out the door. I would think nothing of it, if they drained the lizard right next to me. I could not attempt a count of how many times in the field or deployed a group of us were standing around shooting the shit and one of us just turned around and took a piss mid sentence without missing a word. Oh how times have changed. The last thing we were concerned about was how the guy next to us was tapping his feet. If I ever get the urge to inspect another mans gear, I doubt the shit house will be the place I try to pull it. I am less concerned about women being integrated into an expanding roll than I am with today’s men not learning how to be one. Yes ladies, learning not to piss on the… Read more »
Amen. BTW, if there is a single urinal I WILL ask that they don’t pee in my pocket. Just kinda fussy that way.
Here is a Marine I took a piss with more than once. He always made me look good. Best right hand I ever had. Sorry D, it had to be done.
http://www.phnjrotc.org/our-instructors/
I couldn’t care less as long as you DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS, knowhiutimean?
Sit on the lap,
Aim for the gap.
Double up, if you will.
We had the exact same setup at Ft Stewart. The shitters were so close you and your buddy could read a newspaper together.
CavScoutCoastie…Nothing like a troop laughing his ass off with nothing but a wad of ass wipe in his hand. Only to realize, he’s reading off his buddies’ funny papers.
Dave Hardin…”I could not attempt a count of how many times in the field or deployed a group of us were standing around shooting the shit and one of us just turned around and took a piss mid sentence without missing a word.” Best joke Top ever told us was on patrol awaiting resupply and was with his uninterrupted wiz in the middle of it. No one missed the punch line or the laugh. Good times, good memories.
When I was in the Navy, they didn’t have bathrooms on ships. They didn’t have heads or showers on ships. They had ports in the sides for cannons. Just flip the porthole door open and aim carefully, and make sure the wind is at your back.
That is all.
In 1967 – 1968, when I went through Basic Combat Training (Company “D”, 3d Battalion, 1st Brigade, Fort Lewis, Washington), followed by my Advanced Individual Training (i.e., “A.I.T.”, at United States Army Southeastern Signal School, Fort Gordon, Georgia), our barracks, latrines, and showers were exactly like those described by Dave Hardin in his comment.
They were the old two-story, cream colored, wooden, World War Two style barracks.
Later, right about the time my course was completed at Signal School, we moved into brand new brick barracks, with a lot more comfort and privacy.
Over the passing years, there were all different sorts of barracks, quonset huts, and sandbagged wooden hooches, with a great variety of methods for personal hygiene.
In the old Republic of Viet Nam, I actually preferred taking my showers outside in the Monsoon, and I dreaded every trip to the latrine, due to the black widow spiders hiding just inside the seat (and yes, guys DID get bit in the “family jewels”!)
Not only that, but as a result of ongoing unit rivalry between Cavalry and Rangers, guys from those two units blew up each other’s latrines.
(That was at Camp Eagle, 101st Airborne, in 1971.)
No women, though.
Well, if we were lucky, we might see an Army nurse from a long distance away, and only fleetingly.
“Doughnut Dollies” (i.e., American Red Cross volunteers) would sometimes visit, bringing cookies and Kool-Aid, to remind us of what it was we were missing.
Females were far away, in a separate barracks, surrounded by barbed wire, and guarded by Military Police.
Back in those days, females served in the Women’s Army Corps (i.e., the “WAC”s), and were not assigned to regular Army units.
Of possible interest, at the outbreak of the Second World War, when the Army decided to allow females, my stepmother (who is currently ninety-seven years old, residing in Fayetteville, North Carolina) was the ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTH (104) woman to enlist.
http://writesong.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-stepmother-alma-capps-mallernee.html
I remember in the morning all the hookers sneaking out of the hooches. Going to shower and finding some of those ladies using the showers. Nobody cared. Of course the enlisted women had there own area, and can’t speak for what went on there. Two whore houses where located on base. I don’t see any of this happening today. That was a different time. The world is too PC to be coed. Bathrooms could be setup for use by all the different genders now. Like 0100 to 0300 for men, 0300 to 0500 for women, 0500 to 0700 for those that don’t ask don’t tell crowd, 0700 to 0900 for those that haven’t decided what they are. 0900 to 1200 for those who don’t care. Repeat. Just don’t try shitting out of turn!
Is it sexual harassment if your kink is to be bad mouthed by dom females and while getting your ass chewed on firewatch by CPL Rotten Crotch you get a boner?
Just asking…
That reminds me of when I went through MEPS at [ Undisclosed] and saw a USMC Female in dress uniform with skirt, she had the body and face of a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model, and I was SO TEMPTED to walk up to her and say ” CORPORAL, your sex slave reports for duty!” If she decided to paddle me into next week for that, I would have considered it good foreplay!
Phuoc Vinh 1971……….showering in the bush. Water was supplied in the form of a blivet. Looked like a big rubber. Fill up your canteens, then take the blivet string it over a tree branch. Then cut it with a knife, strip to the waist and clean your self as best you could. No worries about modesty. Most definitely no female types around.
Back at the Phuoc vinh base camp, taking a piss. Rocket tubes placed in the ground at a angle, filled with sand no cover no nothing. Walk over and do what you gotta do!
Back out to the bush, every platoon left the base camp with a shovel. Gotta take a dump, take the shovel dig a hole. When doing it always on the back trail, never in front. Kind of funny, when going back in that shovel always ended up missing in action!
I also did not mention, that my first time going out, I had no need for the shovel. I was most definitely scared shitless! And that my friends is a true no shit story! Smile
3/17 Air Cav…LMAO After my first patrol I thought, “I’ll never need this piece of shit again, I’ll carry more ammo.” Then as things became “usual” as much as that was possible the old bowels swung the other direction and it seemed I never wanted to take a dump until I was in the field. Funny how things work. If we gave the enemy anything…it was all the folding shovels they’d ever need.
We still used cat holes and slit trenches in my AD days, and we’ll still do the ” cat hole squat” if no “poop coops” are available! We had open bay showers when I was in basic, but the barracks were cleaner than the dorms back at Faber College (DELTA TAU CHI!!).
When I was a scout, I used to “teach” a class about taking a deuce in the woods using an E-tool to the FNG’s. It seems they always had latrines in the field in OSUT and had never used the e-tool or the emergency “hug and hang” method. It started as a joke but the guys said it was actually useful information.
I also forgot to mention that before going back out we tried to stop by the supply hut and pick up TP, soap ect. But supply was locked down. I guess the supply Sgt. Was called away, to fly as a door gunner. Kind of like forgin Frank Visconti smile
I’ve never heard this question answered before and I figger here is as good a place as any so here goes.
If a woman gets her period when she is in combat, since she is bleeding, will she get a Purple Heart medal for it ???
Thunder………I’ve never heard that question asked, let alone answered. I think I’m going to leave that one alone. I think I’ll just leave that one to Ex-PH2 to respond to! Smile
Thunderstixx…I wouldn’t touch that question with a ten foot bloody pole!
A PH for that? Only if she’s bleeding from being hit by shrapnel.
But does she have to get hit THERE, Ex-PH2?
No, she has to get hit some place where the blood sill spurt and get on other people, Poetrooper.
Oh, haven’t you heard? We’re an alien species. I mean, what else can bleed for seven days out of a month and not die, right?
And “pink lace shower curtains”? I’ve walked this rock for 52 years as a female, and I’ve NEVER had pink lace on my goddam shower curtains.
Good question!
I will get back to you in 28 days!
In 2000, my platoon was co-ed in Relaxin’ Jackson. By that, it meant that my platoon was co-ed, but all the females in the company slept in the 3rd Platoon Bay. We called it the Valley of the Trolls because EVERYONE had an afro in the morning.
That didn’t stop Romeo from trying to find whatever Juliet would let him rub up and down on her. If they were caught, both were forced to call their folks and let them know why they were being sent home.
The only time that didn’t happen was on an FTX. Two chuckleheads were getting jiggy in a porta potty and our Platoon DS knocked it over and rolled it until the door we up. He told them that he’d ignore their indiscretion and no questions would be asked. I was two fighting positions away from him and he was rank! She wasn’t much better, but was on the opposite flank of our bivouac.
Otherwise, in BCT we had stall showers, stall commodes, and the pissers had a half-wall thing between them. In AIT the showers were heads on the walls and two poles with four heads in the middle of the room, stall commodes, and a trough pisser.
I should add that the calls home were especially embarrassing for the older soldiers… especially the ones with rings, if you know what I mean.
Did they have beer in the barracks too! Smile
Yeah, what happened to beer in the barracks?
Ex-PH2……….the beer in the barracks came about I think about 1975-6 As I recall the motto went something like “a new friendlier Army” Morale was really low and troops were leaving in droves. I think the beer was in a modified pop Machine. I have no idea when they stopped the practice.
It had to be before that, AirCav.
I played poker for beer with a guy named Squirrel at Great Lakes in 1972. Whoever lost the hand bought the beer.
Yes, it did come out of pop vending machines, and cost $1 for PBR and was colder than winter in Yakutia.
Ex……..your probably right. I was discharged Jan. 1972 no beer in the barracks then. Must have been shortly after I got out.
On another note, my last night in the Army was at Fort Lewis. I slept in a U heated barracks, with no bedding. I used my army coat as a blanket. There was most definitely no beer in that barracks!
1989,
We were coming back across the pond and had a group of women enlisted and officers aboard. They had a berthing area that was guarded 24/7
My berthing was way forward on the main deck of the carrier. The closest head was FUBAR so it was a hike to the any other one.
I was heading to take a shower, down the main deck, right next to the post officer when I ran into a female Lt. I had on nothing but a towel and shower shoes.
She was very offended that I would be walking around in such a manner and proceeded to tell me so. She was interrogating me about why I was not using the head in my berthing area while I was trying to explain not all berthings have heads the Chief Engineer interrupted. He asked her to step in his office and told me to go on my way.
The CHENG was a Captain o-6 type, His yeoman told about how he started of very nicely trying to explain that this was ship and concessions had to be made and by the time the talk was over the XO of her group was involved. I heard they flew her off the next day as being unsuitable for duty at sea.
At quarters the next day it was announced that the proper attire for going to and from remote heads was a towel that completely covered the private parts.
Ah, so your hairy bubble gum WAS showing!
Have you guys never heard of g-strings?
Screw the towel. Common sense dictates the important part of your shower attire would be the shower shoes, so you don’t step on something and cut a foot.
So… That is it. Ex-PH2 offers G-strings and you offer shower shoes. High-heel shower shoes maybe? I kinda like it.
To quote George Sanford: “Yeah I’m a dirty old man and I’m gonna BE a dirty old man until I’m a dead old man!“
Heh. I’ve always believed that practicality had strong points in its favor, and this is PROOF!
Barracks were four man rooms, four rooms to a quad. One shower and toilet per room.
Later, we got two man rooms where two rooms shared a shower and toilet. Woe be unto the guy in the other room if he locked the bathroom door and forgot to unlock it when he was done.
I’m sure the military will sort it out, after all our institutions of higher learning have some of the best and brightest minds in the nation and they’ve figured it all out so I’m certain the military can use that model as they’ve done for so many of the sexual harassment classes. Adopting the college model couldn’t be a bad idea for the military.
Now that we give out medals to female soldiers who search online for male soldiers posting inappropriate thoughts and concepts who knows what the new and improved combat arms will be like for the US Military?
Maybe you can get an ARCOM for keeping enough rubbers in your drawer to fuck a whole platoon or a bronze star for advising two drunken troopers not to fuck each other until they sober up enough to give proper consent.
If that were the case, I’d have the Air Force equivalent of 3 ARCOMs and 2 Bronze Stars by now.
What is going on today with the focus of the wizards at the Puzzle Palace?
No tattoos below the elbow or knee, no shooting the enemy without authorization, RIF for solid combat mid-grade officers and NCOs, reduction in pay and benefits proposed by the senior officer corps what’s the advantage of joining again? Is it so you can fall behind your peers who attend college and start their civilian careers while you are away? So you can earn less during your 20-30 years in uniform and take a lower retirement while your peers reach their highest earning potential long before you retire?
No, VOV. It’s so that the maximum number of years anyone will sign up for
will be just long enough to get tech school training and some work experience, and bail out because the military is fucking itself blind.
The possibility of anyone staying long enough to be a lifer, as opposed to a short-timer, will be lower and lower.
When I was working downtown in the Loop, sometimes on my lunch hour I’d go for long walks.
One one particularly nice day, I went to see the Navy band playing at Daley Plaza, with a bunch of recruits doing drill team maneuvers. There were a couple of 1st classes there keeping an eye on them, and one of them was bitching about his crappy pay and wanting to get out. I asked him how many years he had (10), and asked him why, if he was at the halfway mark, he wanted out. He gave me this sour look and said ‘Pardon my French, but the Navy sucks big time.’
That was during the Clinton administration, in case anyone is wondering.
He said he’d do better as an OTR truck driver than he would staying in the Navy. This is nothing new. The same thing happened with Carter and his giant recession.
This government/admin does not give a flying fart in space what happens to you. It only looks at numbers with dollar signs and regards the entire military as toys to be tossed aside.
Agreed with Ex-PH2. Hell, if I’d have bit the bullet, sold my left arm and leg for college money and gone to college instead of joining the Air Force, I’d be working a job that _started_ at least 45k per year and doing what I *love*. Instead, I’m making like 22k and have spent 3 years just staring at screens full of work tickets that I _can’t even work on_, just notify the general when something breaks.
The government straight up doesn’t give a damn, and it’s evident in the avalanche of crap that Congress dumps down Big Military Mountain.
I think that may get worse, FTF, because bodaprez, our glorious (idiot) leader, wants to put more ‘effort’ into the military action in the Middle East.
If you think that doesn’t stink to high heaven of cutting back on pay and bennies AND expecting half the crew to do their jobs and those of others for crap wages, well… it does.
Faster……as most people on this site know I was a draftee. Less than two years. Anyway when I was drafted I had just finished my junior year of college. During that time time I was a college baseball player. Living really poor. Surplus food commodities ect. After discharge showed up back at school. Suddenly, I was affluent, GI Bill. How did I know I was affluent? I showed up witha 24 rac of beer. I was living the good life?
Are there any frequent TAH visitors that would be familiar with the Montgomery County Maryland Correctional Facility Shit & Shower situation?
#BringElaineRicciHome
Bad news, Hack. Palmer found you in N. Philly. He says that he sent his bounty hunter. You’ll never see the two legged water buffalo coming.
Well, Hack, it looks like he finally tracked you down!
Well, I guess that I better get my affairs in order, then. Paul K. Wickre must have sold off his fleet of classic Yugos to finance this mission. Will he be paying the assassination crew per diem and lodging, and will he give them an EZ Pass or reimburse them for the tolls on the backside? It’s been a lovely two years learning that if you perceive yourself to be rich and white, you should be able to do anything that you want with no repercussions. And, if the worst does happen to me at the hands of crackheads with blow torches and pliers do go medieval on my ass, I want you all to continue the search to bring Elaine Ricci safely home.
#BringElaineRicciHome
While you’re waiting for peckerwood’s bounty hunter, could you get me a cheeseteak with fries, Hack? And a pretzel with mustard?
I’m starving for some real food.
This is for Flagwaver:
I have an Eisenhower-type jacket that I made for a sci-fi convention.
I also embroidered a squadron patch on my sewing machine and put together a set of rbbons with materials from the fabric store to go with it.
I need some kind of metal pin that looks vaguely like jump wings but not from the surplus store and crusted with ‘diamonds’ (Swarovski crystals).
Any ideas? It’s for an illustration.
Ex-PH2,
This? or too over the top?
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=diamond+wings&FORM=HDRSC2#view=detail&id=76C9C24EFD0B2D526203A8350242F12B64B21357&selectedIndex=6
You might try a search of foreign jump wings. There are some very unusual ones, and I see no reason you could not mod one and it for costume.
Browncoat?