20 May 2010

What color is your ….

From the Soldier side: Many, many years ago, my old Army National Guard unit went to sunny Fort Irwin, California for our 2 week Annul Training (AKA “Summer Camp”)
For those of you who’ve never had the joy of going to Fort Irwin, let me tell you right now- you simply must book your next holiday there. The accommodations for Summer Camps are awesome. Plenty of beach, lots of sun, and lots of open air to run around in. Do watch out for the rattle snakes and the highly developed coyotes who have evolved to the point that they know how to open a MRE package and eat the contents.

The first time I went there for Summer Camp, I was in a Combat Engineer battalion. It was just weeks after Desert Storm was over and we were there to clean up some of the mess left over from training the troops who went to fight.

We ended up doing some construction projects along with the recovery of training sites. We worked very long days, but it was good times.

As you can imagine, being that it was desert, we had extremes in weather. Two days before we got there, they had a few inches of snow! It melted in a few minutes. While we were there, it got to over 116 degrees F. (But as we often said in Iraq years later: “It was a dry heat!”)

The day we left, it rained hard for 20 minutes. 10 minutes after it stopped raining, the ground had sucked up all the moisture and you couldn’t even tell it had rained.

A few other things from that Summer Camp stick in my mind, but the one thing that still brings a laugh was our Battalion Command Sergeant Major. He was such a useless chap. He didn’t know shit about what Combat Engineers were supposed to do, but he sure liked to stick his brown nose into stuff.

During that summer camp, we had tents set up in one area, and had to drive our old 1960’s vintage 5 ton dump trucks many miles to the work sites. The Sergeant Major got lost a few times, so he decided to stay near the tent camp.

One day as the trucks would drive into the camp area, the Sergeant Major was standing along the side of the road near the entrance. He would flag down the trucks and make them stop. He’d climb up on to the running boards and ask the driver and co-driver: “What color is your urine?”

Most of the soldiers were young and they had no idea what the correct answer was supposed to be. They would usually answer:”I don’t know Sergeant Major, I haven’t been looking.”

I heard that the dumbass was asking this, so I boarded the next truck going past the dumbass. I was ready.

He flagged down our truck and climbed up on the running board and asked: “Sergeant. What color is your urine?”



I responded with – in my outside Army Sergeant type voice: Sergeant Major, my urine is GREEN. ARMY GREEN.”

He didn’t know what to say, but he got off our running board and looked away. He was an ass, but I got him to laugh.  My job was done.  My goal each day was to get at least one ass to laugh. 

One of our other sergeants took it a step further. When the dipshit flagged down his truck a few minutes later, that sergeant shut off the engine, opened the door, stood on the running board, whipped it out and started to pee in the sand in front of the Sergeant Major.

Needless to say, the Sergeant Major went and found something else to do the rest of the Summer Camp….and never asked another soldier what color their pee was.

For your info.....

Urine Color Urine Color Meaning Possible Underlying Disease or Condition

.Clear urine Excess liquid consumption Any liver disease, like hepatitis or liver cirrhosis, diabetes insipidus or diabetes mellitus.

Bright yellow or neon yellow Vitamin supplements Excessive consumption of vitamin capsules, leading to a potential risk of hypervitaminosis
Green Side effect of certain medications like amitriptylene, indomethacin Over consumption of certain foods like asparagus and food dyes, or wearing the Army uniform for too many years.
.

7 comments:

Saker said...

Army green? :D Hilarious. You know what the problem with these random piss tests is, though? You don't know when they are, so you can't drink food coloring the night before. That would give them something to think about.

Did the sergeant major have you guys doing forced hydrations?

Also- just saw a soldier in the DFAC with that Marine combat patch- the one you are wearing in the picture.

CI-Roller Dude said...

Saker,
That SGM wasn't actually trying to help anybody, he didn't know all he needed to know. He just knew enough to know that if a soldier had dark Pee, he/she wasn't drinking enough water and he would yell at them. It might have been more useful if they actually had water around so we didn't have to drive to the PX and buy it ourselves.

Coffeypot said...

First of all, you are slipping in your OPSEC duties. I could see the full face of the snake. His eyes weren't blacked out.

Secondly, one of the reasons I couldn't go 20 in the Navy was my mouth, I would have told him, SGTMAJ, my pee is yellow in honor of you.

See! I was meant for civilian life.

Momma Fargo said...

Oh my. I bet your poo was dessert brown, too. LMAO.

Anonymous said...

1. Snake looks like it had its head beat in.
2. Couldn't keep my troops from doing that, be they Habus, Bamboo Vipers or Rattlers.
3. At Pendleton, was a $500 fine to kill a snake. My men still beat their heads flat with their E Tools.
4. I'd pretend I hadn't seen them and the NCO's would wave their magic wands....
V/R JWest

CI-Roller Dude said...

CP, That's why I got out of the regular army when I did...my mouth over loaded my ass.

MF, The sand got into everything... everything.

Mr West, I didn't kill "this" snake, it's just a pic I found on the internet...however, I'll see what old pics I can find and digitalize.
A dead rattle snake is a good rattle snake. Gopher snakes can do all the good things rattle snakes can do and they won't hurt humans.

Anonymous said...

I think my dog has hypervitaminosis. His pee is really neon yellowish...and he never seems to run out of it. He's marked the entire desert as his own. What would Sergeant Major say to that?
(...I guess he'd say a lot if his shoe was wet, huh?)