Twenty-four hours prior to the most humiliating moment of my life, I was riding high–it was a good day in Afghanistan. My platoon were the first troops from the 82nd in country, and our operational pace had been nonstop for four months. I’d seen a lot things, but nothing could prepare me for what was about to happen.

Several high-ranking officers had been selected to go have a meet-and-greet, diplomatic-type lunch with the Afghan warlords that ran the area. They selected me to accompany them to lunch. At the time, I thought that I was some sort of super-trooper, asked to attend because I was the best my unit had to offer. As a PFC (Private First Class), I was probably just there to fill a seat and provide some added level of security.

The dinner spread we’d laid out looked amazing–especially after having lived off of MREs for the better part of our deployment. There were ornate displays of local produce, (something that we had been feverishly told to avoid eating, but did anyway), and trays with several different kinds of meats and curries.

Bringing the whole meal together was traditional Afghan foot bread. I don’t know the Afghan word for foot bread. I can tell you that it got its name from the way the Afghans make it, standing on the dough with their bare, unwashed feet, which flattens the bread and forms it to the right shape and size. It was delicious when freshly baked, despite having to eat around bugs that had made it into the mix.
It wasn’t that fresh, and I remember the meal as only decent; goat meat, it turns out, is incredibly tough and flavorless—at least when the animal grows up eating desert twigs–and no spices are added to the dish. Still, we ate, and enjoyed ourselves.

The next day, my platoon was tasked with setting up a roadblock. The mortar guys were performing target practice with their 120mm tubes. If the locals drove down the road where we were guarding, there was a good chance that they would end up blown to bits. We pulled our trucks into place, set up road blocks and waited for someone to approach.

After a few hours of sitting in a HUMVEE in 120-degree Afghan heat, my stomach began to flutter. Not that, “Wow, I really like this girl” kind of flutter–the, “F**k I’m seriously about to sh*t all over myself” kind of flutter.

I get out of the truck and look around for a place to take care of business. On the left, I see white rocks. “If I step over there, then I’ll probably end up on top of a land mine–not a good place to be,” I thought to myself. “If I go right, I am stepping onto the impact area of the 120mm mortars. I’m between a rock, a hard place…and something squishy.” Instead of going either direction, I did what any self-respecting infantryman would do, and lowered the front guard of the truck, dropped my pants, and used my HUMVEE as a makeshift sh*tter.

After about five minutes of anal agony, I began thinking that something was seriously wrong with me. What was coming out was not normal. This was also right about the time that three large jingle trucks (think the straw ride at your local county fair, but giant, colorful and loud) came rolling up, full of men and women, all celebrating as they made their way to a wedding party. A paratrooper never abandons his post unless properly relieved and of course nobody in my platoon was going to rescue me–it was way funnier to watch me squirm. I would have done the same thing.

The trucks came to a stop. Then a large male jumped from the driver’s seat of the lead vehicle, and approached me. At this point, my pants were still around my ankles, there was an ever increasing puddle of shit and piss at my feet. In what little Urdu I knew, I tried to warn the encroaching Afghani. “Taro, Taro!” (I point down road). “Explosion!” (fart) “Dangerous!” (splatter) The Afghani was obviously shocked (and awed) by the sight in front of him, probably thinking this was some weird psychological operation he and his friends had stumbled onto.

After a few minutes, the shells started to land, explosions were heard, and my point was made—albeit, not by me–that it was very dangerous for them to travel farther. So there we all sat, the locals in their jingle trucks and me on the front of my HUMVEE, still crapping away. Every single person in the party took turns pointing at me, laughing, then laughing again–part of me wished the trucks would just blow up, to spare me the humiliation.

They didn’t, so I waited it out. After 30 minutes, the mortars stopped falling, the wedding was allowed to pass, and I was taken back to the fire base and straight to the medi-tent, where a medic diagnosed me–and several of the officers who attended the previous day’s festivities–with dysentery. The next week or so went much as you could imagine: Eat something, and five minutes later I was on the sh*tter; drink something, and 30 seconds later…I was on the F’ing sh*tter.

A few of the officers and I became latrine buddies, and I told them of my public f**k-up. We all agreed that, at least, I could now go through life knowing that I will never experience something as embarrassing as that day. Every time I start to get nervous about a situation I think, “F**k it, at least I don’t have to drop a juicy deuce in front of 150 strangers.” And then I drive on. Hoah!