Post by Admin on Dec 22, 2019 0:59:19 GMT
A lot of people in my platoon simply wore their uniforms for a month or two and chucked them in the burn pit. Nasty, I know, but none of us showered for seven months either. Baby wipes all the way.
We didn’t have washing machines, no washboard, no detergent, and all our water was bottled. The last point is more of an inconvenience than anything else. On top of that, you’d be washing your gear and uniforms every day. In the summertime, you’d go out for a few hours in a new uniform and it would be covered in salt lines. There is no stopping it, if you like fighting losing battles go ahead. You sweat so much sometimes that you can piss yourself and it doesn’t make you any wetter. I know guys that pissed themselves on patrol.
The best thing to do is to find a canal, while on patrol, with running water and walk through it. That’s what we did. Doubles as a shower and a way to cool off as well. Don’t worry about drying yourself off, the sun will take care of that in less than five minutes. Do not piss in the canal, you’ll probably catch some disease. People bathe in there, I’ve seen a lot of (literal) shit in canals, every once in a while you might see a cadaver, there’s a good bit of trash as well. You’ll find a lot of strange stuff in canals. It’s best to “bathe” in the smaller canals because they are more respected by the local populace, they bathe there as well but there’s much less trash. (Don’t drink the water either, you will get dysentery.)
This was my washing machine and bath.
If you want to wash your gear it’s the same thing but make sure to remove your magazines and everything not laminated. Should go without saying but the radios are not waterproof, plus the batteries for the larger radios, such as the PRC-117, will sometimes explode when exposed to water. If you want to, bring some soap and give yourself/uniform/gear a quick lather. It’s not perfect but it’s better than nothing. By the way, you’re not stripping down for this, you’re still wearing everything.
The smell is noticeable only to outsiders, we don’t care about it. We know we smell but you build up an immunity to it. We still use deodorant but most of the gel-type stick brands will melt.
We were unhygienic (that is an extremely relative term in this case) but took steps to keep somewhat clean. For one, we were wearing FROGs (Flame Retardent Operational Gear), so we didn’t have to wear shirts underneath and would get out of them shortly after getting back from patrol. Some guys freeball and put underwear on when getting back home. Baby wipes come in handy. If you wear blast boxers on patrol, dunk them in a bucket with some soap, wring, and repeat a few times. If you wear conventional underwear it’s best to keep separate sets of patrol underwear and home underwear. On the same note, I also kept a dedicated uniform for days I’d be standing post and the rest were for patrol.
Socks were used for one or two patrols and tossed in the burn pit. We made sure that a large portion of our mail was socks and also kept a supply of extras on hand if someone needed them. If I got something, anything, in the mail it came with socks. When winter rolled around I went through fewer socks but summer in Afghanistan eats socks. Socks that weren’t burned were repurposed, usually, the legs were used as cleaning gear or rags. You can also cut the legs off brown/tan/green/black socks and put them over white socks so your chain of command doesn’t find out you’re wearing white socks. Yeah, for some reason the color of your socks matters in combat. That shit’s priority number one in war, why? Don’t ask, it’s a mystery. I’m serious, some higher-ups will have a brain aneurysm over the color of your socks.
On the bigger bases, none of this is an issue. They have Pizza Hut and coffee shops, rest assured they have washing machines and dryers. They also get less dirty than people who are in austere rural bases. This is the case for the vast majority of people deployed to Iraq/Afghanistan now.
We didn’t have washing machines, no washboard, no detergent, and all our water was bottled. The last point is more of an inconvenience than anything else. On top of that, you’d be washing your gear and uniforms every day. In the summertime, you’d go out for a few hours in a new uniform and it would be covered in salt lines. There is no stopping it, if you like fighting losing battles go ahead. You sweat so much sometimes that you can piss yourself and it doesn’t make you any wetter. I know guys that pissed themselves on patrol.
The best thing to do is to find a canal, while on patrol, with running water and walk through it. That’s what we did. Doubles as a shower and a way to cool off as well. Don’t worry about drying yourself off, the sun will take care of that in less than five minutes. Do not piss in the canal, you’ll probably catch some disease. People bathe in there, I’ve seen a lot of (literal) shit in canals, every once in a while you might see a cadaver, there’s a good bit of trash as well. You’ll find a lot of strange stuff in canals. It’s best to “bathe” in the smaller canals because they are more respected by the local populace, they bathe there as well but there’s much less trash. (Don’t drink the water either, you will get dysentery.)
This was my washing machine and bath.
The smell is noticeable only to outsiders, we don’t care about it. We know we smell but you build up an immunity to it. We still use deodorant but most of the gel-type stick brands will melt.
We were unhygienic (that is an extremely relative term in this case) but took steps to keep somewhat clean. For one, we were wearing FROGs (Flame Retardent Operational Gear), so we didn’t have to wear shirts underneath and would get out of them shortly after getting back from patrol. Some guys freeball and put underwear on when getting back home. Baby wipes come in handy. If you wear blast boxers on patrol, dunk them in a bucket with some soap, wring, and repeat a few times. If you wear conventional underwear it’s best to keep separate sets of patrol underwear and home underwear. On the same note, I also kept a dedicated uniform for days I’d be standing post and the rest were for patrol.
Socks were used for one or two patrols and tossed in the burn pit. We made sure that a large portion of our mail was socks and also kept a supply of extras on hand if someone needed them. If I got something, anything, in the mail it came with socks. When winter rolled around I went through fewer socks but summer in Afghanistan eats socks. Socks that weren’t burned were repurposed, usually, the legs were used as cleaning gear or rags. You can also cut the legs off brown/tan/green/black socks and put them over white socks so your chain of command doesn’t find out you’re wearing white socks. Yeah, for some reason the color of your socks matters in combat. That shit’s priority number one in war, why? Don’t ask, it’s a mystery. I’m serious, some higher-ups will have a brain aneurysm over the color of your socks.
On the bigger bases, none of this is an issue. They have Pizza Hut and coffee shops, rest assured they have washing machines and dryers. They also get less dirty than people who are in austere rural bases. This is the case for the vast majority of people deployed to Iraq/Afghanistan now.
