SOLDIERS CLEAN THEIR BUTTS

Morning begins at 4:30, earlier if you're on bay guard duty. This has nothing to do with Bay watch, guys. A bay is a long sleeping area with lockers, bunks, toilets and showers. It sleeps about 50. Most of the girls liked being a bay guard for different reasons. It meant you didn't have to run a mile with a full pack and your weapon, an M16, and then do exercises for an hour before breakfast.

Every two hours, while we slept, two girls got up and marched around the bay checking on us to make sure we were in our beds. A lot of them were too busy getting into trouble to keep track of us. Bay guard duty was a perfect time to sneak downstairs to grab an otherwise forbidden coke out of the machine. It was a good time to smoke.

One night a surprise inspection found out it was a good time for something else. Two bunks were empty. The girls were in bed, but they were across the compound in Charlie 8-1, the men's platoon, in other beds. The girls were sent home, declared to be unfit to be soldiers. The guys were given "butt patrol". "Butt patrol" is when you have to go outside and pick up all the cigarette butts on the ground. To this day, there are guys in this world who will put their ashes in their pants cuffs and carry their butts in their pockets, because they know somebody is going to have to pick them up and it might be them.