A serious case of the hooahs

Photo courtesy of Steven Pfeffer

This...thing...it went around while we were in Iraq.  It goes around in other parts of the world, too.  I got it in November, 2006.  The day of our 231st birthday, actually.  It's like some sort of stomach bug or something.  Like one that multiplies from an army of one to an entire brigade.  I mean, once you get it, you're done for.  Put out.  Dang near de-ass-itated.  And it takes over so fast, once it gets inside you.  It starts with a sudden trip to the head and before you know it you're lying in bed at 0200 wishing you had a bed pan.  Your sphincters are comatose.  When the little bugger attacks, it comes on strong.  Really strong, I'm telling you.  Never underestimate what an army of one can do.  By the third day I was kneeling before my rack, my glutes contracted for the life of me, praying my intestines wouldn't fall out from down under.  Because everything else was just...falling out.  Busting through the perimeter.  I had absolutely no control over these ambushes.  None whatsoever. I'm telling you, this thing is no joke.  And you never know.  I could happen to you too.  Just wait.  You'll be lying in your rack at night and suddenly wake up wishing you had fallen asleep in a port-a-shitter.  Because at that moment, when you awake, the wire is already being breached.  By the time you jump down from your rack and grab your rifle to make a run for the head, it's too late.  You've just dropped a hooah.  Or at least a good portion of one.

Anyway.  I just thought you should know.  So you can, you know.  Be prepared.  Worse than a serious case of the hooahs is not having any clean underwear on standby...