Vietnam 68-69

We were stationed on a firebase overlooking the A Shau Valley on time.  The top of the firebase was bare with not a lot of protection from the elements.  On this particular day it was a mostly clear day with just a few clouds in the sky, not a bad day except the wind was blowing pretty hard.  Some buddies and I had moved a little ways down off the side of the firebase to get out of the wind.  We were sitting their visiting when we felt droplets of water.  Now, it wasn’t unusual to get a sudden rain.  We all looked up to see where the rain was coming from.  The rain wasn’t coming from any cloud but from one of our buddies that was relieving himself into one of the “piss” tube above us.  We all yelled at him to stop his “rain shower”.  The wind had carried his yellow rain down to where we were sitting.  I don’t think he even realized what was happening until we yelled at him.  In the end we were all pretty amused by what had just happened.

For those of you who don’t know, it was common to bury metal casings that an artillery round were shipment in to use as a urinal.  The tubes were buried about halfway in the ground and they were usually placed right out in the open.

If this story offends anybody, I’m sorry but it’s something that happened to me in Vietnam that I remembered and I wanted to right about.  I think it’s pretty funny.