Last night I had a chilling reminder of a fearful moment in a combat area. Oddly enough it all started when I woke up in the middle of the night needing to use the restroom. From my previous post, I highlighted one of the biggest discomforts in a deployed area: portable toilets.
At home we take for granted the ease of relieving ourselves in the middle of the night. A short stumble across the hall and you’re there at the restroom. Here, it’s about 50 yards of walking. But there are rules. You can’t be out of your tent unless you’re in uniform. So using the restroom at night involves getting up and getting dressed – socks, shoes and all. The long walk isn’t on pavement either – the ground is covered with loose, fist-sized gravel requiring careful steps at night. And of course, I don’t need to explain the disadvantages of portable toilets over flushing toilets.
Anyway, last night as I lay in bed, I was having a debate with myself if I wanted to try to hold it the remainder of the night, or just get up and go. “If I stay,” I thought, “I’ll be uncomfortable and get only shallow sleep. If I go, I have to deal with getting dressed, the long walk, the smell, and then risk being wide awake from the trauma once I return.” To pee or not to pee ...
It was at this point I recalled an occasion a few years back in Afghanistan. I was at small place called Shkin Fire Base with the Army. Shkin is really more like a fort – there are four stone walls surrounding us and only about 100 people there. The walls were approximately 25 feet high, except at the four corners where there were tall look-out towers. Our small number (of soldiers) was unsettling because Shkin is located right on the Pakistan border where hundreds of Taliban fighters are finding sanctuary, enjoying immunity in Pakistan.
It was there that we got an intel report of about a $100,000 reward promised by Taliban leadership to anyone who could capture a live American soldier. That kind of money in Afghanistan would set someone for life. We also were familiar with rumors of what usually happened to an American soldier who was caught by the terrorists: immediate castration.
Now, Shkin was the most austere place I’ve ever been. We didn’t even have portable toilets. Instead we had slit trenches outside the protection of the walls. In Deut. 23:12, God orders the Israelites to designate a place outside their camp for relieving themselves. After being at Shkin, I know why. A slit trench is the most foul and disgusting thing I’ve ever experienced – and there is no way I would want one anywhere near where I slept or ate. The only problem was it was outside the protection of the walled fort. For this reason, we tried to restrict our visits there to daylight hours and with a buddy.
So one night, I had the most awful dream. While sleeping in our split-level bunker, I dreamed I was laying there in need of using the restroom. But in the dream I was terrified of going outside the wall at night. After all the act of using the restroom leaves a person in a very vulnerable position – so I suffered. It’s not that I’m afraid of dying. I’m really not. There are just certain (special) parts of me I’d rather not witness being cleaved from my body.
In the dream I laid there waiting for daylight hours, struggling to hold it in. My bladder was being very unforgiving. It felt like an over pressurized tire pushing up into my rib cage. Finally, my will broke before my bladder. I got up and started arming up for the event. I put on my ballistic vest and helmet. I grabbed my pistol and my M-16 and loaded them both up. Then, I walked out doubled over, making my way out of the bunker and toward the wall’s gate. I paused briefly to build up my nerve and then quietly shuffled to the slit trench. Its odor gave away its proximity. I arrived and began preparing for the jettison. But as soon as I was about to “let go” multiple terrorists ambushed me, stripping me of my guns and armor. One of them spit hateful words at me in Pashto, and the last thing I remembered was a knife coming out. I think the anxiety of that action startled me awake. I was still safe inside the wall, in my bunker (and thankfully dry). “Oh, thank you my Lord, Christ, the Messiah,” I whimpered in a trembling, emotion-filled voice. However, relief soon melted away into horror as I sat up and gathered my wits. I had to pee.
That ended up being a long night for me. And, as I lay awake last night debating on whether or not to go to the portable toilet, which was inside the safety of the camp here, I realized we didn’t have it quite so bad. So I got up and dressed myself and went.
It’s funny how our frame of mind can cause us to be so thankful to God. Before I recalled that moment a few years back, I hated my situation. But my past hardship made me grateful. Our trials seem to do that to us – to make us rejoice in lesser things. I mean, here I was thanking God for a nice, safe portable toilet. Only moments before, I was bemoaning it. Consider James 1:2-4.
