THE WAR IN REAL LIFE

Hollywood never gets war right. I should know. Back in WWII, I served on a destroyer in the Pacific. I know how it was in real life.


Eh, their hearts are in the right place, I guess. They want to depict the glory and honor with beautiful people who never get too dirty, or too bloody.


But it’s all bullshit. Let me tell you how it really was.


Think about this: a bunch of guys on a ship at sea. No women. And no one wants the others to think he’s queer or something, not in those John Wayne days. But they’ve got a lot of spunk built up. How are they going to get rid of it? And not cumming, by the way, is off the table.


That’s right. A lot of midnight palm parties. Except the bunks were so close that there was the very real possibility of accidentally blowing your load on another man. Me? I was real courteous, like. Always shot off under my blanket. Sure, it led to crusty sheets, but fuck it.


You always wanted the top bunk. That way, if anyone’s getting jizzed on, it’s the fellas under you. That wasn’t a sure thing, though. Some guys were all distance. Vic the Vag could fire a cum bullet and nail a yawner right in the mouth at twenty feet.


I can’t count the times I caught another guy’s cock grease by way of happenstance, but I never got used to that.


You think Henry Fonda ever got squirted by dick jelly?


But never mind that. That’s not what I wanted to tell you about. The thing I really wanted to say was how I survived September 12, 1943. None of us expected to be attacked that day, let me tell you. Intel from the front told us the Japs weren’t anywhere near us. Most of us were watching a stag flick at the time. The fellas who had already seen it were drinking, smoking, or playing cards, maybe even all three.


Me? I was supposed to keep an eye out for the enemy, but I wasn’t too concerned due to the intel. In fact, I had to take a shit something fierce. Nobody’d spot me, so I just left my post.


Can you imagine Randolph Scott needing to shit so bad he had to abandon his duties?


In the latrine, there were no stalls, just a line of toilets where everyone can see everyone else’s business . . . if you cared to look, ya’ nancy. Flushers didn’t work too well, either, so the place never smelled fresh. At the front were sinks and at the back, shower nozzles.


This day I’m talking about, I went into the head and saw two other guys. Lt. Tim Jordan stood in the back, soaping up his scummy body. Somehow he always smelled like bacon and unwiped butt hole. He was handsome enough, I guess, but he had some kind of dick rot going on. I didn’t know who he’d gotten it from, but I prayed never to meet her.


The other guy was Pvt. Philip “Fill ‘Er Up” Peters. He sat on one of the toilets, face red, veins sticking out of his forehead. A low whine came from the back of his throat.


I ignored them both and tried to find a useable toilet. Three were clogged up, one of them containing a turd the size of a Yule log. Two others had been pissed on. I had no choice but to take the one next to Peters.


Before I sat down, I perused the reading material. A dog-eared copy of Ooh-La-La!, a pristine Saturday Evening Post, and a week-old newspaper. I took the Ooh-La-La! and dropped my pants, preparing for what would undoubtedly be a room-crushing dump.


The turd was halfway out my ass when it happened. Something thudded loudly against the destroyer, and we could feel the heavy vibrations through the floor and the toilet seats.


“What the fuck was that?” Jordan asked. He blindly reached for a towel to wipe soap out of his eyes.


I didn’t feel too good about this, so I tried to push the rest of my brown tail out. Before I could begin to strain, the sound came again, and this time the ship shuddered so hard it threw me and Peters off our porcelain thrones. I skidded against the linoleum so hard it burned my skin. When I stopped, I could feel something soft but firm resting on the backs of my legs.


My turd.


Do you think this kind of thing would have ever happened to Bob Mitchum?


“Jesus, Philly! Wipe your ass!”


I looked up to see Jordan had braced himself against the wall. Peters, on the other hand, crouched on all fours, his diarrhea-spattered ass in the air.


The destroyer shook again, and it startled me so much I pushed the rest of my shit out. It rolled toward a wall and squatted there like a disapproving neighbor.


“We gotta’ get outta’ here,” Jordan said. He toweled himself off and went in search of his clothes.


I tried to stand so I could clean myself up, but it happened again. This time, the ship shook so hard the floor tilted. All three of us slipped across the room and hit the wall in a pile.


“Fuck!” Jordan pushed at me. “Get up!”


Him being a superior officer and all, I tried. The destroyer rocked again, and we all slid across the latrine until we hit the opposite wall. This time, I could see Peters and his bare, beshitted ass coming at me. I tried to move out of the way, but there was no time. He slammed up against me, and a jet of diarrhea shot out and nailed me in the face. It got in my nose, my mouth, up under my eyelids. Fetid, rotten shit juice overpowered my senses, and I puked all over Peters.


“Holy Jesus!” Jordan cried. “What the fuck?!”


I could still taste and smell shit, so I retched again, only this time I did it while sliding across the floor a third time as the destroyer rocked again. I left a trail of vomit as I went.


Peters hit a toilet on the way by, but instead of giving him something to hold onto, it broke like the cheap shit it was. He skittered on the floor, clutching the toilet and a bowl full of clogged shit, which spilled out over the edges as it moved. When he hit the wall, the shitter broke open and spat more crap at us.


I dry retched, but Jordan puked out a very colorful lunch all over my head. Blinded by other peoples’ bodily fluids, I tried puking again. Nothing.


The floor tilted so far this time we didn’t slide, we fell. It was like dropping two stories. Something in my knees broke. Later, I was told my knee caps had shattered. At the time, the puke, shit, and now, blood, had all my attention.


At this angle, all the toilets gave up their contents, covering us in lumps of shit and soiled toilet paper. It slicked over us like a second skin. Like layers of cancer.


I don’t imagine Jimmy Stewart ever put up with this.


We didn’t have time to gather our wits. Another explosion, this one bad enough to make all the toilets explode, showering us with brown prizes and shards of porcelain. I don’t know how many ounces of shit and piss I swallowed, but I’m sure my packed mouth resembled those clogged toilets from earlier.


Once again, we flew across the latrine and smacked up against the opposite wall. Peters caught enough shrapnel in his right eye that he later lost it. Also, at some point, all my front teeth got busted out. Maybe I didn’t notice because broken teeth look a lot like shattered toilet pebbles. I don’t know.


Jordan grabbed a showerhead and held on for dear life. I would have done the same thing, but blood and shit got into my eyes, and I spent three seconds of freedom trying to clear my sight.


Another explosion. My world started to tilt again, and I jumped up, reaching desperately for a showerhead. I grabbed something, but it wasn’t strong enough to hold me. I fell and hit the other wall. The world spun like I’d just downed a fifth of whiskey in one sitting. I backhanded filth from my eyes, and then I saw what I’d grabbed. I couldn’t figure out what the cylindrical object in my palm was at first because of all the sores and rashes.


Then, I suddenly knew.


It was Jordan’s disease-ridden cock.


Think that ever happened to Humphrey Bogart?


I had enough time to look up and see Jordan hanging above us, a rivulet of blood splattering down, feet dangling loosely, before the destroyer rocked again.


I hit the wall with my head this time, real direct, like, and mercifully, I passed out. Pants around my ankles, covered in human effluvia, mouth ruined and skull cracked, I lost consciousness.


When I woke up a week later, I was stateside in a hospital, on the mend. Good news: my busted knees would keep me from the Fight, at least for a while. Thanks to that eye, Peters would be keeping me company.


Jordan? They couldn’t put his dick back on, not that he should have wanted that rotten and used up thing. After a month, they sent him back to the Front. He killed a lot of Japs, so many that they eventually gave him a Section Eight. I hear he committed suicide in ’47.


Peters died in ’83. Heart attack. I’m the last of ‘em, and I’m here to tell you, you won’t get the truth about war from James Cagney and his fellow actors.


Nope. War is hell, sure, but more so, it’s a dirty business. Hollywood will never get it right. Take it from me. I was there.