In the Army we call searching through a box of some sort, “rat-fucking.” During my first tour, and when we went to the field back at Bragg, you eat MRE’s (Meals Ready to Eat) almost all the time. Well naturally, some MRE’s are much better than others, like they have jalapeno cheese as opposed to peanut butter. In order to provide a free market food economy the platoon sergeant or another NCO will bark “NO RATFUCKING!” This translates to “walk by the box, do not look at what you are grabbing, and just grab one.” This leads to bartering “I’ll trade you this strawberry milkshake mix for your veggie crackers and cheese.” Another version of rat-fucking is the “rat-fuck-box,” this is a box/boxes of shit that was sent to you on deployment that you either don’t like, don’t need, or just feel like sharing with others. This leads me to my story.

South Baghdad Summer 2003 ~2100hrs

We lived in an old Iraqi base within the city, about 5 miles from the airport. It was made of one large building, were my platoon, 2nd platoon and headquarters lived, and then two smaller buildings which were long and used to be the barracks. The farthest one we converted to a gym, we had like 4 or 5 benches, dumbbells and pull-up bars. Walking back from the gym around 9pm on a summer night it was about 95 degrees and dusk. 1st squad had their own room that was behind the rest of the platoon’s. As I walked by their door outside there were people gathered around, which was normal, but they were quiet, not normal. I walked up and asked one of my buddies what was going on, he said “check out Sgt. O’s rat-fuck box.”

I knew something was up and approached carefully, the box was on his lap which was funny too. Someone far less intelligent than I saw a piece of candy they HAD TO HAVE, in reaching for it………he had cut a hole in the bottom of the box and stuck his balls through. So this idiot starts grabbing for a piece of Laffy Taffy and grabs a dude’s balls instead. It doesn’t stop there. I had good rapport with the scouts and especially their sniper squad leader who I ran into as I was walking into my squad’s room and he was walking outside, I said “go check out the rat-fuck box that 1st squad has sergeant, GREAT STUFF IN THERE!”  Remember it was late dusk at this point, which is the hardest time to see somebody.

I went and sat on my cot with a serious smile on my face, and told two of my squad mates what I had done. At this point I had come to the grips with the fact that I as an E-3 (Private First Class) had just told an E-6 (Staff Sergeant) to go fondle an E-5’s balls, more or less. Then I heard it, “WHAT THE FCUCK!!!” and everyone outside started laughing. The E-6 came back and said “whoever the fuck that was you are a funny fucker, if I found out who you are I won’t smoke you (smoke equals “corrective exercise”) I’ll just get you back with my balls.”  What can I say, young men at war get bored.

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