In a previous article I mentioned that I had spent a month down in Riverside during a huge military exercise that covered almost all of Southern California. It was another of those Navy-Marine vs Army-Air Force things. The 301st Trans was bivouaced at the end of March AFB's runway. Every 15 minutes a flying gas station would take off right over our tents. The KC 10s weren't so bad, they had the modern engines with all the noise abatement stuff on them, but the KC 135 was still in service and much older (in service since the late 50's) and shook the whole earth as it took off. All thought and action ceased as these birds battled the hot, thin desert air for enough purchase to lift their tons into the air...every 15 minutes.
Being in support mode, as usual, we were in place before a lot of other units arrived. We were assigned to set up in an abandoned warehouse area on the edge of the air base. Most of the warehouses were gone, only those by the railroad tracks remained. That left an area with streets and foundations, no buildings. We were alloted an area to pitch our tents and a parking area for our trucks and right away received missions to fill our days. Living wasn't too bad. It was dry and warm. Noisy and dusty, too. But by and large, it wasn't too bad. We had porta-potties set up all around. As soon as we were set up and the leadership got a chance to confer on our situation, we came to notice that while the Class 1 folks over at the warehouses had several potties, and the MPs had several, and the admin had several, we only had two. The commander said he would look into it. When we got back to our platoon areas, I pulled my senior E5 driver aside and told him to get a clip board, a jeep with trailer, and a three man detail and go over to the warehouse area and select three or four nice potties and move them over to our area. He asked me why a clipboard. I explained to him that in the Army, when you carry a clipboard and refer to it often, you appear official and no one messes with you. He asked what he should do if someone stopped him. I told him to refer to his clipboard, shake his head and tell the person who stopped him that this one was on the list and he would have to take it up with the area commander's staff, it was their list. He aske me why I didn't do it. I explained that if I did it, that would be a dead give away that it was a scam...no E7 would ever put up with being in charge of the crappers. So Little John took off with his clipboard, his jeep and trailer and his crew. In a little less than an hour we had four new, well, barely used, potties a respectable distance behind our tents. He had been stopped by more than a few senior NCOs and one captain who demanded to know where these potties were going. Little John, getting into his role as Crapmeister, explained that redistribution was necessary because more units were showing up every day and the number of soldiers per was severely stressed. He explained that the requirement was one pot per 10 butts (he read that on the little sticker inside the potties) and the headquarters and admin folks were way over-pottied. There was some grumbling but no one questioned the clipboard.
A couple of days later the best one of our newly acquired potties was commandeered by a Sergeant Major who moved in next door and promptly put a notice on it that said it was now for the exclusive use of CSM Whoever and his immediate staff, no exceptions. Little John came in and told me about it. "Imaging the nerve of that ***hole, stealing our pottie!" I couldn't help but laugh. The Sergeant Major just did what we did, but he did it the old fashioned way...he pulled out his stripes.