The Tri-County Trifecta

Ok.. everybody knows that there are some no-shit rules you have to follow when conducting travel to 3rd world shitholes. First, don’t drink the water. Second, don’t eat the local food. Third, don’t get shitfaced drunk.

Well it was my fucking birthday so I broke all three in one night. Look, this ain’t my first rodeo but you only turn 30 once right? Well that’s what I kept telling myself while the guys poured drinks down my head for hours on end. I usually don’t even drink over here and with Iraq being one hot mother it doesn’t take much to get a nigga totally slick. (strike one)

You know, after a couple of beers and stuff you start to feel a little hungry, like the munchies but from alcohol. Usually I just stumble down to the old mexican place and grab some tacos but here in Iraq we don’t have that. What we do have though is that fly covered meat that hangs in the street all day long. When you’re “drungry”, as we call it in the business, you hardly care whether the meat is thoroughly cooked or healthy-looking or smells reasonable or whatever. So I proceeded to munch down on a bunch of rancid goat leg. (strike two)

Now after a lot more booze and laughs and everything else I was feeling severely fucked up. The goat leg was bubbling around down in my guts with the beer and whiskey and wine and I fell on my face twice just climbing the stairs back to my room and somewhere along the way my drunken half logic kicks in like a shitfaced devil on my shoulder;

drunken half logic “hey dude, you are totally drunk!”

drunk me, “yeah, no shit.”

drunken half logic “well you’re gonna be totally hung over tomorrow!”

drunk me, “yeah, i know, its gonna suck.”

drunken half logic “well dude, what you should do is drink some water so you’re not so hung over!”

drunk me, “hey, that’s not such a bad idea but the bottled water is all the way downstairs.”

drunken half logic “well just use the tap water..”

drunk me, “mmmm. ok!”

glug glug glug glug glug

(strike three, you’re out)

So I woke up the next afternoon alone. I was instantly snapped out of my complete unconsciousness into a vapid crypt of heat and flies. My bed was soaked through with sweat, I was drenched and reeling with the strangest sensation.

I’ve felt a number of fucked up sensations in my life but none so acutely miserable as this felt at that moment. According to the doc what I had was what we are now calling over here the “tri-county trifecta”. Now the original tri-county trifecta was christened by another frogman some years back when he pissed, shit, and puked himself all while sitting on a barstool (and still trying to pick up on chicks). Well the new tri-county trifecta is when you have a hangover, food-poisoning, and strep throat all at once. Ker-plunk!

Let me be the first to tell you that this is no fun at all. I’m not going into the hallucinatory details of what happened when I first went crawling into the filthy shithouse.. I’m not going to elaborate on the near death experiences I encountered while running a fever and working security with loaded weapons and body armor in a sweltering 140 degree heat.. I’m not even going to start to justify my actions when it comes to what I did and where during my immediate recovery period.. Yeah, I know, “we want all the gory details” well the truth is that sometimes you can’t remember reality from dream and dream from hallucination.. Plus I’d rather just forget the whole thing. So remember children what your old buddy told you about this day and please…

“Don’t be like me.”

On a more cheery note we just got awarded sole custody of all captured weapons, ammo, and demolitions recovered by Big Army in all their raids in the city of Kirkuk. We loaded up the truck as full as she could handle and told ‘em we’d be back before long to gather up the rest. Today’s little haul netted us some pretty significant firepower but more importantly our teammate “Yogi” had some memorable quotes in regards to each of these items. Here is a list of the items we took possession of alongside Yogi’s quote.

2 PKM light machine guns (like the Russian version of the M60 that fires 7.62×54)
“man, I want to run down the street with both of these bad boys just spraying rounds willy-nilly!”

2 RPD light machine guns (another Russian version of the 60 that fires 7.62×39 AK47 ammo)
“oh yeah, those two girls are coming home with big daddy tonight!”

a gunny sack filled with AK47 magazines
“now that’s what I call a ‘nice sack’!”

1 AK-47
“that things still packed in cozmaline! I’ve been to Bangkok, I like-em dirty!”

1 chrome Tokorov pistol (7.62×25)
“can you guys imagine me up in New Orleans with this thing.. BLING BLING!”

a full box of m67 US standard issue fragmentation grenades (roughly 30 grenades)
“well I’ll be dipped in shit!”

At the end of our gathering efforts Yogi turns and looks at the Army commanding officer who (in his infinite coolness) offered all this equipment to us and said, “Have you ever been kissed by a man?”

Later on in the day while we were cleaning and servicing our new guns I asked Yogi what he would do if all the stuff that the CO told us was there just locked away in a conex box unaccounted for by any and all official record really turned out to be true.

Yogi turned to me and said “I will literally be dipped in shit. I will let them.. dip me.. into shit. Then I’m gonna kiss that man right on the lips!”

So everybody keep your fingers crossed and I’ll let you know what happens.

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