During the first Gulf War, I was a Navy officer and aircrew in the E-2C Hawkeye. That is the radar plane on aircraft carriers -- it has a big dish on top that looks like a Frisbee. It has a crew of five: two pilots and three radar operators, one of which was me.
One night, while flying a long and boring mission, one of the members of my crew, Joe, had an uncontrollable urge to take an emergency airborne crap. He had eaten the greasy boat food that passed for Mexican before we launched, and he said he was in real pain. Everyone else in the crew tried to talk him out of it, because it would pollute the small cockpit -- and it's not like you can open a window at 27,000 feet -- but he was not to be denied. He stripped off his survival vest, parachute harness and flight suit, and proceeded to the tiny equipment compartment aft, where there was a metal bucket bolted to the floor for such emergencies. It was rarely used, and has since been replaced by more radio equipment.
We all went on oxygen for a few minutes. Joe dumped his Mexican dinner into the garbage bag we all carried in our helmet bags (just in case) and tied it in a knot. While he was dumping the load (amid much ribbing from the rest of us on the intercom system), he realized he had no ass paper. No problem for combat aircrew -- he just pulled his survival knife, cut his underwear from around his ankles, wiped his ass, and stuffed them in the ankle pocket of his flight suit. After the air cleared, we got off the oxygen and carried on with the mission, and life was good until it was our turn to recover aboard the ship.
In the Hawkeye, there is an overhead ditching hatch above the seat so we can escape if the plane lands in the water (we don't have ejection seats). Our procedure is to remove the hatch prior to landing so that will already be done if we should have to ditch. Once the hatch was out, Joe decided to chuck his bag of steaming shit out of the plane on final approach, rather than do the walk of shame carrying it across the flight deck.
Good idea, we all thought, so away it went at about seven hundred feet and 130 knots airspeed. We all hoped it would hit the Iranian spy ship that followed us everywhere, eavesdropping on us.
After a perfect landing, we got out and did our normal postflight walkaround to check the aircraft for damage. It looked good, except for a large plastic bag that had wrapped around the tail of the aircraft, exploded, and flapped a wide trail of slimy shit all across the tail as it disintegrated.
Well, the enlisted guys weren't about to clean it up, so Joe had to get a hose and a bucket of soapy water and wash the tail of that airplane in the dark, with a crowd of well wishers laughing their asses off the whole time. He earned several new call signs that night but none of them stuck for long, since he was otherwise a great guy.
The story doesn't quite end there, though. When Joe got back to the ready room, he realized he still had his shit-stained drawers in the pocket of his flight suit. He went to the head across the passageway and decided to flush them down the toilet, rather than put them in the can and have everyone wonder what kind of asshole put skidmarked underwear in the trash can. Good idea? Maybe not. The next morning, at a squadron officer's meeting in the ready room, the ship's pipefitter came in and announced that Joe's underwear had stopped up the shitter, and the shitter had to be dismantled, and if he ever did anything like that again, he was going to get hauled to the bridge to explain it to the Captain.
How did he know? Like everyone in the Navy, Joe had his name stenciled in his shorts so the laundry guys knew who it belonged to. Is that bad luck or what?
-- FM