Military Parade

Stories, writings, literature, partial stories, multiple chapters etc. Discussions within the stories threads also permitted and encouraged. Please get involved, we always like new and old material, and different writing styles. Please do not post any sexual references here, there is another section for those stories (SI).
Brian
Site Staff
Posts: 2840
Joined: 01 Sep 2016, 10:32
Location: The Netherlands
Gender:

Military Parade

Post by Brian »

Private Callum O'Shea turned his attention away from the banter of his friends and colleagues in the communal dormitory at the barracks, grabbed the pristine beige shirt which was hanging next to his bed and examined it keenly and anxiously. He followed up with an equally detailed check of his carefully pressed dark green dress pants on another hanger next to the shirt. His heart rate slowed and his breathing became calmer as he observed that his full half hour of careful ironing the previous evening had produced the required perfection for the coming parade and inspection together with his colleagues in his platoon in front of the visiting officers.

At twenty-three years old, Callum had already completely taken to his new army life and the regimented order and structure which it provided, a welcome change from the listlessness and lack of direction which had characterised his existence before he had joined up just seven months earlier. No longer the very newest recruit in his platoon, he was now satisfied with his life, the relationships he had built up with his new peers and superior officers, and the prospect of a serious military career in which he could reasonably expect promotion in the ranks. There had been occasional blunders and mishaps, of course, one notable one having occurred just the previous day on the way to a shooting practice, but for the most part Callum felt respected by his fellow soldiers and capable of the tasks to which he was assigned on a day-to-day basis.

On a third hanger next to his bed was his dress tunic. Callum now submitted this garment to his equally careful attentions, rubbed a soft cloth over its buttons, and held it in the light from one of the dormitory windows, checking that the brass of each button shone back at him with the right intensity and that the white belt looked pristine. He then observed that his black parade boots on the floor were also gleaming to the required standard. Satisfied with the perfection which his long stint of rubbing and polishing had achieved, Callum undid the top button of his rough khaki trousers in which he, like the other recruits, had been carrying out the earlier tasks of the morning, pulled the zip down and let the garment drop to the floor ready to change into the smart dress pants.

"Not going commando this time, then, Cal!?" came a loud voice from someone standing by the bed on the opposite side.

Callum spun his head round to see the source of the remark, his twenty-two year old colleague Private Will Jays, staring straight at Callum's white underpants which were now on show. Callum's self-consciousness instantly kicked in and he moved his hands instinctively in front of himself to hide Will's view of the bulge in his briefs while he stepped out of the khaki pants on the floor around his ankles. "What are you looking at?" he retorted.

"Commando? Ha! Doesn't O'Shea wear undies?" came another voice. This was an older lad in his late twenties, Martin van der Hoek, who despite his age had the same rank and no particularly higher level of general maturity than Callum and Will.

"Let him be, guys," said another lad, twenty-four year old Tim Brickens, who had a reputation for coming up for any platoon member who was being teased and somehow commanded the respect of all his fellow soldiers so that he was rarely on the receiving end of teasing himself. "Just ignore them, Callum."

"He wasn't wearing undies during the shooting practice yesterday in any case!" responded Will to Martin. "Even though he did have a pair on in the morning before we set off. You know what happened, don't you? You were in the same truck convoy as we were!"

Callum turned away, grabbed his dress pants and pulled them on, refusing to have his underpants under the scrutiny of his dormitory mates for any longer than necessary, and willing the subject to be dropped. He was not so naive as to think that Will would have kept the extra details of yesterday's incident to himself, and he was quite sure that most of the platoon would have heard about those details from Will, but he had hoped that the incident would have been generally forgotten by now.

"Shut it, Will!" said Tim.

Some knowing sniggers sounded from several other recruits who were similarly busy with changing into their parade gear, but the amusement was mostly half-hearted because the slightly bullying nature of Will Jays did not make him especially popular in the platoon and Tim Brickens was voicing the same sentiments that the majority of them felt. Most of them had sympathy for Callum anyway because it was something which had on occasion happened, with varying degrees of intensity, to each and every one of them during the strict procedures in the army when you were frequently under orders for lengthy periods of time and forced to wait for a comfort break if you needed one.

The subject was forcibly dropped at this point in any case when Lieutenant Hugh Marsden, the commanding officer of all the occupants of the dormitory and the man who would be directly responsible for their platoon and answerable to the visiting senior officers during their parade and inspection during the coming hours, strode in and addressed everyone in his typical soldierly manner. "Stop gossiping and get changed on the double!" he yelled. "The Brigadier and the Major will be on site at eleven-hundred hours and you will be out there standing at attention in your best turn-out before they even set eyes on our barracks! Don't let me see anyone less than immaculately turned out! You have no time to lose! Don't let me down! Get your kit on, get yourselves ready, look sharp, and stand at the end of your bed as soon as you are in a position to get on parade! Show me that you aren't going to let down your whole platoon in front of ...!"

Callum sighed to himself with relief as Lieutenant Marsden's continuing barked instructions concentrated everyone's mind and the subject of Callum's embarrassing mishap the previous day was evidently forgotten. Callum had himself been on the receiving end of the lieutenant's sharp tongue when they had arrived at the shooting range the previous day, but Marsden was obviously nervous now and too fixated on the parade to be likely to refer to that incident. As long as Callum was well turned out for the parade Marsden would leave him alone, and he knew that his dress gear was indeed perfectly pressed, his hair short and neat under the beret, his brasses and boots shiny and his belt blemish-free. While the Lieutenant's barked instructions continued, Callum finished dressing and headed straight into the toilets for the ritual "head call" before he would stand in front of his bed ready to go outside for the parade with the practised ease of having done this so many times before. A handful of the other recruits had finished dressing at the same moment and were also heading straight for the latrines.

"Well, this is a sensible thing to do, anyway," remarked Tim Brickens with a sideways glance at Callum as the two of them stood side by side peeing at the urinal. "We could be out there on parade for a couple of hours. I don't want to get caught short."

Callum nodded. "Yep. I'm not going to allow a repeat of what happened yesterday." Tim was a sympathetic colleague, and neither of the two other recruits who were currently with them in the toilet block next to the dormitory were of the type who were likely to tease him either, so Callum had no qualms about referring to the incident now.

"I really felt for you in that truck yesterday," said Tim. "I didn't think you were going to make it. It was obvious you were really struggling. You did well to get them to stop the convoy for you."

"Oh God, it was terrible. Never again." Callum shuddered slightly at the memory as he continued to empty his bladder.

***

The previous day Private Callum O'Shea had experienced something at first hand which a lot of army recruits go through at some point in their careers in one form or another. Sitting in the front vehicle in a convoy of four trucks which was transporting the entire platoon to a shooting range some hour's drive away from their barracks, Callum had realised that he had drunk too much tea before they had set off and that he really needed a piss. He had tried to wait until they reached the destination, feeling more and more desperate as time went on, but with at least fifteen minutes of the journey still to go it got to the severely painful stage when he felt that he could no longer hold it in. Callum had had to summon up the courage to voice his acute need to the driver, an officer cadet with a truck driving licence, who had pointed out in no uncertain terms that stopping a convoy of army trucks on a highway for one recruit to relieve himself was not an option. It was only when Callum insisted that he was about to wet his army uniform that the driver had relented and identified a layby large enough to accommodate four trucks and pulled in, bringing the entire procession to a stop at the roadside.

Callum had been spurting into his briefs in his urgency before the truck had stopped. He was in such a state that he was unable to move without releasing more piss when the truck door was finally opened for him, but staying in his seat was not an option either so he had scrambled out of the truck, weeing in his underwear as he went, and plunged into the bushes at the side in full view of his entire platoon including Lieutenant Marsden who was travelling in the rear truck. He had spent a full minute releasing the rest into the shrubbery before rejoining his colleagues in the front truck and travelling the short remainder of the journey to the shooting range with them, sitting in soggy underwear. Marsden had given him a huge dressing down when they had arrived, saying that stopping a convoy and weeing in front of the general public on the road while in uniform was absolutely off limits.

Callum's one saving grace had been that his thick khaki trousers did not show any wetness on the outside, helped by the fact that what he had released had not been an entire bladderfull, and to his army colleagues it looked as if he had made it dry. But his briefs had been soaking wet, and the only thing for it was to retire to the head at the shooting range mess as soon as Marsden had finished with him, lock himself in a cubicle and remove his underwear. Not having anything else to do with the sodden garment when he emerged, he threw the briefs into a rubbish bin at a moment when he thought he was not being observed by anyone. But Will Jays had appeared in the doorway at the moment the thud sounded at the bottom of the bin. Callum had stood there helplessly as Will peered into the bin, moved it so that the room light was shining down inside the tall plastic receptacle, and smirked as he saw the small soaking garment which Callum had just dropped into it. Callum had known then that the full extent of his mishap would do the full rounds of gossip in the platoon.

***

"Come on, best get back to the dorm before Marsden goes berzerk with us," said Tim Brickens to Callum now as he and Callum zipped up and relinquished their respective urinals to the recruits waiting behind them. All of the lads were in their smart parade gear which they had painstakingly prepared the previous evening.

"He's already having a go at someone now," observed Callum as he followed Tim back into the dormitory.

The Lieutenant could indeed be heard shouting at an individual recruit as opposed to the platoon as a whole as he had been doing earlier. "...You had all evening to get that belt sorted out! What were you doing all that time!? It should be snow white, not smudgy grey! You will not fail the inspection for us! Get to it now! Now man, now! You have no time to lose! Go on! Don't just look at it, scrub it! Polish it till it shines! Get that smear off it there! ..."

Callum trotted to the foot of his bed and stood in the "at attention" posture there with the practised ease of months of doing the same thing, indicating that he was ready to get on parade. He kept his eyes rigidly directed in front of him as required in such situations, but his peripheral vision showed him clearly that the object of Lieutenant Marsden's anger was Will Jays who was hastily rubbing at the white belt which he had removed from his tunic, his commanding officer breathing down his neck all the while. One by one the other recruits were completing their transformation into their ultra-smart, pressed, polished and shining parade gear, making a dash to the head for a last minute pee, and running back to stand at attention in front of their respective beds just as Callum and Tim had done. Meanwhile Will, smarting under the continued verbal onslaught from Lieutenant Marsden, kept rubbing frantically at his belt with a cloth dipped in turpentine, pausing at intervals whenever his commanding officer grabbed the belt back off him to examine, and resuming the rubbing as the angry lieutenant pointed out more grubby stains. Callum could sense a collective sigh of palpable relief from all his colleagues around him when Marsden's final examination of the belt revealed no more deficiencies and he shoved it brusquely back into Will's hands before moving to the middle of the dormitory and addressing everyone. "Now listen up...!"

During the subsequent ten minute long tirade Callum kept his eyes resolutely in front of him, half listening to the instructions but registering that there was nothing new about them and that the parade would take the same regimented form as all the others he had experienced so far in his seven months of service. The ritual suited Callum to a tee. There was nothing to think about, nothing to worry about, only orders to follow and well-rehearsed rituals to obey. They would shortly be moving out into the quad where they would assemble into their formation, do their "right dress" so that they formed perfectly straight rows, and then stand for however much time "at ease" on their spots (twenty minutes? forty?) before the bigwigs appeared on the turret above them without warning and they would be brought smartly to attention. There would be the usual "drill" involving plenty of right and left turns, stamping their right feet down on completion of each required movement, and no doubt some marching around the quads of the barracks at the barked orders of their platoon officer, Lieutenant Marsden, with the top brass looking on. And finally, at whatever point the brigadier decided he'd got bored with watching their stamping feet, they would be inspected, first by Marsden himself, and then by both senior visiting officers. This inspection would be the culmination of the morning's exercise, the moment when the fruits of all the previous evening's ironing, rubbing and polishing of their uniforms would be plucked and, if luck would have it, Marsden would be complimented on the turn-out of his troops, whereupon they would be dismissed for lunch in the canteen of the barracks.

Lieutenant Marsden's routine instructions, identical to the ones he had hollered to them the last time and numerous times before that, were now coming to their predictable conclusion and Callum braced himself for action. "...Squad!! Fall in!"

Like an automaton Callum moved smartly away from his bed and jogged outside with the other recruits. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Will Jays, the twenty-two year old colleague who had caught him binning his sodden briefs the previous day and who had been forced to clean his belt at the last minute in front of Marsden before the briefing in the dormitory, was now hanging back and saying something to the officer. This was of course highly irregular, and the latter's reaction was not favourable.

"...What?! No, you don't have time! Fall in means fall in! Get out there!!"

***

"Very good, Lieutenant. Commence inspection."

"'s Sir!" Hugh Marsden responded, giving Brigadier d'Hallement a brisk, clipped salute. He proceeded with a smartly executed about-turn and marched briskly back towards where Callum and his colleagues were standing in their formation in the "at ease" position, arms behind their backs and legs planted apart on the ground. Callum's breathing quickened slightly and his bladder twinged as he mentally prepared himself for the most critical part of the proceedings, the part where he and the other recruits would be individually scrutinised, first by their platoon officer Marsden and then by the two visiting higher ranking individuals who had been observing their regimented movements for more than an hour. Callum tensed the muscles in his nether regions as he held back the urge to pee, knowing that standing motionless would be particularly required for this final stage of the parade before they would all be dismissed. But he knew that this was not going to be a problem for him today and that he was nothing like as desperate for a piss as he had been in the truck the previous day.

"Squad!! Squad, 'tion!!"

Callum reacted to Marsden's order by bringing his hands sharply from behind his back to their "at attention" position down his sides, his thumbs pointing down at the ground, and crashed his right booted foot down on the ground next to his left foot in perfect unison with that of the soldiers around him. Positioned as he was in the second of the three rows, there would be some time before Callum would be scrutinised by his platoon officer let alone the bigwigs who were still observing the formation from a distance, but he knew that he must nonetheless stand absolutely still right from the word go. His bladder informed him again that it wanted relief. Callum stared glassily in front of him as he waited for Marsden, who was already starting to inspect the lad in the front row to the far right, to start on the second row and reach him.

As Marsden moved along the line in front from right to left something very unusual occurred. Callum's peripheral vision registered unexpected movement from one of the recruits in front of him and slightly to the left. It was almost as if the young man was stumbling in his position and losing his balance or about to faint, and Callum could sense one or two other men near him glancing momentarily in that recruit's direction, equally startled by the disruption to their platoon's disciplined stillness.

Spending a second or two in front of each recruit in the front row, Marsden soon reached the lad who had moved slightly, and it was then that Callum heard a whispered communication, starting in surprise because it was something which was quite unprecedented during an inspection. The lieutenant, too, froze in his movement along the line as the sound pierced the silence.

The atmosphere in the platoon was electric. No-one had ever known a recruit speak during an inspection before. Callum moved his eyes incredulously to the left and, without moving his head, stared at the young soldier who was currently under the scrutiny of the platoon officer, whose eyes were also widening in horror as he regarded his underling. Callum saw clearly that it was Will Jays, the recruit who had caught him binning his wet underpants the previous day. He also saw, to his mounting disbelief, that Will's posture had varied from the "at attention" position in that one knee was bent so that his foot was not properly next to the other on the ground but resting only on the toes.

Lieutenant Marsden, clearly shocked at Private Jays' whisper, whatever it was, simply hissed back "Of course not, don't be stupid!" and then, with a seemingly half-hearted attitude, continued along the ranks with his inspection. As Marsden passed in front of Callum, Callum could sense that he was not even looking at him but shooting a worried glance back at Will. At this point Callum observed out the corner of his eye that Will's right hand was not by his side in the thumb-down at-attention position but apparently out of sight in front of his body, and that Will's dress pants were taughtening around his backside in response to being pulled from the front. Callum was astounded at Will's behaviour.

"Stand at attention you stupid jerk!" hissed the lieutenant in Will's direction before moving on and making a hurried completion of his own personal inspection of his troops. Callum could see him glancing anxiously at the Brigadier and Major who were waiting comfortably some way off observing the proceedings in anticipation of their own big moment.

"Platoon ready for inspection, sir!" reported Marsden as stood in front of the senior officers and saluted once more.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," replied d'Hallement as he returned the salute affably and moved towards the neatly dressed soldiers with Major McGibbon in his wake.

Callum clenched his bladder once again as he sensed the two senior officers beginning their inspection of the row of recruits in front. He knew that it would now only be a matter of minutes before this final inspection would be over and they would all be dismissed after their hour and a half of general drill, and the proximity of lunchtime made his waterworks give the familiar signals as they so often did when relief was imminent. It would seem that Will was having the same experience, thought Callum to himself, though he was still astonished that Will had found it necessary to speak out about it. Voicing your need in front of your colleagues during a journey, as Callum had been forced to do the previous day, was one thing; doing that when about to be inspected by senior visiting officers was quite another. And already the brigadier was moving along the front row, giving each recruit an examination of several seconds each, which was significantly more than Marsden had done.

Callum mentally prepared himself for the few seconds, coming up shortly, when he himself would be scrutinised, and his breathing quickened slightly in anticipation while he clenched his bladder firmly shut. A few more seconds, he thought, and it would be the moment when his hard work of ironing and polishing the previous evening would be judged.

Then he moved his glassy gaze slightly to the left as he realised that the two senior officers had paused in front of one of the soldiers in that area. Callum could see that this was Will Jays. Something was causing the brigadier to stare hard at him, and that would presumably be bad news as far as the results of their inspection were concerned.

After several seconds of hard scrutinised staring at Will, d'Hallement appeared to dismiss whatever had engrossed him about this particular recruit and move swiftly on to the next soldier. But Callum could see out of the corner of his eye that Major McGibbon, who had been following the brigadier closely up until then, remained standing in front of Will, staring at him, and did not move on. Within fifteen seconds Callum himself was under the gaze of the brigadier for the usual three or four seconds, his brasses, belt, pressed dress pants and polished shoes being checked in the same way as everyone else's had been, but even as Callum was being inspected he could still see McGibbon standing in front of Will Jays, staring at a point somewhat below where Will's white belt would be. Will had been cleaning that belt at the last minute under Lieutenant Marsden's angry gaze immediately before the parade, but whatever was occupying the Major's attention, it did not appear to be the belt.

Brigadier d'Hallement soon moved on to Martin van der Hoek on Callum's right, and Callum breathed again as his colleague received the scrutiny instead, but his peripheral vision then picked up something which Callum had never expected to witness in his military career. A small stream of liquid was running down the outside of Will's right boot and onto the ground as he stood there at attention, still under the piercing gaze of the Major. Callum was so astonished that he now moved his head from its rigid, forward-facing position and looked directly at the ground by Will's feet. The stream, which was coming from Will's right trouserleg, then increased in intensity, and the previous silence across the entire platoon was broken by an unmistakeable splattering noise as a puddle formed around Will's boots. Still Major McGibbon was standing in front of Will.

The brigadier was by now busy inspecting the final row behind Callum, but Lieutenant Marsden, who had up until now been standing at attention to the side of his platoon, suddenly took the initiative. The tension of the situation seemed to have passed its breaking point as far as he was concerned. Marching briskly round the front of the formation, he came back to the attention position in front of the Major, slamming his right foot down close by the pool which was still expanding in front of Will, and addressed Major McGibbon. "With your permission, sir, may I send Private Jays back to the barracks before he disgraces my platoon any further?"

McGibbon finally moved his gaze away from the young soldier's groin, at which he had been staring for the best part of a minute, and responded. "Permission granted, Lieutenant. But Brigadier d'Hallement and I will be requiring an explanation from you in due course as to how this could possibly have happened." He gestured at Will's groin, then let his pointing finger travel in a downward motion tracing Will's inside leg.

"Of course, sir. Thank you, sir." Marsden saluted the Major, performed an about turn, and addressed Will. "Private Jays! Fall out!"

Will saluted his platoon officer, brought his right foot crashing down into his puddle splashing the boots of Tim Brickens slightly as he did so, and marched out of the formation.

***

"Bloody hell, that was spectacular, man! Are you okay?"

Callum, together with Martin, Tim and about six other recruits, had raced back into the dormitory after being dismissed by the brigadier and were now confronting Will Jays who was just emerging from the adjoining toilets. He had not had time to remove his soaking dress pants which were wet all over the crotch and streaked down both legs. Callum was the first to speak to him.

Will just shrugged his shoulders. His face was registering some anguish.

"You didn't get a chance to pee before the parade, did you?" said Tim. "Were you bursting all the way through?"

Will drew a deep breath and nodded at Tim. He was still at a loss for words.

"Well, I don't think we've passed the inspection, somehow," said Private Graham Newsom who had been standing next to Will in formation on the other side to Tim. "I thought you were gagging for a piss all the way through, but I just couldn't believe it when you wet yourself just when the officers inspected you. How could you be so bloody stupid?"

"Oh, let him be, Graham," said Tim. "It wasn't his fault. Marsden didn't let him pee before we went out. It's his problem now."

"What a shambles you've caused!" This was Martin. "That lower-ranking officer was staring at you like he'd never seen a soldier with pissed pants before! He watched you piss yourself!"

"Hey, shut up Martin, it'll happen to you too one day," admonished Tim.

"Well, yes, it happened to me yesterday," said Callum. "Not so spectacularly, but even so. And I'm going for a piss now before it happens again. I'm bursting!"

Callum winked at Will and then disappeared into the toilets for his urgent head call. Tim, Martin, Graham and a few others followed him in.

Will took a deep, shaky breath, then started to unzip his wet dress pants ready to strip them off.
Fred
Site Staff
Posts: 2384
Joined: 20 Sep 2016, 12:37

Re: Military Parade

Post by Fred »

Excellent! We've not had such a such a well-written, detailed desperation story in some time, and with a satisfying ending. Bravo!
Lee
Can't stay away...
Posts: 570
Joined: 18 Sep 2016, 16:05

Re: Military Parade

Post by Lee »

What a fantastic and brilliantly written story!! The content is just awesome!

I saw the title earlier but wasn’t in a position to read it, so I have been longing to get home so that I could savour the story. And what a reward for having to wait. I love it.

Everything about that scenario is exactly what does it for me … the military formality, the cocksure, arrogant lad being brought down a peg or two, and the very, very public setting for the accident. That dribble down the side of the boot would have been mind blowing to see, and even to read about it is a real thrill. But do you know what description I just loved? The way Will was standing as he approached the point of no return!

It’s a great story.
Sam70
Can't stay away...
Posts: 349
Joined: 24 May 2019, 07:44

Re: Military Parade

Post by Sam70 »

Wonderful story! I really liked how the mishap was handled by the senior officers who have requested an explanation how this could have happened. Lieutenant Mariden will have to question Will as to how this happened.

I like the inferred twist of the story. The Lieutenant will have to explain to the superior officers that he had denied Will’s request to use the toilet before getting in formation. I like the Lieutenant catching hell for the mishap instead of Will caching hell.

I also liked we hearing about the mishap from the perspective of others instead of from Will. Usually we read this from the perspective of the one wetting pants, in this case Will.
Brian
Site Staff
Posts: 2840
Joined: 01 Sep 2016, 10:32
Location: The Netherlands
Gender:

Re: Military Parade

Post by Brian »

Thanks for all those comments. Very generous. And perceptive too! I appreciate it.
Darryl
Arrived
Posts: 1
Joined: 10 Jun 2023, 09:01
Gender:

Re: Military Parade

Post by Darryl »

Hello,

For my part, it's interesting to see how the incident was handled by the senior officers, who sought to explain how it could have happened.
googlism2008
Can't stay away...
Posts: 542
Joined: 28 Sep 2016, 20:16

Re: Military Parade

Post by googlism2008 »

Finally got round to read this story. Apologies to the writers, there's still a huge backlog of stories waiting for my consumption.

This story is pretty relatable to me, as I had gone through conscription. During our basic training, on a day when strenuous training is scheduled, they would make us drink a ridiculous amount of water, like half to one liter every one to two hours. Needless to say, we as recruits had to visit the toilets very often. (At some point in time, they changed their practice of fluid intake when they realized that soldiers were peeing most of it out.) So I can understand that despite Callum having visited the head before the inspection, his bladder had became full again by the time the inspection took place. Which I think should not take very long, two hours max?

By and large, toilet breaks were granted when they were requested, so we never had full on wettings except for some specific training not everyone needed to go through. In fact, I think we had almost no wet underwear. But nevertheless, a few interesting incidents did occur. One occurred when we had back to back lectures in a large classroom during basic training. These were delivered by officers who covered several different topics. In the middle of one of the later lectures, one of the guys seated near the front raised his hand, and asked for permission to go to the toilet. The officer, clearly displeased at having his lecture interrupted this way, dismissed all of us for a short toilet break, and thankfully chided the sergeants for neglecting to giving us toilet breaks rather than scolding the poor distressed sod. And thus we all got to empty our full bladders. In this aspect, I would also think that Marsden will bear the responsibility rather than Will, although most likely they will need to organize yet another inspection soon afterwards.

During basic training, toilet breaks are sometimes both relieving and stressful affairs. Very often we were only granted "five minutes" for toilet breaks, so despite the toilets being appropriately sized for normal use, queues of at least five soldiers quickly form at every urinal or stall when everyone piled into them at once. With so many full bladders to empty and the impossibility to release faster than a certain rate, plus the fact that our designated toilets were often a short but non-negligible distance away, it was simply impossible to meet the timing. Invariably this results in punishments, typically in the form of push ups. And oh, our uniform trousers are button flies. A couple of times, one fellow recruit, if waiting at the back of the queue, would bellow to those in front to "just unbutton the bottom two buttons, and button up away from the urinal" in an attempt to speed the process up.

Prior to conscription, I had no experience with button flies. While these buttons weren't particularly difficult to undo like those found in demin, very early on as a recruit, I struggled with finding the fastest way to do my business, especially with respect to doing them up. And of course, the buttons would be slightly stiffer when the uniforms were very new. During that period, I had a minor embarrassment while standing in formation immediately after a toilet break, when a sergeant noticed that I had buttoned up the buttons of my fly to the wrong holes.
Fred
Site Staff
Posts: 2384
Joined: 20 Sep 2016, 12:37

Re: Military Parade

Post by Fred »

I think many young men learn that the human bladder is flexible when they are in the military, and that it's possible to "have to pee bad" for hours without wetting or causing injury.
Lee
Can't stay away...
Posts: 570
Joined: 18 Sep 2016, 16:05

Re: Military Parade

Post by Lee »

googlism2008 wrote: 11 Jun 2023, 14:22 I had a minor embarrassment while standing in formation immediately after a toilet break, when a sergeant noticed that I had buttoned up the buttons of my fly to the wrong holes.
I absolutely love that. Made me laugh more than I've done in ages. I can just picture it! Brilliant.

I guess that during conscription, it doesn't incorporate such things as formal or ceremonial events. But I'd love to know if you are aware of or even have any thoughts about how the guardsmen deal with toilet needs during the lengthy occasions such as royal weddings/funerals and/or Trooping the Colour.
Brian
Site Staff
Posts: 2840
Joined: 01 Sep 2016, 10:32
Location: The Netherlands
Gender:

Re: Military Parade

Post by Brian »

googlism2008 wrote: 11 Jun 2023, 14:22 [...]This story is pretty relatable to me, as I had gone through conscription.[...]
That's very nice to hear. I tried to research a little before writing, but it's really outside my own experience which makes composing a story about it a bit risky.

Thanks for the experiences you relate in your posting. I particularly liked the incident where the guy had to raise his hand and interrupt the lecture, causing annoyance and a complete stoppage. He must have been bursting to have had to do that.

Like Lee, I'd be very interested in any ideas you might have about how recruits deal with full bladders during ceremonial occasions.
Post Reply