Patrol Base Hawks - Remember the movie “Jarhead?” I’m talking about the scene where Jake Gyllenhaal’s tough Marine character gets put on latrine duty.

Not a pleasant thing to have to pull out large tin drums of poop and burn it all.

That’s the only way to dispose of it here at Patrol Base Hawks, where a bathroom means a small wooden box with a seat and a can.

Curtis Compton/AJC

Pfc. Joseph Reardon’s smelly detail takes three hours to perform.

It’s not the kind of detail Pfc. Joseph Reardon joined the Army for. Nor had he expected this job when he arrived in Iraq last August. But four days a week, the 22-year-old from Decatur is on latrine detail.

In the mornings, he pulls out the eight drums, douses them with JP-8 (jet propulsion fuel used in military vehicles)

“It’s unbelievably gross,” Reardon says. “It doesn’t smell too good.”

Reardon says the job can take up to three full hours. Yuk.

But, he looks on the bright side. In the winter months, when low temperatures in the Baghdad area can hover around the freezing mark, a fire, no matter how smelly, can be a good thing.

“To be honest, people want that detail,” Reardon says. “It’s cold in the winter. Everyone would come out there to get warm.”

Never thought of it that way, but he has a point.

Of course, now the days are getting warmer. There are hints in the air of the sweltering summer ahead. Reardon isn’t thinking about it. He’s going home on leave to Atlanta in a few weeks. It’ll be good to be back to the land of thermostats and flushing toilets. And the smell of fresh blossoms billowing in the breeze.

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