Vietnam -- Mud, mud, glorious mud

Okay, it might not be so glorious. But it was mud.

A glorious brick red clay like mud.

Did you know that during the monsoon season all of the trenches fill up with mud.

Now, for some of you, its just mud.  A pain in the butt to remove from boots and you're never quite sure just how deep the mud is as everything around a drainage ditch possesses the same color and consistency.

So, this brings us to a quagmire (pardon the pun), what does a mud bather like myself do when
the monsoons come along and provide ample places where you can wallow in the mire and release some sexual tension?

NOT GET NAKED AND DIVE RIGHT IN!!

That's for sure.

But it was mud.

Did I say I happen to like mud baths?  Sorry if I'm repeating myself. I'm just a stick in the mud and stuck on the subject. 

Nothing like one. Thick, creamy and cleans your pores.

Only problem, you are supposed to be a professional in a military uniform. Just try sneaking out at night and going to one.  Some frag crazed refer head might just mistake your muddy body for being a satchel carrying Charlie Cong wanting to drop his load on their weed smelling drainage culvert.

"Sorry, ma am, but your son was found naked covered in clay with a smile on his face. But shot dead by a fellow soldier who thought he was an enemy soldier."

What a hell of an epitaph: "Here lies Richard Edwards with a bullet through his heart. Found, naked, covered in mud in a drainage ditch. RIP."

Of course the opposite could have happened. I could have fantasized about being RAMBO and was about to do battle with 50 Charlie Cong and been caught by an officer.

Stars and Stripes would have had a field day with it;

Soldier found naked covered in clay. 

A soldier from the 101st Airborne Division Air Mobile, was reported to have this crazed look on his face and was carrying nitroglycerin charged arrows with a compound bow.

He's being charged with the destruction of government property.

However, he will probably get out of the service with a general court martial and be required to get psychiatric care.

Plus, you really didn't know what might be in that mud.  Dog turds, human waste, leaches, pesticides, and all sorts of stuff that could kill you later could have been in that stuff.

The point is, no matter how much the urge to do something as insanely fun as mud bathing is, while the red clay was inviting, it wasn't something you would do if you wanted to live and not die slowly over the next 60 years of your life.

But it was mud