Bottoms up

We are supposed to drink only bottled water because the local water is suspect, and this rule is easy to comply with. Pallets of bottled water are frequently deposited anywhere that soldiers congregate. Lots of them in the living areas, many near offices and the gym, and I even saw a pallet next to the running track.

Most of the bottles are 1.5 liters, but half liter sizes are available and much sought after. If you get a cold 1.5 liter bottle (about a quart and a half), it gets warm before you can finish it. Also, because you can’t drink that much very quickly, you always end up setting it down somewhere, like everybody else, and then you can’t remember which water bottle was yours. I guess the Army buys the large bottles because they’re cheaper, but in the long run I doubt it saves much money, because of all the wasted water in the big bottles.

These pallets unfortunately just sit out in the sun and wind, so if you grab a bottle during the day it’s going to be 120 degrees or more. After not too long the bottles are dust caked, which makes them look like they’ve been sitting in the heat for a long time. No one seems to want to drink water that’s been sitting in the sun for weeks, so the dirty bottles tend to build up and hang around for a long time.

The water doesn’t seem to go bad, but who knows? Maybe that is the source of an ongoing gastrointestinal problem that plagues the FOBs. Or, maybe it is the non-potable water we have to use. Showers and bathrooms use non-potable water. It’s tough to keep water completely out of your mouth and off your lips when you shower, if you try to take a good shower. Some soldiers brush their teeth with the sink water. And, since we wash and rinse with the non-potable water, how clean can our hands be? Let all the eye rubbers, nose pickers and finger lickers be warned.

I talked to a soldier whose job it is to run a high-volume water purifier. They do what they can, but they don’t make enough water for showers and bathrooms. He told me that local well water for soldiers’ use is pumped into an open topped tank on one of the FOBs, so bugs get in the water, and birds swoop down into it. Recently they found a dead cat in the tank.