Tanks, guns and bras: Norway's women join the draft - The Local

CPT Pedro Meza The Coast Guard Port Security units, with only a handful of active duty cadre and the rest of the 120 billets filled with reservists don't work like that. We are all about teamwork and all ranks and rates will turn to to get the job done. There's no such thing as "that's not my job description" with us." If someone tried to pull that crap there would be a Senior NCO, or any shipmate within earshot for that matter to quickly correct that attitude!

CPT Pedro Meza, I won't try to beat that, but I will see it and raise you one. Our boat crews did the same thing while underway on our 25' transportable security boats. Both males and females would hang themselves over the side to take care of business while the others politely looked the other way. Now for the raise: True story, I have on more than one occasion urinated standing up without the aide of a funnel. The most memorable was at game 2 of the 1983 World Series at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. The beer was running through us and my fiancé and I made a dash to the bathrooms. The men's room was right at the end of the ramp and I searched for for a few minutes before finding the women's restroom where the line was waaaay too long. I made a bee line back to the men's room and found the stalls occupied and only one urinal open right next to my fiancé. It was raining and I had on a raincoat that covered my derrière so I pulled up next to him and pulled my pants down just far enough to get the job done. He noticed me, then finished and left. When I was done I mimicked shaking off while I cleaned up with a paper towel I grabbed on the way in and the guy on the other side of me looked over and said "pretty neat trick." I wouldn't try that nowadays because I would probably be arrested...

It is disconcerting to hear you say the women smelled worse than the men. I was on an exercise in Portugal where there was only 1 shower facility. It took 3 days for them to figure out women's shower hours, but I didn't wait for that. After working into the wee hours of the morning, I would have my COMMO stand guard outside the door while I grabbed a shower. When there were no showers available, there was always a few minutes a day to grab a quick baby wipe shower. #personalhygieneisimportant

CPO (Join to see) I was deployed to Ash Shuaiba, Kuwait in 2003 with NECC units, MIUWU, EOD, IBU, HDC, and CNCWGRU, They were in the same situation as us. We berthed at an Army LSA in 100 man festival tents, mine had 88 men and three women. We waited 3 months to get into ten man temper tents and then I was put into a tent with three female Chiefs, a CDR and a LT.

I've never has the pleasure of working with SEABEES...

Ya, that was some over crowding times. We controlled our camps in Kuwait. We had our own camp so we had control.When we moved forward we had full control and had one man Tents. The advantage is we usually build the camps and are on our own.

This is how we do it. The big thing is we are set up like Marines. We have company's, Platoons, Squads and fire teams. This way we have a better way to keep the teams together.The way it works is the company assigned tent assignments by platoon and depending on the number of females we do set a female tent up for that small amount in the platoons. We assign he senor first class as in charge of the female tent and everyone males and females need to have battle buddies. The company is broken down in 3 platoons and then you have 3 squads in each platoon. The Temper tents or now MGPTS tent we use are set up for a SQD 14 personnel give or take that's how we do it and then female tent is set up by how many you have again E-6-E-1. Now Company staff has their own tent and if we have a female Khaki we just set the tent up so she or they can have their own set up but we are all together. This is company level or Det now it might change some depending on if it is whole 460 plus Battalion. We always will keep E-6-E4 together and when we use Chews the mayor cell lets us keep everyone together or at least by SDS and fire teams.

Moving forward or on FTX's we don't have to worry about it, the company's stay together and we have one man tents so we don't sleep in the big ones, we don't even set them up. The same when we are on the move or forward operating on our own we just use the one mans and have set security, that's what we did when we invaded. The key thing is Battle buddy system if you have the numbers and we always insured there was at least two. The other thing is we always try to let E6's and below have there space, and all E-7 and above together depending on numbers and size.. We do try to keep the Mess and wardroom separate but some times you can not.

I did have a case out at a small SOF camp and we had one hooch and I had Four females so we just built a divider and we all stayed together it was safer that way. I trusted the SOF guys, but there was a couple of civilians and Afghani Army around. We have been doing this for some time so just make it work and one Battalion even sent a all Female Build team to a SOF Camp all by themselves. The big thing there was it was a SEAL VSP site so they were good to go.