D.I. is an important title.

Reading Dan in Indianas' story of painting the out house reminded me of a couple of "lighter moments" of Crapper humor. We had, at a place called Phouc Vinh, the 1st Bde of the 1st Infantry Division.My unit, the 162Nd Assault Helicopter Company,was pretty much dedicated to supporting the Division although we drew other missions all over III Corp.Anyway we were too far from our Battalion Hq. to have some of the nicities in life ,like EM, NCO, and Officers Clubs.so authorized or not,we built and operated our own.The Club story I'll save for another time but the point of this little dittie is outhouses.After we got our Officers Club up and running we built a new 4 holer crapper and decorated it in the same decor as the club. Split bamboo for the wall paneling augmented with some red drapery material and gold[brass] trim and chintz.Oh,we had real "back in the world" toilet seats and covers and flush handles[non-functional] and music.If the club was open we could turn on the piped in music in the crapper if we wanted too.Of course,this was all overdone 'cause like everyone else we had cans that had to be burned and occasionally, well "stuff happens". One of my extra duties was to hire,fire, pay and take care of the Viet day labor folks.I got the smartest old Papa San and put him in charge of the sh*t burners. I made sure they were trained to get the barrels out far enough away and to not over load the barrels with diesel to help prevent fires. Well,someone screwed up and Papa San barely saved our fancy crapper from catching fire. Shucks,I thought he deserved something a little special so I got him a pith helmet and painted it bright shiney red and as a symbol of his authority,I had it lettered with big white letters "D.I." on the front and back. Now at the time, that was an important position in the Marine Corp but we in the Army had not started to use the term Drill Instructor.I explained to Papa San what an important title and position a D.I. was he puffed up like a toad and never failed to "Lord It " over his subordinates and point out that HE was THE D.I.! Somehow I never got around to telling him it was the abbreviation for...Defication Inflaminator. We all got a chuckle out of him demonstrating his superiority over his underlings 'cause he was,after all, THE DEFICATION INFLAMINATOR. Nick

Good story Nick. Kinda reminds me of the movie No Time for Sergeants where the character Will played by Andy Griffith was so proud of himself when he was put in charge of the latrine.

Nuttin like a 12 crapper sulute. An the term we used was phu-gas.

P.L.O (Permanent Latrine Orderly) That was a great movie

You see this same mentality in the deep south where slavery once ruled. Thanks for the post.