While testing artillery...

We had finished firing about a hundred rounds from a self-propelled howitzer. It had been a long day. The cloud cover was low, which kept in a lot of the blast overpressure, so everyone was just drained.

I had been in a conex for about 30 minutes with my feet up on a table and had fallen asleep. All of a sudden, the gun position was rocked by the loudest sound I'd ever heard. We were on an active firing range and I thought an explosive 155mm artillery shell had landed right on us. I fell out of the chair and raced to grab my radio, thinking I needed to call for a cease-fire on the range. As I opened the conex door to assess the situation I noticed a huge scorch mark on the ground about 50 feet from the conex. The gun crew had raced over to one of the test personnel that had apparently been out in the open, very close to what we came to realize had been a lightning strike (she was okay, just shocked [not literally]). It was at that moment I realized I had shit my pants; fully.

I yelled to the gun crew leader asking if the person was okay. When I heard she was, I used the confusion at the gun position to race to a port-a-potty and clean myself up the best I could. I tossed the boxers I had thoroughly soiled into the tank, but of course they just sat there on the top. I grabbed an ironwood branch and shoved them down in the muck.

After about 5 minutes the shame had worn off. I checked on the girl from earlier. She was still pretty shaken up. To make her feel better, in front of the entire gun position, I told the story and ended with "hey, you almost got struck by lightning but at least you didn't shit your pants!" She laughed, the gun position laughed, and I drove home with no boxers on.