diff --git a/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/BaseUtils.java b/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/BaseUtils.java
index cfc475031..beb8d5062 100644
--- a/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/BaseUtils.java
+++ b/java/src/org/broadinstitute/sting/utils/BaseUtils.java
@@ -253,6 +253,16 @@ public class BaseUtils {
         return rcbases;
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Reverse (NOT reverse-complement!!) a string
+     *
+     * @param bases  input string
+     * @return the reversed string
+     */
+    static public String reverse(String bases) {
+        return new String( reverse( bases.getBytes() )) ;
+    }
+
     /**
      * For the most frequent base in the sequence, return the percentage of the read it constitutes.
      *