Oh, right, was gonna write something today... Meh.
Let's see... Well, Tuesday was the "real" start of our full-scale maintenance week(ish), which meant one of the other groups got to use the radio classroom for a refresher course.
However, we apparently
still didn't have access to the space we needed for maintenance. So what was to be done with the people who had already gone through the refresher?
Why yes, they
did run up and down the mountain and then traverse the base-wide obstacle course while wearing a backpack. How did you know?
During one of the classroom breaks I was talking with a chap who said "Damn, this radio refresher is
dull"... At this, I reminded him that we had absolutely no grounds to complain, since it was pure random luck that we ended up in the time slot that we did.
Despite the fears of many, we did not change places after lunch. Since we
STILL hadn't gotten the space, the officers gave up trying to find random junk for us to do and just told everyone to go over to the warehouse we wanted and help the people using it to clear their junk out.
What followed was a couple hours of assisting three tired goons with the organizational skills of meth addicts move the remaining equipment of Brigade Command, a field camp so intensely huge and complicated that it takes THREE DAYS to set up or take down. Imagine if this was entertaining or not.
Once we'd finally sent them packing, it was our turn to start drooling over the space. But, sadly, the day was essentially over by that point, so all we got to do was move some more things from one place to another before we called it a job well done.
Wednesday was a very special day set up by the Happy Fuzzy Soldier's Wellness Organization for Peace and Love (from now on referred to as "TMO", because screw acronyms). We were to have a standard assembly and room inspection, and then our officers would essentially just piss off for the rest of the day and leave us to the will of the TMO.
The period before lunch was set down as an entertaining but HILARIOUSLY PHYSICALLY DEMANDING inter-base obstacle course. After that we had roughly two hours to faff about and theoretically eat lunch (Pizza!) before meeting up at the wellness center to learn about the importance of that day and also WIN COOL PRIZES YAY!
Tough beans for the obstacle course, I had my Priest Assistant orientation meeting at exactly the same time. Whoopsies, couldn't imagine how that happened.
So while everyone else was walking tightropes, pulling trucks and seeing how many push-ups they could take, I was sitting on a comfy chair in a cozy little basement room and discussing waffle tactics while consuming cake and coffee. After orientation, wherein I got to be better acquainted with the old assistant and meet my new counterpart and partner-in-prayer from the next camp over. I also got to meet two other priests from the surrounding area... Apparently, being a priest means you're automatically awarded a disturbingly high military rank.
This puts my current counter of high-ranking priestly authorities to three... Our priest, who's a fairly amicable chap who enjoys the odd tune from Pink Floyd or Dire Straits, an infantry priest who seems like he'd have an easier time taking a pint with you than expounding the perils of sin, and of course CRAZY PSYCHO PRIESTESS (who, luckily, will mysteriously vanish for three months later on in the year).
I mean, whoah... She's the kind of Christian that freaks out other Christians (I should know, I was sitting next to the other priests). When her revelry in Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ finally trailed off long enough to think clearly (for her...), she remembered a previous appointment and had to skip away... But not before wishing the rest of us "A blessed day".
I was given, along with my counterpart, a quick tour of the surroundings and description of our duties. Okay, yep, ring the bells... Which type of waffle-mix is best... Coffee machine... How to choose a film for movienight... Yeah, got that. You're saying we get three days out of the standard workweek to fulfill the demands of our position? I can probably learn to live with that.
The meeting ended a couple hours before lunch break. Theoretically speaking, I was supposed to meet up with the team I would have been taking the course with, had I not received a higher calling... But since I would be doing little other than just following them around like a lost puppy and maybe cheering now and again, neither I nor the old assistant saw any need for me to do that. Instead, I used the time to kick back, relax, and change my cellphone's ringtone to
this.
After that we had some basic speeches about how we're all so important, and how the military needs soldiers (DURH! YOU DON'T SAY??!) in order to work properly. Then we had some so-so standup with a few good lines, then barbecue (mmm... Potato salad on a bun), then a concert.
First part of the concert was a cover band to "warm us up" for the main event. These guys were actually part of the sound and light crew that had been hired in to set up the equipment in the first place. Funfact.
Three middle-aged, overweight bald guys got up on the scene, picked up their preferred instruments...
...and then proceeded to rock the F**K out like it was nobody's business. Warm up? Good grief, we had three people crowd-surfing simultaneously! The bassist pulled out electric blue alien shades with built-in LEDs for the latter part of the show! We howled like maniacs for an encore when they tried to leave!
And then when they finally
were allowed off the stage, we got to be entertained by two of Oslo's most hip gangsta rappers.
...
...
Yeah, no, that's not a problem with my writing. That's a problem with society's misconception of itself. These guys were genius comedians without even knowing it.
I wanted the cover band back.
Thursday was the super extreme real military deal... This was the Big League... This is what we had been waiting for, what we had been trained for, what we
lived for!
But it was still periodical maintenance, regardless of how you want to describe it. We hosed down tents and counted chairs for chrissakes, how interesting did you
think it was going to be?
The only really interesting point from that day was right at the end when we had to turn our weapons in at the locker, and I got the presiding sergeant to burst into laughter by addressing myself by the nickname he'd called me over a month before.
Friday was a day of waiting... My plane left the ground at 21:30, and the bus to get to that plane left the barracks at 20:00. Those were the only two points marked down for the entire day. Thrilling, isn't it?
Well, actually, it kinda was. When the inspection officer came into our room on Thursday night, she asked if any of the late-leavers might be up to assist with a certain project. After hearing what it was, she got three volunteers from our room, including me.
The year's class of student officers had left the previous Saturday for their "Mastering" period, also known as "Hell Week". After six days of insane maneuvers without food or sleep, they were on schedule for coming back to camp... But it couldn't be THAT easy, now could it?
Ten people had been pulled from volunteers like us to serve as wounded at a military patrol crash site. Some got to sit in the cars, a couple were "fuck-ups" (shell-shocked goons who run around distracting and/or disrupting the people performing first aid), one guy sat on a pile of twigs with a critical bulletwound in his thigh...
...and I had apparently been tossed 45 degrees out to the left of a crashed vehicle with no broken windows and landed in a sitting position with two broken legs next to a cement block that I had somehow also managed to cut my head on. Yeah, not really sure how that was supposed to have gone down...
When the students arrived, it was full chaos. Screams, shrieks, burning wreckage, blood everywhere, a vehicle's horn pressed down... Absolutely beautiful stuff.
Although I may not have been prioritized as the most critical patient, I was by far the most convincing (in my opinion, anyways...). When you manage to freak out
the other casualties, you're probably letting out a good howling. Some sobs of pain, random shock-gibberish and yelled curses just added to the effect. I also managed to test the alertness of my handlers by grasping at weapons a few times. Man, I would
not have wanted to have me as a patient...
When they'd finished carrying all of us back to base (hard enough on a good day, but these were guys who had gone without the two essential energy sources living creatures have for almost a week), us wounded-type folks were let off duty to sit out of sight behind a container. From there, we heard some random berating from the officers, and then a very disturbing phrase:
"Mouthguards in."
We were shortly thereafter officially let off from duties, and allowed to walk back to base. On the way, we saw all the students walking in single-file groups, their hands on the shoulders of the man in front. Why? Because they were all blinded by hoods and were being sent into a garage with loud music playing to navigate their way around two people who were there to beat the crap out of them as they passed by.
Later, when we were cleaning up in our rooms, we saw the students running past our windows... After a bit of investigation and observation, we learned that everyone had to run the base-wide obstacle course after the blind-beating.
Twice.
Oddly, I don't feel any strong desire to become an officer right now. Funny how that is...
Evening: The mess had fish on the menu. Not feeling particularly keen on that, I ate some fish instead.
That last part I'd like some clarification on, I'm assuming it's not a typo.
Instead of going down to the mess and eating some cod-'n'-potatoes, I took a few bites of tuna jerky before calling it a night.
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Topic: All I Want For Xmas is an HK416 (Read 74790 times)