It can be a bit of a pain.
You are quite the comedian, my friend...
Ah, delicious hatred... I'd much rather be sleeping right now, and the cat rubbing its head against my keyboard is making things difficult to write. Still better than the public terminals though, and I have a moral obligation to pull my scribe act on this stuff for your reading pleasure, so here I am.
I could go into a long and detailed description of the ski march, but I shall refrain from doing so... Both for the safety of my own psyche, and also because it's best if I don't say too much about what we get into here.
The first day, I put my skis on and then managed to fall down two times before even making it out of the barracks. Third time was five feet from the gate.
I forget precisely how many times I fell down that day (total for the entire trip is 12. +1 I'll get into later), but it was more than fair share even for someone who has skied once before in his life eight years before. I doubt my squadmembers were entirely impressed with our marching speed what with how we needed to stop and scrape me off the snow every few minutes, and I'm quite certain the sergeant leading us was not happy.
Apparently, his idea of a skiing lesson is to tell someone they need to bend their knees and keep their back as straight as possible. After this intensive training, pretty much anyone should be an expert. Much to his surprise and chagrin, I was still suffering from mysterious spells of gravity.
Long story short, I gave my god damned all on that trip out. I mean it. I will not allow anyone, not even officers, to get away with saying I didn't try hard enough. That +1 I mentioned earlier was my last fall of the day, when my legs (which had been shaking for some time with the effort of holding me up) gave out and I collapsed. The sergeant then irritably ripped my skis off, handed them to me, then ordered me to walk up the hill in front of us. I was then afforded a short pause along with another incapacitated soldier, and then we both had to ski a bit more to make it to the rendevouz point where we'd get picked up.
...and, because we were both idiots and said we wanted it that way, dropped off at the campsite.
Second day, we got to learn a bit about how you poke a stick in the ground, and how to push a button back and forth on a little electronic device. We are now prepared for the event of someone becoming trapped by an avalanche. We also learned the correct method of how to get trapped by an avalanche.
Then we put the skis on again, and slowly sped along for the rest of the day. This tranquility was broken only by our sergeant becoming so annoyed with my slow speed that he finally took my large pack off and put it in the squad's moron-sled (this thing really wants to be a sled, but doesn't quite make it beyond the stage of being some wood with a tarp nailed to it).
Things then took an entirely and completely unexpected turn for the worse when it was discovered that a tracktruck (a curious vehicle consisting of two belted tin cans that are tied together with some string) had made an altogether too strong impression on the snow, and that the other tracktruck that came to pull the first one out made a similar white bed for itself. This was, of course, all directly in the middle of the path we were supposed to take.
So instead of the original plan, we tripled back and went somewhere completely different where we sat in tents and froze our asses off because three out of five squads ran out of fuel for their lunchboxes during the night. I also had the coldest experience of my life, which was interesting. Just some convulsing and grunting as my body desperately attempted to warm itself up. Then the morning really got started as people began giving me lip for various reasons (a couple people in our squad have discovered the entertaining joy of shouting at grunts like the sergeants do. This helps nothing).
But, hey, I got to see northern lights for the first time in my life. Too bad I was busy setting up a tent.
Third day, we ski back. Or, rather, I attempt to ski back, fall down a couple more times, have all the blood retract from my nose, and then get planted at a rendevouz point to get driven back to base. Along with another fellow from my team, who I imagine had a far worse time than I did. I mean, after all, he did acquire such ludicrous blisters on his feet that he bled through two pairs of socks and then into the leather of his boots, causing red spots to appear underneath the goddamn shoe polish. As the depot had also refused to switch out his insulating foot-bags for a larger size (claiming they fit just fine and that he should stop complaining), this blood had also frozen.
However, the third day had a few good points... We were finally awarded our floppy blue hats, without the need to go ice-swimming for them (a theme that had been obviously planned earlier, but came to naught due most likely to... Well, to poor planning). We went throught the ceremony of receiving them, made note of how stylish they can be if worn properly, and were then let off for the rest of the day to eat burgers and hot dogs provided by the military volunteer organization dedicated to making our lives moderately less miserable.
Being pescetarian, I ate buns with potato salad. The high point of the day, however (aside from learning that for all practical purposes, boot camp was over), was my bed. My ugly little bunkbed. That night, I loved it truly, deeply, and dearly... I loved it all night and into the morning of our first day of leave...
...and was promptly written up for the second time due to oversleeping (first time was thanks to sickness making me too weak to sit up in bed). D'oh.
Now, my weekend leave is essentially over (fairly well spent in the company of Hatman and his fiancée... And their Xbox), and I shall be returning to the incredibly troubling question of whether or not life is better after the beret. But, with any luck, I should survive... At least now it looks like we'll be let off at 3:30 PM each day, which is a luxury I cannot begin to describe.
In any case, I'm gonna spend my time hoping to hell it was worth sticking around long enough to kick Boot. Whatever time I have leftover will be spent making this lump of wool sit properly on my head like it's damned well supposed to. GAAAGH!
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Topic: All I Want For Xmas is an HK416 (Read 74828 times)