Weeeelll, alrighty then... Let's just see what all I can gum up now.
While I was safe in the knowledge that my attendance (or, rather, lack thereof) for the hell run was taken care of, I lay in bed the night before departure feeling slightly sorry for all those who would be out and doing it, and maybe even a little bit ashamed for not having forced myself to take part as well. Some of the poor bastards didn't even know that they'd be shipped off to an entirely different pack o' noodles than what was written up on the plan for the 08:00 AM departure...
But, hey, this is how things were. It wouldn't have done anyone any good for me to be dragged along for the ride, and I'd be able to actually get some work done in the meanwhile. I drifted off into a somewhat uneasy slumber... Uneasy mostly because of the soccer match that of COURSE five different dudes had to come visit our room to watch on the telly until 10:45.
After a few hours I somewhat woke up again, just lying there in the darkness. Still with one foot in the dreamworld, my sense were busy trying to interpret input coming from both reality and my imagination. But I could almost swear I heard something like...
...ooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO "EVERYONE OUTSIDE, NOW!"
Aw, crap.
The hour was five in the morning, and we'd just started. The spine-shivering shock of being awakened by the air raid siren was still not quite comparable to hearing the enraged shouts of our second lieutenant making his rounds in getting people up and about. Locking down all precious materials and tossing on whatever scraps of warmth were most readily available, we all ran out for a regularly cozy assembly. Nothing quite gets you going like being shrieked out of bed after a couple hours sleep and then forced into an increasing number of punishment-pushups on the rain-slicked assembly plaza in the middle of the night, with no clothes on. Yessir, better than Cuban coffee, that is...
Once everyone was accounted for and some quick extra punishments dealt out thanks to people being unacceptably slow or having left something unlocked or out in the open, we got the basic plan... Everyone was to receive a packing list, which they were to follow to the letter (no more, no less), while also changing into a specific field uniform. We got all of ten minutes to do this.
Ten minutes later, most of us had managed to get our suits on, and a few speedy individuals even managed to shove some random items into a bag. Overall performance was... Well, not exactly 100% completion. Not that this was really expected, of course.
After that we got divvied up, put in place, and sent down to one of the garages where we were to strip down to our skivvies, empty everything out of our packs, and then go over a control check to make sure we had followed the plan. If you forgot something, you can run back and get it. Everyone else will be waiting for you to return with their rifles held above their heads. Take all the time you need...
A couple hours and a few hundred gun-lifts later, we were given the order to pack up and get outside again. Aaaand yes, now it was time for the obstacle course... Good times.
Now, I was in a bit of an odd spot here. I didn't have a bloody clue what was going on. This was supposed to have been arranged, what the hell was I doing here? Suspecting standard military organization, I stole a moment to ask the platoon commander discreetly if he'd spoken with my boss.
He responded by telling me to get back into position.
The next dude I asked didn't know anything, and told me to talk to Mr. 3. Mr. 3 said "maybe" when asked if there had been any arrangements made in accordance with me, then said "just keep going, we'll figure it out".
Seeing as Mr. 3 is our second lieutenant and the next-in-command for our platoon, and also a blooming idiot that I trust to remember something or have actually any idea what's going on about as far as I can hurl a several-ton lead weight using only the psychic power of my nipples, I wasn't exactly put at ease.
But the obstacle course was called off partway through, with us still being good and tired from it... Then it was just a matter of heading back and having a lovely formal assembly for the company commander, who wanted to say a few words before we walked into hell.
The captain got into position and started saying his piece, which basically boiled down to a mission status report of hysterically comedic proportions. He thankfully did not attempt to push the realism of the wonked-up story about how the recruits out in the field had been attacked by enemy forces and were requesting backup, and how since hostile troops were controlling the roads, we would be marching out to help them.
...on top of a mountain several miles away. Yeah.
It was around this point that, finally, I managed to get through to someone and find out what the whole plan was regarding me. This person was the platoon commander, who informed me that no, I was not going to be along for the fun. And the break-away point was right there, when everyone else would start marching. He'd just wanted to string me along for a while to make me feel uncertain and THINK that I was going to come along for it. Well, hehe, boy was HE ever right! Ha, what a ringer...
Yeah, well, I hobbled back to my room on a leg that had suddenly remember two of its (assumed to be) previous injuries that were reawakened thanks to the obstacle course, made a few passes at cleaning myself up, and went to work.
While my experience was of course nowhere in comparison of what the others were subjected to, I did actually work quite a bit during that period... And I was shaking for days afterwards thanks to the sudden awakening and shock of what little I had gone through. While I may have had a few doubts the night before as I lay in my bed, oblivious of what would happen just a few hours later, the few disturbingly short hours between 5 and 11 AM served to prove to me that this business was absolutely nothing for me...
The stories brought back to me by those who attended served to solidify my already firm belief in the decision I had made about worming my way out of things. Like, for example, the fact that their first march was originally intended to take 24 hours, without stop (that is to say, 50 minutes walking + 10 minutes resting/filling water bottles/distributing weight in pack, x 24), at which point they would immediately be thrust into enemy contact and first aid crises and alien invasions and yadda yadda... Well, unfortunately for the plans, everyone walked too quickly and got there a few hours early. With nothing better to do, they set up camp and sat around resting their feet for a while.
As far as shooting went, I think most folks got a whopping eight shots in with the real deal... Shooting balloons in the forest, while so tired and hungry that they were hallucinating GODDAMN TRUCKS hidden amongst the trees (one of the officers later recounted a tale from a similar outing he'd been on before, where someone had placed a real soda machine out in the middle of the woods, and not a single one of the soldiers marching by said peep about it, thanks to all of them thinking they were just imagining it).
Lessee here, what else have I been up to... Well, aside from dropping the futile exam of ridiculousness the following Monday in favor of hauling some chairs in random directions and then taking a long lunch, there hasn't really been all that much particulary noteworth- ah wait a second, I'm of course forgetting THE GREAT AND AMAZING SOLDIER'S RUN! Because yes, we needed another kind of run.
Here we have a pin test. You strap a sack on your back, attach your rifle to that sack, and then run your little hiney off for 12-15 kilometers, while on the way performing a host of tasks associated with being an infantryman. These include detecting small dark green posters in the woods, wagering the distance to slightly larger green posters from far away, throwing empty grenade shells at circles on the ground (originally, the run is supposed to have target practice at this station. But since we have neither bullets nor live grenades, we are effectively just tossing glorified rocks around and about). Oh, yeah, and a "post" where you are supposed to run blindly around the forests, swamps and mountains of the surrounding area and find eight little positions with a tiny orange flag to mark them, and then get the needle-stamp from each position to qualify. This is of course GREAT fun for those of us who have never been along for the orientation and navigation sessions that sometimes some people decide to set up for us.
Guess if I'm one of the aforementioned individuals. Yep. Had to figure out which way was north on my compass.
I'll hand it to myself though, having never used the military compass and having never used a military map, you learn pretty damn fast when you're a couple kilometers out in the wilderness with absolutely fuck-all keeping track of where you are.
Oh, yeah... Did I mention the bit about memorizing a detailed observation report message that you are allowed to look at once before starting the race, and that you are to transcribe, verbatim, from memory at the end of the race? Yeah, there's that too.
Well, yeah... I come from a general standpoint of not being motivated. I also don't like the pins. In addition, I had just finally recovered again from my knee throwing in the towel on the obstacle course. Unfortunately, it was quite impossible for me to arrange alternative duties for that period, so I resorted to the only other reasonable course of action.
I walked.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I walked. I gave a massively huge middle finger of spite and indifference to the whole bazango-zongo affair and bloody WALKED. I did NOT spend an inordinate amount of time and energy memorizing the message, I did NOT stress myself out over the various green posters of varying distance or camouflage, I DID get slightly lost in the woods, and I basically just gave not one single flying sideways fuck with extra mayo. Attendance is obligatory, effort is not.
I cleared the whole shebang in a little over three hours, and felt positively invigorated when I got back. No stress, no screaming musculature or bones, no pounding headache... Nope, I was damned proud of myself! Every time before, I had always pushed and pushed and pushed, given everything I had and gotten absolutely bugger-all in return for the sweat and tears. It was about time I took a leaf from everyone else's book and just not care, for once...
Hell, I was grinning like an asylum escapee afterwards! I'd looked the captain straight in the eyes and said "Yes! I took a stroll in the lovely nature, I'm wonderfully satisfied with the ordeal"! I damn well HOPE they don't give me the pin.
...on a side note, with a bit of teamwork it would actually be possible to get EVERYONE to pass the pin qualifications on this run. The reason for that being that the passing grade is dynamic, not fixed. They take the finishing times from the top 10%, find the mean, and then add 55% to that. Everyone clearing the course inside that new number earns the pin. So if the top 10% had sauntered along just a bit less leisurely than I had, the entire battalion would've been the proud new owners of the ugly little metal decoration.
Mind you, our captain also partook in the festivities, and HE is a fuckin' crazy bugger who ran the whole damned course in 1 hour 16 minutes (less than half my time). With the older, bulkier rifle instead of the new one which is a couple kilos lighter.
It was an invigorating experience... I got to get some fresh air, confound a number of officers and soldiers, meet a charming fellow and his dog in the local neighborhood (yes, I took a wrong turn on the course, get over it...), stretch my legs a bit, and for the first time experience what it was like to purposefully just not give it my all. I'd say it was well worth it.
The Friday following that (urr... Which was last Friday) was the primary leave for pretty much everyone in the battalion, excluding only a few crazies who had opted to take the somewhat shorter leave next week. The reason for this being that they needed people available to take over running the ultra super-duper training exercise thing we've got going on over in Setermoen.
Uh, yeah... Well, I got the ticket for the second vacation, but I picked it because I had to work here at base and in the chapel. This means that I've been here utterly by myself since Sunday.
...
AWESOME.
It's been a fair amount of work this week, I'll admit... Last night I pulled a seven-hour shift of serving waffles and coffee to majors, lieutenant colonels, bishops and a brigadier general (!!!!!), plus the folks who attended the "meditation concert" of Christian jazz-called-blues later in the evening. But, still, I've had all of the barracks entirely to myself. Not even a whiny sergeant to poke me up in the mornings, which was very nice seeing as I only worked evenings.
So yeah, things are good... Things were bad, but right now they're good. Really good. I'm taking off on leave along with the other volunteers early-early Monday morning, which just so happens to be the exact same day arranged for everyone to take the 30km run. Good gracious, I AM a slippery one!
There, think that should cover the gist of it... I'd just like to wish everyone a wonderful weekend, and to say that I'm doing just alrighty-dandy for the moment, thanks for asking. I'm now officially not going to be updating for a bit, seeing as I'm going to spend the next week relaxing and enjoying life with pumpk suga sweetieki my girlfriend, so there won't be a lot of dreadfully exciting stuff going on, and what will is going to be a bit more X-rated than I care to indulge these boards with.
So, until next whine, toodle-oo!
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Topic: All I Want For Xmas is an HK416 (Read 74804 times)