You're not in the army anymore...
As I am quite bored at the moment and this is my last day in the army, I guess it's time to write a wrap-up post for this blog.
After being almost a year in the army, I have experienced a lot of different stuff. Most of it I'm not going to have any use for at all in my civilian life. I'll just make a list of things I've done throughout this year that I (most likely) wouldn't have done if I hadn't been in the army:
- Driving a tracked vehichle (BV 206)
- Being forced to get up at 6 AM
- Cleaning the room every morning
- Walking around in uniforms
- Living in a ~40 square meter room with 5 other people
- Firing an AG3 rifle
- Living in a tent for over a week
- Going on a cross-country skiing trip for a week in temperatures varying from -20 to -30 celcius
- Learning about the army's communication systems
- Walking for over two days (with combat gear) without any food and sleep
- Living in Bardufoss
There are probably a lot more things to list, but this is what comes to mind at the moment. I don't feel that any of these points are worth spending a year to experience. Many people say that you learn to know yourself and your limits etc. when you are in the army, and that might be so, however you also learn that in the civilian life. What I do appreciate from this year are the social non-military activities. The trip to Finland is something I'll remember for a while, and there have been many good evenings at the local pub. I've also gotten to know a lot of people who I would never have met if I hadn't been here.
In conclusion I would have to say that if I had the choice to not go in the army, I would probably have chosen not to. I was quite excited about being enlisted before I got in, but once I was in I quickly realised that the army was not very enjoyable. I could write a long post on how I think we should get rid of the conscription system, but I'm a bit too lazy for that (at least now). So I'm just gonna wrap it up here, and just want to apologise for the very declining rate of updates.
~23 hours and 30 minutes until the plane leaves :D
After being almost a year in the army, I have experienced a lot of different stuff. Most of it I'm not going to have any use for at all in my civilian life. I'll just make a list of things I've done throughout this year that I (most likely) wouldn't have done if I hadn't been in the army:
- Driving a tracked vehichle (BV 206)
- Being forced to get up at 6 AM
- Cleaning the room every morning
- Walking around in uniforms
- Living in a ~40 square meter room with 5 other people
- Firing an AG3 rifle
- Living in a tent for over a week
- Going on a cross-country skiing trip for a week in temperatures varying from -20 to -30 celcius
- Learning about the army's communication systems
- Walking for over two days (with combat gear) without any food and sleep
- Living in Bardufoss
There are probably a lot more things to list, but this is what comes to mind at the moment. I don't feel that any of these points are worth spending a year to experience. Many people say that you learn to know yourself and your limits etc. when you are in the army, and that might be so, however you also learn that in the civilian life. What I do appreciate from this year are the social non-military activities. The trip to Finland is something I'll remember for a while, and there have been many good evenings at the local pub. I've also gotten to know a lot of people who I would never have met if I hadn't been here.
In conclusion I would have to say that if I had the choice to not go in the army, I would probably have chosen not to. I was quite excited about being enlisted before I got in, but once I was in I quickly realised that the army was not very enjoyable. I could write a long post on how I think we should get rid of the conscription system, but I'm a bit too lazy for that (at least now). So I'm just gonna wrap it up here, and just want to apologise for the very declining rate of updates.
~23 hours and 30 minutes until the plane leaves :D
Measurement of time
This blog is probably one of the things that makes me realise that time here actually passes quite fast. It's been over two months since last update now, so this could end up as a very long post. But I don't think I can be arsed to write a boringly long entry.
So, after we came back from christmas leave, we had our winter training. The worst part of it was definitely the ski march. We were told from before that we would have three days of actual skiing. Climbing up on Tuesday, walking on the flat on Wednesday and then going down on Thursday. However, it was more like going up on Tuesday, going a bit down, going up, and down, and up, and down...so there was more than the one steep hill I had expected. In addition, when you're picked to be one of the two guys dragging the pulk for one of the climbs, you kinda wonder why you applied for the army and not some meaningless paper-pushing job inside a mountain. I survived though, and the bacon-cheese burger I had when we came back to civilization was incredible.
Then it was pretty much leave again, and upon returning we started preparing for Cold Response. The big event of the year. It's a large military exercise taking place in northern Norway, and usually over 10,000 people from different NATO countries participate. The actual exercise was from 5th to 15th of March, but we were having an internal communications exercise the week before so we started the 26th of February. This meant that people were going around the time before talking about how long it was with 3 weeks exercise and blah blah, but it didn't really turn out that way.
We didn't move out until Tuesday 27th, and we went back to our base at Friday 2nd and pretty much had the weekend off. Then on Monday we had a meeting, and it turned out only some teams would move out. The rest would be reserve in the base. Lucky as I am (sometimes), my team was among the ones being in reserve. So we waited at base until Wednesday 7th. We drove to our troop's command post, and stayed there just waiting until Saturday. We didn't really do anything there, so we could just as well have stayed at base until then. Saturday evening we finally got the word to drive out and establish a communications post, however we struggled with getting in position so we weren't established until around noon Sunday. Then we just stayed there maintaining the comms post until Wednesday morning (14th of March) and went back to base.
The biggest exercise? Yes. Most exhausting? Not really. The longest? Barely. The most challenging? Not really. The most exciting? Not any more exciting than the other exercises we've had. (Most action I had was when we drove off the road to turn around the vehicle and we surprised a friendly radar station. A guy came out pointing his gun at me and asking me for the "password" identifying me as friendly. I stated it, and he lowered his gun (and started fumbling with his magazine.)) What's left now is the maintenance on our equipment.
It's about 3 1/2 months left now (hopefully), and then I'm done here. I wonder if the snow disappears before I'm discharged. Me and some friends also just ordered a trip to Bulgaria, so I anticipate this summer to be awesome.
So, after we came back from christmas leave, we had our winter training. The worst part of it was definitely the ski march. We were told from before that we would have three days of actual skiing. Climbing up on Tuesday, walking on the flat on Wednesday and then going down on Thursday. However, it was more like going up on Tuesday, going a bit down, going up, and down, and up, and down...so there was more than the one steep hill I had expected. In addition, when you're picked to be one of the two guys dragging the pulk for one of the climbs, you kinda wonder why you applied for the army and not some meaningless paper-pushing job inside a mountain. I survived though, and the bacon-cheese burger I had when we came back to civilization was incredible.
Then it was pretty much leave again, and upon returning we started preparing for Cold Response. The big event of the year. It's a large military exercise taking place in northern Norway, and usually over 10,000 people from different NATO countries participate. The actual exercise was from 5th to 15th of March, but we were having an internal communications exercise the week before so we started the 26th of February. This meant that people were going around the time before talking about how long it was with 3 weeks exercise and blah blah, but it didn't really turn out that way.
We didn't move out until Tuesday 27th, and we went back to our base at Friday 2nd and pretty much had the weekend off. Then on Monday we had a meeting, and it turned out only some teams would move out. The rest would be reserve in the base. Lucky as I am (sometimes), my team was among the ones being in reserve. So we waited at base until Wednesday 7th. We drove to our troop's command post, and stayed there just waiting until Saturday. We didn't really do anything there, so we could just as well have stayed at base until then. Saturday evening we finally got the word to drive out and establish a communications post, however we struggled with getting in position so we weren't established until around noon Sunday. Then we just stayed there maintaining the comms post until Wednesday morning (14th of March) and went back to base.
The biggest exercise? Yes. Most exhausting? Not really. The longest? Barely. The most challenging? Not really. The most exciting? Not any more exciting than the other exercises we've had. (Most action I had was when we drove off the road to turn around the vehicle and we surprised a friendly radar station. A guy came out pointing his gun at me and asking me for the "password" identifying me as friendly. I stated it, and he lowered his gun (and started fumbling with his magazine.)) What's left now is the maintenance on our equipment.
It's about 3 1/2 months left now (hopefully), and then I'm done here. I wonder if the snow disappears before I'm discharged. Me and some friends also just ordered a trip to Bulgaria, so I anticipate this summer to be awesome.
Let it snow...
I don't know how many people are still checking for updates here seeing I've been slacking a lot on the updates. But I'm gonna make a post nonetheless.
What's new since the last update?
-Maintenance is *REALLY* boring, especially when you have to line up the equipment like someone who's manic about making things look perfect. The officers' explanation was that it is a lot easier to count the equipment when it's lined properly. I can understand that, but there's a difference between lining properly and lining like a madman.
-I'm bad at shooting. I didn't get any of the two marksman "awards" even though I should have managed to get at least one of them as it's not a particulary hard award to get (generally speaking). We went on the shooting range yesterday though, and I was quite satisfied with some of my rounds there. I believe I can *HIT* a target without much problem, but hitting in an exact spot can be a bit hard. Then again, harshly speaking I don't think it matters too much where you hit when you're using 7.62 bullets.
-Cold winters are bad. We were out today practicing contact drills with blanks, and that was awesome. However, it was about -20 C outside and we weren't running around all the time. And it can be as bad as -30 C here. I certainly do not hope it will be that kind of temperature when we are doing our skiing march that will last from a Monday to the Friday. If it's cold though it will probably make us put up our tent at a blazing speed.
-It's fun to be the "older" guys. Recruits are called in twice a year, and yesterday a new batch of new people arrived. Seeing them going around being chased by officers all the time is quite enjoyable, even though you do feel a bit sorry for them. But we deserve to enjoy it; we've been there ourselves before. They must feel a bit discouraged though when they see us walking around in civilian clothes while they have to wear uniform all the time, and when they almost trip in our network cables going across the hallway. Or perhaps it just gives them something to look forward to, as it shows them that once they're done with boot camp there will be a little more relaxed environment.
-Wireless network is awesome. Finally they managed to get the wireless network and internet at our barracks up and running. So we can now lie in our beds and be slackers while chatting and surfing (like I'm doing now). However, pretty much anything but websites and MSN/IRC is blocked, so you can't play any games online. Supposedly the reason is so that people can't download using P2P programs (Kazaa, bittorrent etc.), but in my opininon I think they do it so people won't sit up playing World of Warcraft all night. From what I have observed, I think there would have been quite a few doing that (but the really dedicated players with computer skills have ways to bypass the blocks).
That's about what comes to mind at the moment. I might say things like "One of my New Year resolutions is to update my blog more often", but I know that I would never comply to it anyway.
"It's not dangerous to freeze, it's just a bit uncomfortable"
What's new since the last update?
-Maintenance is *REALLY* boring, especially when you have to line up the equipment like someone who's manic about making things look perfect. The officers' explanation was that it is a lot easier to count the equipment when it's lined properly. I can understand that, but there's a difference between lining properly and lining like a madman.
-I'm bad at shooting. I didn't get any of the two marksman "awards" even though I should have managed to get at least one of them as it's not a particulary hard award to get (generally speaking). We went on the shooting range yesterday though, and I was quite satisfied with some of my rounds there. I believe I can *HIT* a target without much problem, but hitting in an exact spot can be a bit hard. Then again, harshly speaking I don't think it matters too much where you hit when you're using 7.62 bullets.
-Cold winters are bad. We were out today practicing contact drills with blanks, and that was awesome. However, it was about -20 C outside and we weren't running around all the time. And it can be as bad as -30 C here. I certainly do not hope it will be that kind of temperature when we are doing our skiing march that will last from a Monday to the Friday. If it's cold though it will probably make us put up our tent at a blazing speed.
-It's fun to be the "older" guys. Recruits are called in twice a year, and yesterday a new batch of new people arrived. Seeing them going around being chased by officers all the time is quite enjoyable, even though you do feel a bit sorry for them. But we deserve to enjoy it; we've been there ourselves before. They must feel a bit discouraged though when they see us walking around in civilian clothes while they have to wear uniform all the time, and when they almost trip in our network cables going across the hallway. Or perhaps it just gives them something to look forward to, as it shows them that once they're done with boot camp there will be a little more relaxed environment.
-Wireless network is awesome. Finally they managed to get the wireless network and internet at our barracks up and running. So we can now lie in our beds and be slackers while chatting and surfing (like I'm doing now). However, pretty much anything but websites and MSN/IRC is blocked, so you can't play any games online. Supposedly the reason is so that people can't download using P2P programs (Kazaa, bittorrent etc.), but in my opininon I think they do it so people won't sit up playing World of Warcraft all night. From what I have observed, I think there would have been quite a few doing that (but the really dedicated players with computer skills have ways to bypass the blocks).
That's about what comes to mind at the moment. I might say things like "One of my New Year resolutions is to update my blog more often", but I know that I would never comply to it anyway.
"It's not dangerous to freeze, it's just a bit uncomfortable"
Sorry...
I had an intention to increase the activity here, but as usual it didn't get any longer than the intention. Since the last update I've had a trip home, which is always sweet. When we got back we had three days of "RFC" (ready for combat) where we tested all the comms equipment etc. so that we wouldn't drive to the top of a mountain and discover that one of our antennas didn't work. Then we had a weekend, and on Monday a week in the field was awaiting.
The weather hadn't been the best the time before the exercise, so the roads were incredibly slippery and so our belt wagons were loaded up on lorries and driven to the bases of the different locations we were going to climb. Naturally this made deployment take longer than usual and my team was among the last to go out, so we remained at the base until around 18.00. We were three teams (each with own wagon) going together, my team, the "twin" wagon and a reconnaisance wagon. The rec-wagon was driving first and made it up to the location. Then the second wagon made it partly up and we barely got up at all (as the two first wagons had used up most of the grip). So it ended up with our twin wagon establishing as far up as it could get, and we drove back to our troop's field command with the rec-wagon. It was now about 8 o'clock on Tuesday morning and we set up a tent which missed some parts and we had a multifuel that didn't really work. So it was a quite cold night (well, day).
We slept until 16.00 and were supposed to move out again that evening. But then there was some message that we weren't allowed to cause the armoured division was doing some shooting and we had to wait there longer (how unfortunate...not...). So we slept more and about 5 or 6 am on Wedensday morning we got told to pack the tent and get ready to move out. Then we drove (well loaded up on lorries) out with a rec-wagon (without out twin wagon) and when we arrived at the base of the mountain we started a long drive to get up there. There was some marsh in the way so we had to drive all around it to get up on the mountain. Probably made the trip up take 2 hours more than if we could just have gone straight up. We came to the top, established and put up the different communication links we had been told to set up. Then we basically sat there managing the comms post until Thursday night, when we packed down and drove to a meeting point where a lot of my troop was meeting. Then they loaded belt wagons up on lorries and we were shipped back to base. It was now probably 3am or something Friday morning.
Arriving at base we went to our rooms, and watched TV until we got message to do something. I learned that at weekday nights they don't send particulary good shows on TV (though it wasn't really anything new to me). Then later when it was becoming real morning we had some maintenance, had some food and listened to the company commander talking some. Then our troop commander talked some, and then we had to wash our rooms (as usual, as they probably didn't have something planned). Then it was weekend, and everyone slept very long on Saturday. Now it's Sunday, and the coming week will be filled with more detailed maintenanced and we are also going to count a lot of equipment apparently. So I expect the days to be very long. Then there is one week where we do some misc stuff, like shooting I think (which isn't that fun really), then weekend, two more days of service and then it's christmas holiday. We have 12 more days of service until christmas holiday :D.
The weather hadn't been the best the time before the exercise, so the roads were incredibly slippery and so our belt wagons were loaded up on lorries and driven to the bases of the different locations we were going to climb. Naturally this made deployment take longer than usual and my team was among the last to go out, so we remained at the base until around 18.00. We were three teams (each with own wagon) going together, my team, the "twin" wagon and a reconnaisance wagon. The rec-wagon was driving first and made it up to the location. Then the second wagon made it partly up and we barely got up at all (as the two first wagons had used up most of the grip). So it ended up with our twin wagon establishing as far up as it could get, and we drove back to our troop's field command with the rec-wagon. It was now about 8 o'clock on Tuesday morning and we set up a tent which missed some parts and we had a multifuel that didn't really work. So it was a quite cold night (well, day).
We slept until 16.00 and were supposed to move out again that evening. But then there was some message that we weren't allowed to cause the armoured division was doing some shooting and we had to wait there longer (how unfortunate...not...). So we slept more and about 5 or 6 am on Wedensday morning we got told to pack the tent and get ready to move out. Then we drove (well loaded up on lorries) out with a rec-wagon (without out twin wagon) and when we arrived at the base of the mountain we started a long drive to get up there. There was some marsh in the way so we had to drive all around it to get up on the mountain. Probably made the trip up take 2 hours more than if we could just have gone straight up. We came to the top, established and put up the different communication links we had been told to set up. Then we basically sat there managing the comms post until Thursday night, when we packed down and drove to a meeting point where a lot of my troop was meeting. Then they loaded belt wagons up on lorries and we were shipped back to base. It was now probably 3am or something Friday morning.
Arriving at base we went to our rooms, and watched TV until we got message to do something. I learned that at weekday nights they don't send particulary good shows on TV (though it wasn't really anything new to me). Then later when it was becoming real morning we had some maintenance, had some food and listened to the company commander talking some. Then our troop commander talked some, and then we had to wash our rooms (as usual, as they probably didn't have something planned). Then it was weekend, and everyone slept very long on Saturday. Now it's Sunday, and the coming week will be filled with more detailed maintenanced and we are also going to count a lot of equipment apparently. So I expect the days to be very long. Then there is one week where we do some misc stuff, like shooting I think (which isn't that fun really), then weekend, two more days of service and then it's christmas holiday. We have 12 more days of service until christmas holiday :D.
All right
It's Saturday and I don't have much planned for today so I guess I'll just write some here then. The past few weeks have passed very fast, and I don't really remember exactly what we did from day to day.
To follow up some from the last long post I made; we didn't go the 30 km march that day. But the Friday that week we had some infantry race or whatever you want to call it. It's a race where you run and there are objectives along the way, like orienteering, spotting targets, estimating distance to a target etc. It went fine until the (dummy) grenade throwing, where I missed on all 5 grenades thus not getting a silly pin to put on my uniform (you had to get at least 1 point on all the objectives). Can't really say I am really sad though, as it's not a very prestigious pin.
Then later that Friday I went to Tromsø and spent the weekend there. Me and a friend rented a hotel room (hooray for 50% military discount) and had a nice relaxing weekend away from all military stuff. The bus is also very cheap; we get a 90% discount when travelling in uniform. I went to Tromsø the weekend after too, and I also intend to go the coming weekend. Yes, it's a very nice city.
The Monday after my first weekend in Tromsø we had the 30km march. I didn't think it would be too much hassle, but unfortunately you had to walk pretty fast if you wanted to get within the 4 hours 30 minutes requirement for the march pin. I found it quite unnatural to walk so fast, so I ran for a little while and then walked in a normal tempo. That method worked out fine and I made it back in 4 hours and 10 minutes. Oh yeah, we had to carry an 11 kg backpack too.
No, that's not me. I was going to take a picture of the nice setting and then a random person walked in front of me. However I think it added something extra to the picture.
Then I can't really remember in detail what we did, but the rest of that week was pretty much spent preparing for a field trip. That means checking out the equipment in the belt wagons, testing it etc. When we did that we were split into teams (by a quite random selection), and I was put on the "HQ" team, which set up the field office for the troop officers. It was a lot more hassle on that team than on the others, because we had to put up an extra office tent, and that took some time. On the Thursday we went out on a field trip that lasted until Friday, and we spent the time putting up and taking down communication nodes (a belt wagon with antennas on and camo net etc.). It has to be some of the most boring stuff I've ever done. I also discovered that I hate the camo nets, because you always get stuck in it. Either it's your rifle, combat vest or buttons on the uniform. And when it's totally dark outside it's not that easy to get out of the mess either.
Our belt wagon with camo net and antennas put on poles. This is from the field trip we had this week (next paragraph)
This week we had a follow-up exercise from the field trip last week. We were out in the field from Monday to Friday. On Monday I felt I had a great start when we got our field ration food. My team got two boxes of vegetar rations. However, when I ate dinner on Monday (rice in basil sauce) I was very surprised by how good it tasted. I must admit though that on Thursday I was a little bit tired of it (yes, breakfast, lunch and dinner was the same every day). On Monday we went out with two and two wagons together, and my "team" went to the place we had the first trip, and we established the node. On Tuesday morning we had to move up on a mountain, and there we stayed until Thursday night. It was rather relaxing to just stay in one place, although it was a little hassle when we had to change direction on the antennas to change the node we were connecting to. And you could never really relax; we were always waiting for the call from HQ saying we had to move to a new position. But it never came, so from Tuesday to Thursday night what we did was eat, sit in the tent and be on "comms watch" (just monitoring the systems and checking that it's ok and taking calls).
Then on Thursday night at about 23.30 it was my turn to go on comms watch, and when I came down to the wagon the person I was taking over for told me that the second lieutenant had called and our weekend leave had been revoked because the exercise was most likely going to last through the weekend too, so those who had ordered hotel, plane etc. had to cancel. I was all ready to go back in camp on Friday to a proper bed and such, and it was incredibly frustrating to get that message. Then at like midnight I got a call from a Sergeant that we had to start packing and get ready to leave. So we did that, and then we drove down to the main road where two other wagons met us and we drove to a place where my troop was meeting up. We then went back into base and started on some maintenance (the time was about 7 or 8 now). Later we had a little debriefing, and we were also told that some people in my troop would have to go on some large national exercise thing. First people could volunteer, but only one did and the troop had to send 12. The Lieutenant started to read names, and I was very scared that I would be one of them. Luckily I wasn't, thus I can sit here now instead of going out on another exercise (the selected ones probably leave today and are out until Friday).
The coming week we're just going to have maintenance as far as I know, meaning it's going to be a very boring week. Next Wednesday it's time for leave again, but unfortunately it's a bit shorter than the last one and it only lasts from Wednesday to Tuesday (originally Wednesday to Sunday, but for some reason we got two extra days). Will be nice with a semi-long break from all the military hassle. When I come back from the leave however it's just 4 weeks until a 3 week christmas leave. THAT will be very, very nice. Of course, it depends if I survive that long as one of my roommates just bought Singstar.
I forgot to add: I passed the belt wagon test and I'm the primary driver on my wagon.
To follow up some from the last long post I made; we didn't go the 30 km march that day. But the Friday that week we had some infantry race or whatever you want to call it. It's a race where you run and there are objectives along the way, like orienteering, spotting targets, estimating distance to a target etc. It went fine until the (dummy) grenade throwing, where I missed on all 5 grenades thus not getting a silly pin to put on my uniform (you had to get at least 1 point on all the objectives). Can't really say I am really sad though, as it's not a very prestigious pin.
Then later that Friday I went to Tromsø and spent the weekend there. Me and a friend rented a hotel room (hooray for 50% military discount) and had a nice relaxing weekend away from all military stuff. The bus is also very cheap; we get a 90% discount when travelling in uniform. I went to Tromsø the weekend after too, and I also intend to go the coming weekend. Yes, it's a very nice city.
The Monday after my first weekend in Tromsø we had the 30km march. I didn't think it would be too much hassle, but unfortunately you had to walk pretty fast if you wanted to get within the 4 hours 30 minutes requirement for the march pin. I found it quite unnatural to walk so fast, so I ran for a little while and then walked in a normal tempo. That method worked out fine and I made it back in 4 hours and 10 minutes. Oh yeah, we had to carry an 11 kg backpack too.
No, that's not me. I was going to take a picture of the nice setting and then a random person walked in front of me. However I think it added something extra to the picture.
Then I can't really remember in detail what we did, but the rest of that week was pretty much spent preparing for a field trip. That means checking out the equipment in the belt wagons, testing it etc. When we did that we were split into teams (by a quite random selection), and I was put on the "HQ" team, which set up the field office for the troop officers. It was a lot more hassle on that team than on the others, because we had to put up an extra office tent, and that took some time. On the Thursday we went out on a field trip that lasted until Friday, and we spent the time putting up and taking down communication nodes (a belt wagon with antennas on and camo net etc.). It has to be some of the most boring stuff I've ever done. I also discovered that I hate the camo nets, because you always get stuck in it. Either it's your rifle, combat vest or buttons on the uniform. And when it's totally dark outside it's not that easy to get out of the mess either.
Our belt wagon with camo net and antennas put on poles. This is from the field trip we had this week (next paragraph)
This week we had a follow-up exercise from the field trip last week. We were out in the field from Monday to Friday. On Monday I felt I had a great start when we got our field ration food. My team got two boxes of vegetar rations. However, when I ate dinner on Monday (rice in basil sauce) I was very surprised by how good it tasted. I must admit though that on Thursday I was a little bit tired of it (yes, breakfast, lunch and dinner was the same every day). On Monday we went out with two and two wagons together, and my "team" went to the place we had the first trip, and we established the node. On Tuesday morning we had to move up on a mountain, and there we stayed until Thursday night. It was rather relaxing to just stay in one place, although it was a little hassle when we had to change direction on the antennas to change the node we were connecting to. And you could never really relax; we were always waiting for the call from HQ saying we had to move to a new position. But it never came, so from Tuesday to Thursday night what we did was eat, sit in the tent and be on "comms watch" (just monitoring the systems and checking that it's ok and taking calls).
Then on Thursday night at about 23.30 it was my turn to go on comms watch, and when I came down to the wagon the person I was taking over for told me that the second lieutenant had called and our weekend leave had been revoked because the exercise was most likely going to last through the weekend too, so those who had ordered hotel, plane etc. had to cancel. I was all ready to go back in camp on Friday to a proper bed and such, and it was incredibly frustrating to get that message. Then at like midnight I got a call from a Sergeant that we had to start packing and get ready to leave. So we did that, and then we drove down to the main road where two other wagons met us and we drove to a place where my troop was meeting up. We then went back into base and started on some maintenance (the time was about 7 or 8 now). Later we had a little debriefing, and we were also told that some people in my troop would have to go on some large national exercise thing. First people could volunteer, but only one did and the troop had to send 12. The Lieutenant started to read names, and I was very scared that I would be one of them. Luckily I wasn't, thus I can sit here now instead of going out on another exercise (the selected ones probably leave today and are out until Friday).
The coming week we're just going to have maintenance as far as I know, meaning it's going to be a very boring week. Next Wednesday it's time for leave again, but unfortunately it's a bit shorter than the last one and it only lasts from Wednesday to Tuesday (originally Wednesday to Sunday, but for some reason we got two extra days). Will be nice with a semi-long break from all the military hassle. When I come back from the leave however it's just 4 weeks until a 3 week christmas leave. THAT will be very, very nice. Of course, it depends if I survive that long as one of my roommates just bought Singstar.
I forgot to add: I passed the belt wagon test and I'm the primary driver on my wagon.
Field trips
yes, i know it's been a long time since the last entry. it's not that i haven't had time to write, i've just been too lazy. and this entry is going to be short too, as i'm writing on my mobile phone. right now i'm on a field trip, and i have been since monday. tomorrow we're going back to the base and hopefully have a relaxing weekend. i'll make a longer post then. really.
New week
After I got back from the leave I've been quite busy with having belt wagon course, so I haven't had much time to write anything (well ok I have, but I've been too lazy). The course was pretty interesting, and i never thought the vehicle could handle that kind of rough terrain. We've tried to drive up (very) steep hills, down again, in deep mud, towing other wagons, getting towed etc.
On Friday we had two tests, a theoretical and a practical test. On the practical test I scored 9/10, so as long as I passed the theoretical (which I think I did), I'll be an authorized belt wagon driver. If I will be the primary driver of a wagon once we get split up in teams is unsure though, as they aim to have two people per team who are able to drive the wagon, but one primary driver who drives all the time (so the other person is just back-up driver and usually has a different role on the team).
According to the plans, we are going to have a 30km march tomorrow. As long as we don't have to carry a lot of equipment I don't mind walking a long distance. And later in the week I think we are going to prepare for a field trip where we will learn how to set up the communication posts and such. Hopefully it will be fun (and we're gonna have the good tents and the multifuels so it should be fine).
On Friday we had two tests, a theoretical and a practical test. On the practical test I scored 9/10, so as long as I passed the theoretical (which I think I did), I'll be an authorized belt wagon driver. If I will be the primary driver of a wagon once we get split up in teams is unsure though, as they aim to have two people per team who are able to drive the wagon, but one primary driver who drives all the time (so the other person is just back-up driver and usually has a different role on the team).
According to the plans, we are going to have a 30km march tomorrow. As long as we don't have to carry a lot of equipment I don't mind walking a long distance. And later in the week I think we are going to prepare for a field trip where we will learn how to set up the communication posts and such. Hopefully it will be fun (and we're gonna have the good tents and the multifuels so it should be fine).
Almost time to go back
Sorry that I haven't posted in a while. The previous Friday I went home on leave, and when I got home I just wanted to do as little as possible of things related to the army. I'll write a short summary of the week before I went on leave:
Monday we went on another field trip, and most of us had a negative attitude towards the trip. The weather at the place we had this (and the previous) exercise has proven to be very wet, and we didn't look much forward to sleeping in wet sleeping bags in wet tents and waking up and dressing in wet clothes. The first night was pretty bad as it rained quite much and it got pretty wet inside the tent. However, on Tuesday we got the very relieving message that we were getting tarpaulins (no: presenning) to put over the tents so they'd stay dry.
Monday and Tuesday was pretty much just shooting with the rifle, which was decent enough. The only thing that was bad about it was all the waiting ('cause everyone can't fit at the range at once) and that it rained while waiting. What was good at this trip was that we got served hot dinner at the "shooting range HQ" so we didn't have to eat hermetic lobscouse all the time.
Wednesday was a quite interesting day. We had all been anticipating the "beret run" for a while (a hard exercise to make yourself earn the beret), but we had started to think that it might not be time for it. We had first aid during all Wednesday and we finished pretty early, so we had to go back to our tent camp (which was 600-700m away from shooting range HQ) and wait there for dinner to arrive and we would go back to eat (which we found a bit odd). We went inside the tents and waited. Then the Sergeant shouted "alarm alarm".
The team leaders had to go and get information from him, and when they returned they told us that we had to dress in the coverall (kjeledress) and have as little as possible of clothes under. So most of us dressed down to our boxer shorts, so the only thing we wore was boxers, training shoes and the coverall. We all knew what was gonna happen. So we put on our backpacks and went back to shooting range HQ, where we got told that we were going to have the beret run. We started out with a light jog, and I first thought that it was only going to be a very hard running session.
Then we came to a small river, which we had to walk in. At the first part I didn't get wet at all, because we had changed to marching boots (which are a bit waterproof) and the water wasn't high. But then as we progressed we had to crawl under some logs that were put across the river and we got soaked. This wasn't the worst part though. We came to this muddy place where we had to crawl through the mud, which wasn't bad at the first part. But then we came to a part where the mud was much deeper and it was almost impossible to move forward, so we had to lie on the side and roll sideways instead. However, big queues appeared and we had to lie and waiting in the cold mud. It was probably around 0 C in the air. So in the end they saw where it was going (many people were struggling incredibly much and the mud was so they started to pull people out to the side.
After getting pulled out we had to run and go get a bit clean in a larger river, and then we got washed by a "garden hose". And then we ran back to our backpacks to get dry and some warm clothes on. I have to add though that we had to take the coverall off before we got washed, and I was so cold that I barely managed to open the buttons on it. After we were done it felt very satisfying, though some people were so cold they almost fainted and had to be moved inside a house to get warm.
On Thursday we were supposed to have an exercise where we tested if we had learned what we were supposed to learn, but because of time issues it was cancelled and we got back to the base much earlier than expected. We did some maintenance and then prepared for the leave.
Sunday I'm going back North, and I expect it to become a bit better now as we are done with boot camp and will start on the communication specific things. We will also start using belt wagons and much larger and better tents, and no more primuses. We will use something called multifuel instead, which is much much better.
Monday we went on another field trip, and most of us had a negative attitude towards the trip. The weather at the place we had this (and the previous) exercise has proven to be very wet, and we didn't look much forward to sleeping in wet sleeping bags in wet tents and waking up and dressing in wet clothes. The first night was pretty bad as it rained quite much and it got pretty wet inside the tent. However, on Tuesday we got the very relieving message that we were getting tarpaulins (no: presenning) to put over the tents so they'd stay dry.
Monday and Tuesday was pretty much just shooting with the rifle, which was decent enough. The only thing that was bad about it was all the waiting ('cause everyone can't fit at the range at once) and that it rained while waiting. What was good at this trip was that we got served hot dinner at the "shooting range HQ" so we didn't have to eat hermetic lobscouse all the time.
Wednesday was a quite interesting day. We had all been anticipating the "beret run" for a while (a hard exercise to make yourself earn the beret), but we had started to think that it might not be time for it. We had first aid during all Wednesday and we finished pretty early, so we had to go back to our tent camp (which was 600-700m away from shooting range HQ) and wait there for dinner to arrive and we would go back to eat (which we found a bit odd). We went inside the tents and waited. Then the Sergeant shouted "alarm alarm".
The team leaders had to go and get information from him, and when they returned they told us that we had to dress in the coverall (kjeledress) and have as little as possible of clothes under. So most of us dressed down to our boxer shorts, so the only thing we wore was boxers, training shoes and the coverall. We all knew what was gonna happen. So we put on our backpacks and went back to shooting range HQ, where we got told that we were going to have the beret run. We started out with a light jog, and I first thought that it was only going to be a very hard running session.
Then we came to a small river, which we had to walk in. At the first part I didn't get wet at all, because we had changed to marching boots (which are a bit waterproof) and the water wasn't high. But then as we progressed we had to crawl under some logs that were put across the river and we got soaked. This wasn't the worst part though. We came to this muddy place where we had to crawl through the mud, which wasn't bad at the first part. But then we came to a part where the mud was much deeper and it was almost impossible to move forward, so we had to lie on the side and roll sideways instead. However, big queues appeared and we had to lie and waiting in the cold mud. It was probably around 0 C in the air. So in the end they saw where it was going (many people were struggling incredibly much and the mud was so they started to pull people out to the side.
After getting pulled out we had to run and go get a bit clean in a larger river, and then we got washed by a "garden hose". And then we ran back to our backpacks to get dry and some warm clothes on. I have to add though that we had to take the coverall off before we got washed, and I was so cold that I barely managed to open the buttons on it. After we were done it felt very satisfying, though some people were so cold they almost fainted and had to be moved inside a house to get warm.
On Thursday we were supposed to have an exercise where we tested if we had learned what we were supposed to learn, but because of time issues it was cancelled and we got back to the base much earlier than expected. We did some maintenance and then prepared for the leave.
Sunday I'm going back North, and I expect it to become a bit better now as we are done with boot camp and will start on the communication specific things. We will also start using belt wagons and much larger and better tents, and no more primuses. We will use something called multifuel instead, which is much much better.
Forgot something
I forgot to add something to the last entry. How come the army thinks it's a great method of teaching to wake people up at 1AM (after they had one hour of sleep) to get out of the sleeping bag and all dressed up with full combat gear and going out in the dark and rain to learn about how to run a vehicle control point?
One week...
The past week went very fast. Monday we went out for a new field trip, and this time it was four days so we were out until Thursday. I had very varied mood during the trip. Sometimes I just wished that I had some administrative job in the army because I never wanted to go on a field trip again, and sometimes I found it ok (but not extremely fun). The weather varied a lot too; the place we had the trip has very weird weather. We probably had all four seasons in one day. We did a decent amount of shooting too, but I didn't hit very good. The results varied a lot.
We're going on another four day trip next week, from Monday to Thursday. And Friday 06:55 my plane leaves for home :D. Hopefully this field trip will be good as I can have the trip home in mind all the time. The weather forecast looks pretty bad, so I expect to get pretty wet. We will also have a "beret run", to earn the berets. Will be quite tough I believe. (And last night at 2.30 AM someone in the squad found it fun to run around going into rooms shouting "BERET RUN!". I didn't get fooled though, but some did.) We did get the berets already, but we're not allowed to wear them yet. The reason we got them was to adapt them to our heads and make them look good, so we need to put water on them and shave them a bit (they're quite thick) and such.
We're going on another four day trip next week, from Monday to Thursday. And Friday 06:55 my plane leaves for home :D. Hopefully this field trip will be good as I can have the trip home in mind all the time. The weather forecast looks pretty bad, so I expect to get pretty wet. We will also have a "beret run", to earn the berets. Will be quite tough I believe. (And last night at 2.30 AM someone in the squad found it fun to run around going into rooms shouting "BERET RUN!". I didn't get fooled though, but some did.) We did get the berets already, but we're not allowed to wear them yet. The reason we got them was to adapt them to our heads and make them look good, so we need to put water on them and shave them a bit (they're quite thick) and such.