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Jul. 1st, 2002 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebitterguyLadies and Gentiles: A huge post, detailing horrid happenings of a decade past:
Yep. I just checked the dates, and it's exactly ten years since my (now infamous) three weeks of basic training.
For those of you who HAVEN'T been regaled with the tale, it's pretty simple.
Ten years ago (that's 1992, for those of you reading this in the future), I was young and in love, which is pretty much standard ingredients for most of the shockingly stupid decisions that have been made since humanity started walking upright.
Anyway, in a fit of loneliness, despair, and joblessness, I figured I would join the Naval reserve. It made sense. I'd get out of Napanee for the summer, get to try something interesting, get to shoot a gun. Sorry, a rifle. Guns are on ships, rifles.. Ah, fuck it.
Anyway, things were interesting. We got yelled at a lot, but I figure that's just like home for me. It was the first summer, according to the guys I was working with, where reserve recruits got to go out of town for basic training, instead of staying at their home unit and being trained there during days.
This would likely have saved me from multiple problems, not the least of which was the wonderfully comfortable CF bunks.
But, no. So, off I flew with a few dozen peeps to Cornwallis, NS. Which is another hint that this wasn't gonna be fun. Man, talk about the stereotypical army base. Except it was for the navy.
Anyway. So, we land. We get put onto buses. We ride to the base. At this time, it's about 4 a.m. Whee. We get up at 5:30 to SSS and go for breakfast. There was a lot of screaming, which I supposed is normal for the first day.
Anyway, during the first day, we get yelled at a lot, get our overalls provided (lap of luxury there, folks!). Then, it was time for our Shaving Demo.
Sweet God. The sweats are starting.
Anyway, Master Cpl Bruce & MCpl Butch (swear to God, that was his Christian name) come in to introduce us Numpties on how to shave so you don't get yelled at.
Really, that's the only motivating factor in basic. Do this, don't get yelled at. Don't do this, don't get yelled at. If they'd said "do this, have the satisfaction of a job well done", it might have worked.
Anyway, my tiny squad (like a dozen guys) go our shaving demo. I got chosen to do the demo.
So, we go to the bathroom. MCpl Bruce instructs me on shaving the proper way. Wet down with hot water, check. Get out shaving cream, check. Spray shaving cream on hand...
I should tell you first, I guess, that I'd never, until that day, used a razor. Since I was 13, I'd been using an electric razor. For me, shaving cream was a mysterious, strange substance spoken only of in Barbasol commercials. I didn't know, for example, the physical qualities of shaving cream. The fact that it was greatly pressurised. That it would shoot out of a nozzel. THat it would NOT drop down into your hand if you were holding your hand to it perpendicularly.
If I had... Oh, if I had so much nicer would my life have been.
Anyway, I depressed the nozzel. Out came the shaving cream, passing happily over my outstretched hand to land all about the lower parts of MCpl Bruce's extremities. Including his nice, shiny boots. It might have been better if my squad hadn't laughed. It definitely would have been better if MCpl Butch hadn't laughed.
Oh, man. Definitely.
It was the colour he turned, as much as anything. I've never seen that colour on the face of a healthy human being before. It was very dark. VERY dark. He seemed to be having a sunset behind his eyes.
I think I may have heard him say something vaguely threatening, but I don't remember.
What I DO remember is I didn't enjoy the next three weeks much.
Fire Picket duty was mine pretty much every night (Fire Picket is fancy talk for "don't let them get an uninterrupted 5 hours of sleep"). I collected, in two weeks, a dozen and a half Verbal Warnings (which are written down) which I believe is a record still unbroken in the CF.
Really, I wasn't bothered by it too much. When I was recoursed (which is fancy talk for "start over again"), I left because I didn't want to miss my family trip to Myrtle Beach. Really, I was in it for pussy as much as anything else.
Really, there was more. There was the PT named Cpl Kidd, the oodles of fun you get training on a C7 (it's air cooled, something, something, useable individually out to 600 metres and in a squad beyond 600 metres). There was the food, which wasn't too bad considering they had to feed hundreds of people at each meal. There were the Newfs, who tended to be pretty pussy overall (I outlasted most of 'em).
The PO in charge of our training unit was cool. Earles was his name (IIRC).
And my last act of defiance was fun. MCpl. Bruce brought me into the room to holler at me one last time. He held, in a plastic bag, the final evidence that I was A Bad Sailor, a pair of skivvies in rather bad shape (hey, I was sick).
He turns to me, his beady littel eyes burning with flames, and shouts. Don't remember what it was. Anyway, when I'm done, I turn to go and he says "Aren't you forgetting something, Mohareb?" And I goes, "No, Master Corporal, I thought you'd like to keep them!"
Sweet. Sweeeeet. KaPOW! Every other NCO in the room LOSES it! Explodes! Swear to God, they'd have carried me out on their fucking shoulders.
Heh. Don't fuck with the Bitter Guy.
Happy Canada Day, everyone. Even if you live in a lesser country, or Norway.
Yep. I just checked the dates, and it's exactly ten years since my (now infamous) three weeks of basic training.
For those of you who HAVEN'T been regaled with the tale, it's pretty simple.
Ten years ago (that's 1992, for those of you reading this in the future), I was young and in love, which is pretty much standard ingredients for most of the shockingly stupid decisions that have been made since humanity started walking upright.
Anyway, in a fit of loneliness, despair, and joblessness, I figured I would join the Naval reserve. It made sense. I'd get out of Napanee for the summer, get to try something interesting, get to shoot a gun. Sorry, a rifle. Guns are on ships, rifles.. Ah, fuck it.
Anyway, things were interesting. We got yelled at a lot, but I figure that's just like home for me. It was the first summer, according to the guys I was working with, where reserve recruits got to go out of town for basic training, instead of staying at their home unit and being trained there during days.
This would likely have saved me from multiple problems, not the least of which was the wonderfully comfortable CF bunks.
But, no. So, off I flew with a few dozen peeps to Cornwallis, NS. Which is another hint that this wasn't gonna be fun. Man, talk about the stereotypical army base. Except it was for the navy.
Anyway. So, we land. We get put onto buses. We ride to the base. At this time, it's about 4 a.m. Whee. We get up at 5:30 to SSS and go for breakfast. There was a lot of screaming, which I supposed is normal for the first day.
Anyway, during the first day, we get yelled at a lot, get our overalls provided (lap of luxury there, folks!). Then, it was time for our Shaving Demo.
Sweet God. The sweats are starting.
Anyway, Master Cpl Bruce & MCpl Butch (swear to God, that was his Christian name) come in to introduce us Numpties on how to shave so you don't get yelled at.
Really, that's the only motivating factor in basic. Do this, don't get yelled at. Don't do this, don't get yelled at. If they'd said "do this, have the satisfaction of a job well done", it might have worked.
Anyway, my tiny squad (like a dozen guys) go our shaving demo. I got chosen to do the demo.
So, we go to the bathroom. MCpl Bruce instructs me on shaving the proper way. Wet down with hot water, check. Get out shaving cream, check. Spray shaving cream on hand...
I should tell you first, I guess, that I'd never, until that day, used a razor. Since I was 13, I'd been using an electric razor. For me, shaving cream was a mysterious, strange substance spoken only of in Barbasol commercials. I didn't know, for example, the physical qualities of shaving cream. The fact that it was greatly pressurised. That it would shoot out of a nozzel. THat it would NOT drop down into your hand if you were holding your hand to it perpendicularly.
If I had... Oh, if I had so much nicer would my life have been.
Anyway, I depressed the nozzel. Out came the shaving cream, passing happily over my outstretched hand to land all about the lower parts of MCpl Bruce's extremities. Including his nice, shiny boots. It might have been better if my squad hadn't laughed. It definitely would have been better if MCpl Butch hadn't laughed.
Oh, man. Definitely.
It was the colour he turned, as much as anything. I've never seen that colour on the face of a healthy human being before. It was very dark. VERY dark. He seemed to be having a sunset behind his eyes.
I think I may have heard him say something vaguely threatening, but I don't remember.
What I DO remember is I didn't enjoy the next three weeks much.
Fire Picket duty was mine pretty much every night (Fire Picket is fancy talk for "don't let them get an uninterrupted 5 hours of sleep"). I collected, in two weeks, a dozen and a half Verbal Warnings (which are written down) which I believe is a record still unbroken in the CF.
Really, I wasn't bothered by it too much. When I was recoursed (which is fancy talk for "start over again"), I left because I didn't want to miss my family trip to Myrtle Beach. Really, I was in it for pussy as much as anything else.
Really, there was more. There was the PT named Cpl Kidd, the oodles of fun you get training on a C7 (it's air cooled, something, something, useable individually out to 600 metres and in a squad beyond 600 metres). There was the food, which wasn't too bad considering they had to feed hundreds of people at each meal. There were the Newfs, who tended to be pretty pussy overall (I outlasted most of 'em).
The PO in charge of our training unit was cool. Earles was his name (IIRC).
And my last act of defiance was fun. MCpl. Bruce brought me into the room to holler at me one last time. He held, in a plastic bag, the final evidence that I was A Bad Sailor, a pair of skivvies in rather bad shape (hey, I was sick).
He turns to me, his beady littel eyes burning with flames, and shouts. Don't remember what it was. Anyway, when I'm done, I turn to go and he says "Aren't you forgetting something, Mohareb?" And I goes, "No, Master Corporal, I thought you'd like to keep them!"
Sweet. Sweeeeet. KaPOW! Every other NCO in the room LOSES it! Explodes! Swear to God, they'd have carried me out on their fucking shoulders.
Heh. Don't fuck with the Bitter Guy.
Happy Canada Day, everyone. Even if you live in a lesser country, or Norway.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-07-01 07:15 am (UTC)S
Re:
Date: 2002-07-01 07:39 am (UTC)In 1995.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-03 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-02 08:59 am (UTC)Ah, the joys of basic training...
Date: 2005-08-03 02:55 pm (UTC)Re: Ah, the joys of basic training...
Date: 2005-08-03 11:13 pm (UTC)