Monday: week 3, day 1
If I were
- a good soldier of my unit: I got up at 0600 am for shaving and breakfast. At 0700 I attended the daily morning presence control of the unit, in my sports outfit because I knew afterwards there’d be sports. After one hour of sports, I joined the unit working place on maching gun handling, rifle shooting and some more basic soldier skills. It lasted until the end of the afternoon; afterwards, I cleaned my rifle but didn’t grease it yet because I know that tomorrow there’ll be the weapon inspection. After that, I had a shower, put on my dress uniform and enjoyed the evening going out.
- the typical INTAFF (artillery guidance system) operator in my platoon: I got up at 0645, just in time to be around at the daily morning presence control. Because I didn’t bother to bring my sports clothes, I didn’t join sports, instead I went back to bed. At 0900, my stupid ass platoon leader took me out of bed again so I could join the unit working place. I went there but refused to shoot my rifle and to do any machine gun handling exercise. As soon as I got back, I put on my B uniform because I didn’t bring the dress uniform, went out and got completely hammered.
- myself: I behaved like a good soldier until after the morning presence control. Then I attended an issue of orders with the captain. I wanted to know how many vehicles I should do scouting for today; it took about half an hour to clear that issue. Afterwards, I had to look for my recon squad, and then I had to wake people still in bed even though they were supposed to join the unit working place.
The rest of the day I spent driving around with the recon motorcyclists, saying things like “next week we’re having an exercise, could we please stay at your place with 40 soldiers and 8 trucks? No? Really? Too bad, but thank you anyway!” But at the 11th or so place, we were successful, so I think there’s something ready for next week now. This finding had to be visualised on 10 slides of course, which had to be faxed to the battalion. After that, I went out to have dinner. The evening ended with the battalion commander pulling me away from my beer (together with 3 colleagues), saying that he thinks he’s talking against a wall, showing an iPhone picture of the building where the soldiers sleep, all lit up. We left our half full beers and checked all the rooms to create some more darkness. And I wrote this in my room, but because I have no network up here, I’ll upload it only tomorrow.
The picture shows the view from the place we finally found: Romainmôtier. Actually really beautiful.
