Wednesday: week 3, day 3

Today, we started another exercise with the whole battalion, lasting for about 24 hours. In the morning, I was sent to do some recon work for the part of our unit that was sent away later, and at 10 am we had the issue of orders. The rest of the morning I spent thinking about how I wanted to set up my platoon.

After lunch, we assembled the platoons, checked equipment (they all had to bring stuff as if they would sleep somewhere else for at least a night, even though we’re actually based in our normal building) and tried to give an overview of the exercise. As this kind of exercise usually consists of lots of waiting for the soldiers, they often don’t see any purpose in doing them, which can be extremely tiring sometimes.

At 3 pm, we started setting up radio connections, and at 5 pm the exercise started, with parts of our unit already somewhere else. The comm systems took really long until we had connection to the battalion staff, but finally I think we managed ok. Almost nothing happened in our area so far, a staff officer once showed up and criticised some details and the captain showed up for a short time. He’s sleeping outside with the troops today, plus he’s totally turned into a good colleague of all platoon leaders and fist bumps to say goodbye and the like. (….?!)

Since either the deputy head of the unit or I have to be awake at all times, I’m pretty tired right now (it’s 4 am here) but I hope to get a few hours of sleep once the deputy gets up again.

The picture shows parts of what an INTAFF operator sees when working: the two radios used for voice and data transmission. Super exciting.