Life in the Staff Tent

Do you ever just take a pause and try to figure out what it is exactly that you're doing?

I spent about 3 hours just clicking through Wikipedia today, and that's when I realized, somethings gone wrong.

And for real, don't get me wrong, all those exciting things you see in movies and recruiting ads and commercials, about jumping out of planes and driving around in tanks and sailing the high seas, well, sure, someone is doing that somewhere. It's just the odds of you doing that at any particular time? Not good.

But I guess I shouldn't complain - I spent all summer like a pack mule sweating through some twisted daily cross country endurance circuit training from hell, carrying radios, machine guns, ammunition of all kinds, spraying bug spray until my watch melted, expending thousands of live rounds, double tapping, dashing, hitting the dirt, crawling to a position of observation, crawling to a position of fire, getting up, bounding, repeating for hours. So sooner or later, I was going to end up killing time in an office, putting off writing my very first set of personal development reviews for my very first subordinates.

And this really should be interesting. Because it was interesting to teach my first course, to have real subordinates, to come up with a real plan and watch it unfold; to react on the fly to changes and incidents - to teach, to evaluate, to fail soldiers off a course, to congratulate others on a job well done. OH, and to employ a worrying and unprecedented number of fire extinguishers. Thank you, thank you.

Yes, I am grateful for the opportunity that I had, especially to teach a leadership course - partly from the experience of running a very officer-intensive course, but also from being so far out of my league, a lowly second lieutenant teaching corporals with up to 3 tours in Afghanistan - "Listen boys, I don't know what you think, but I was playing a video game the other day and..." Yeah. Avoiding that was a challenge to say the least, but I think I pulled it off, well, really, that depends on who you ask. Point to improve - administration and staff work, yikes. It's a good thing I have strong field soldiering and interpersonal skills, because my paperwork is crap.

The whole picture seems to change though, from the staff tent, versus the hootch. The field used to be something I dreaded, then it became a challenge, because I wasn't just trying to survive but pass leadership and practical evaluations. Eventually, I came to love the field, to thrive in the difficulty and excitement. But, that all goes down the shitters when you've got a generator, a heater, and everyone's playing Guitar Hero in the corner.

What this all comes back to is, this is my first time facing the actual reality of the military. Because there isn't always going to be a course, or training, or a war to get prepared for. There's a reason that administration is a principle of war; this shit has to get done no matter what, because it matters. Everyone involved in the training system is making a valuable contribution to their country, it's just, it's so damn boring. But I won't always, in fact, I will rarely be doing the exciting field stuff, from now on. I've got a few more months back in Gagetown next year, running and gunning in the LAVs, and after that, paperwork and admin will be the majority of my routine.

This is going to require a major life change.

Because being an exhausted, worn, transient scoundrel of a soldier doesn't really fly when you're really working 8-4. And being a workaholic is great on a platoon attack or defending a FOB, but it's not so fulfilling when you're updating personnel records. I had 4 days off in a row this week and I nearly shot myself out of boredom. And that's a dangerous joke to make in this profession.

I think I finally figured it out, why people have kids - to have a reason to want to go home every day, to make going to work and coming home every day important, other than staying up all night in your underwear and not sleeping and reading Hemmingway novels over and over.

Of course, thinking of settling down just makes me think about Ontario which makes me think of Ottawa which makes me think of ex-girlfriends which just makes me nostalgic and homesick in general.

7 more weeks in Manitoba, then hopefully, never again. 7 weeks and the day I head home is the 2 year anniversary of when I started on this path, having no idea what I was getting in to.

And of course, nothing is ever as simple as you make it. There's reasons to stay here, so there's reasons I'll be pretty torn up when I leave. But if I'm an expert at anything now, it's keeping my head up, watching my arcs, and marching forwards.

A Memory - July 08

The morning sunrise crests the tree line to the east and creeps slowly across the 200 feet of barren land, across the concertina wire, stacked 3 rows high between fence pickets driven firmly into the thick, dry ground. The night was cold, even colder inside the thick cinderblock walls of the platoon house, as the wind whipped viciously through open windows on the upper floors, keeping mosquitoes at bay, but freezing our sweat-laden clothes. The first rays of sun slowly climb the base of the window, effortlessly mount the lower frame, and shine brightly onto my face. Groggy from my 2 hours sleep, I reach for my helmet, balancing it just right over my face, not so much comfortable, but bearable. Inside the helmet, my world is reduced to 4 inches, and I stare at the leather and lace harness, trying to dream with my eyes open, thinking of being anywhere but here; thinking of the same sun, cresting a different window, almost two years earlier to the day.

And the morning sunrise crests the old machine shop that backs onto my apartment, the 2^nd floor of an old house in Little Italy. The bed runs the length of the same wall, so the sun shines from the foot to the head of the bed, so that by the time the sun hits my eyes every morning, my whole body has been claimed by the new day. But it’s too early, a good 7 months before I take to waking up before the sun. I wake early because for once, I’m not alone.

Today, the stink of the sweat-caked helmet liner drives me to accept the eventuality of the morning. It would have been easier to stay asleep if I had unpacked my blanket, but I hadn’t expected to be able to sleep as long as I did. I’m lying on a narrow air mattress, boots unlaced but still on my feet, a frag vest firmly velcroed around my chest. I strip off the vest and reluctantly take off my dry t-shirt underneath, fold it neatly and return it to the waterproof bag inside my rucksack, replacing it with yesterday’s shirt, still damp from a day of long work in the hot sun, and a late patrol all night long. Looking around, I see soldiers still sleeping, scattered against walls all over the interior of the house, dressed in a dozen different ways, some curled up peacefully under ranger blankets, others sprawled out in full fighting order, not so much asleep as just, off. Closest to me is a loaded rifle, a few feet away my machine gun is set up on a pile of rucksacks, just peeking above the reinforced window, the tired soldier behind it watching the road to the small settlement to our north, eating some sliced fruit out of a foil bag with disinterest, waiting for his shift to end.

And two years ago I’m all but naked in rich blue sheets, one luxury among an otherwise frugal student lifestyle. And next to me, there is a goddess in matching black bra and underwear. And she’s young, beautiful young, only 19, and I have just recently reached the wise, old age of 22. And of course, the whole time, I feel like I’m the mature one, that I’m her guide to the exciting world of adulthood; but of course, short of being a slightly better cook, and having made more bad decisions in that 3 extra years than she could ever hope for, like most girls her age, she is far more mature than I. In fact, she is on the cusp of womanhood, that age when she will stop falling for the bullshit antics of young men like me. Because I’m the last mistake she will make, as a girl, before she catches on. But she doesn’t know this at the time, and I do, but I’m trying not to realize it. Because I don’t want a beautiful woman who wants me, no, I want adventure, and success, and really, attention, and popularity, and to feel wanted. I am vain and restless, and I am vain and restless because my pride has been wounded, and I’m really not much these days than a self-destruction complex with a decent jaw-line and a bit of charm.

In the present, I’m waiting for a ration to cook, the boiling water rattling my canteen cup, perched precariously on my precious pocket stove. I’m field-stripping my weapon, oiling up so that it’s ready for whatever might happen that day. I’m having a baby-wipe shower, debating if I have to urinate badly enough to justify getting fully kitted up, in helmet and frag vest and load bearing vest and weapon, just to head out behind the house to the platoon pits. And then I’m getting orders, to bomb up on ammunition and water, to get ready for a patrol.

Two years ago, I’m kissing her, Nicole, gently while she sleeps. Because we didn’t sleep together, but it’s the first time we’ve slept next to each other, and everything is still sexy in that sweet, innocent way before you’re used to each others’ bodies, when your heart still beats with the excitement of grazing the soft skin at the rise of a woman’s breast with your lips, when she still holds her breathe with equal parts fear and excitement as an unfamiliar set of arms wraps themselves firmly around her shoulders when you kiss, holding her close. She’s skinny, not malnourished, but naturally slight, and tall. She looks Eastern European, like a wheat farmer’s precious daughter. She wakes up and I tell her I have to go to work, and she knows this, but she asked to stay over instead of going home late at night on the bus. And we kiss for longer than I can afford, even having woken up early, but I don’t care. I tell her that I have to have a shower, and that’d I’d invite her, but I know she’s too much of a lady to say yes, smirking, but honestly believing it. And she smiles back, with playful eyes, and asks me if I’m sure.

And that was a moment that standing on the edge of an earthen berm, gazing into a shanty village made from old abandoned sea containers, checking my radio and weapon, suddenly struck me. Because they were one and the same, these moments, what you might call critical decision points. Moments where the things you think you want, and the things you think you believe in, suddenly present themselves as real, physical dilemmas – when, essentially, you have to throw your chips into the pot, or just get out of the game.

And I knew that I was going over that berm, because the decision that started this all carries a hefty obligation. But two years ago, I had to make a choice, about how far I was willing to go, about what I was willing to represent about my intentions. And I stared at this beautiful, intelligent, witty, ambitious girl, who for some insane reason seemed to want nothing in the world more than myself, and instead I chose self-destruction. Or I should say, adventure, or duty, or opportunity, or whatever I was telling myself on that given day. And I shrugged it off with a laugh, and showered alone, and got ready for work, and turned down what would have happened between us, fantastic though it would have been, because I know how much it would have meant to both of us.

And would she have been worth it? Not to have embarked on this ‘life of adventure’? Of course, a thousand times over. I told her later, on the phone (and I thought I was so brave that I even did it on the phone) that it wasn’t what I wanted, but I couldn’t explain, even if I really did want her.

And would I have done it all differently, in retrospect? Not a chance.

Because it’s addictive, this life of excitement, even when it’s usually really a life of challenge, and suffering, and boredom, and never-ending change. Because it’s a different life, at least, and because I’m young, we’re all still young. And when you’re young you can handle having a temporary life, you can accept that every beautiful, good thing that you have is only yours for maybe a few months, maybe a few weeks, at best. Because you can still mourn what you will inevitably lose while moving forward and experiencing new things, until you’ve had too much, and the joy of the unknown is overcome by the crushing nostalgia of so many possibilities lost, so many opportunities squandered.

And for real, I’m getting close. But still, I’m addicted, to this lifestyle, to living more places in 2 years than most people will in their entire lives, to the attitude and personality it allows me to claim; to being the prodigal son, the long lost friend, the wise counsel, the experienced expert, the success, the career man, the charming stranger, the mysterious traveller, and the hopeless romantic.

And Nicole is but one of a handful of the most beautiful, and radiant, and truly fantastic women that can be found in this country, that I had the pleasure of having, however briefly in my life, during the turbulent period between deciding to join the army and where I sit today. Women to whom I am both deeply grateful and sorry; sorry that I could never resolve my desire for the unknown in favour of their worthy company, but grateful for the memories of all the truly good possibilities in this world, and the enduring reminder that soon, much sooner than later, it will be ok to give up this restless life.

And today, boots on the ground, sweating under layers of protective equipment, and litres of water, and the weight of hundreds of rounds of ammunition, sweltering in the hot afternoon sun, I am happy to be here, for now.

Summer Leave - Part Two/Mistakes

Two weeks ago I knew exactly what to say, and of course, I didn’t, and now I’m at a loss. Things have been busy. I survived vacation. Things happened, certainly, but some things aren’t helped by discussion. And then I drove back east, back to the base. And I have to say, it felt like going home. Not because of the cold steel bunk bed, the big fluorescent light, or the stink of sweat, boot polish, and weapon oil, but because everyone I really know anymore was there. And everyone is still lonely, but it’s comforting, to be back with the guys who you’ve been living and working with, some of them, for years.

So we all sat around and joked and poked fun at each other’s new clothes, or haircuts, or purchases over leave. Then we talked about what we did on vacation. And then we talked about girls, because, for real, at this point that is what everyone bases their vacation around. And, like every time we go on leave, the end result is a mix of tragedy and success. There are the guys who rekindled things with an ex, and those who gained a new one. Some plans worked out, some failed. Some guys were the beneficiaries of chance, a bit of fun, here and there. And some of us ended up somewhere in the middle, and were left with a big question, about what we wanted, and where we were going to go, and what we were prepared to give up, or gain, in our lives.

And then I went back to work, and day one, I had a decision to make. Because for once, things were in my hands, and of course, they only let you make the really tough calls. So I thought about it, and I made a decision, and by Wednesday night I had my orders and hit the road. And 3500km, and a lot of gas, and one accident, and a lot of bad music, and some sleazy motels, I made it out West. And that night my decision got tested, and it didn’t go well, but it wasn’t decisive either.

And yes, it feels good to be doing an actual job in the Army, finally. It feels strange, actually, to be treated with a degree of respect, and to be given a task and not to be told how to do it, or even be checked up on. And that’s not to say that indicates trust, or an assumption of confidence, it’s just how things go in the military – there is always more work than personnel, and superiors just have to trust that their troops will get the work done. And I’m getting it done, even though its 2 rank grades and about 5 years of experience over my head, and for real, I’m not getting any support working around that problem. But working at least gives me something to do, and I will turn out a good product at the end, if only because it’s the only thing that I have to keep me from realizing where I’ve ended up.

I’m farther than I’ve ever been from home, from my family, my friends. And I’m used to that, of course, but now I’m out here without the guys, my peers, the people who I don’t even have anything to say to anymore but whose company I relied on for many months of hell.

And here’s the kicker.

It’s my own fault.

Because there were really 3 choices, originally, and at any of them I was guaranteed to be with a group of my friends. But I was chasing something, something that felt right, at the time. And it was, really, but then I flinched, and doubted everything, if only for one short week. So when they offered me that choice, at the last second, was I sure I wanted to come out here on my own, or did I want to go to one of the other options, with my friends. And I thought about it, and decided, no, it’s worth it, it’s worth giving up the comfort and security of the guys, and I took the risk.

And about, maybe 2 days into getting out here, I started to realize I had made a big mistake.

And it wasn’t coming out here. Because for my career, this could really be a good go. The attitude and the atmosphere work for me, sure, I miss the city, of course, but that’s always the big sacrifice of the job. The mistake, the mistake was flinching, even if I thought it was inconsequential, even if I thought I could make up for it.

Well, maybe I can’t.

So I’m sitting out here, in the middle of nowhere really, alone, all long weekend long, just thinking about how it’s an extra day until I can go to work again, until I can have something to do, something to make time move forward that much faster. And there are prairie sunsets and strong winds and lots of roads to run, but it’s not enough. And the standard of living isn’t even bad, there are even couches and TV and cable, but it’s not enough. I have enough books to keep me occupied until a year from now, let alone Christmas, but even they can’t stop me from anxiously walking circles around my quarters. Even by army standards, this is lonely.

The take home point here, it’s really more of a punch line, if anything. It’s the cycle, the cycle of everything, hope, anxiousness, doubt, failure. Repeat. Because, for sure, the shortest distance between happiness and possibility, and smiling to yourself like an idiot, thinking about something, really, really fantastic that is finally within your grasp, is the flinch – that brief moment where you question, where you look that gift horse in the mouth, and, crash, you’ve got nothing. There is always a punishment, a price to pay for your lack of faith. And I’m not saying I’m in for an eternity of hellfire, or doom, or divine punishment, certainly not.

I’ve just got another 120 days in Shilo, Manitoba to pay.

Summer Leave - Part One

Somewhere around 29,000 feet, above sea level of course, I wrote a bunch of notes in a well worn notebook, sandwiched between a metrep and a grid loc for an overhead firing heavy machine gun, somewhere, sometime. Of course now they are too cryptic to understand, like signpost arrows nailed to a fence picket lying broken in the mud.

This is why they always tell us, be careful with your relative indications, you have to use absolutes. And it's true, because my left and your left are probably different directions, and I don't want you to get lost, or shoot something you weren't supposed to shoot, or pass me curry when I needed cumin. But really, absolute or relative, all my spatial references are shot, let alone any crude map model I had managed to construct of where the hell my life was going. Writing notes about things you want to write while sitting tired, hungry, and reflective in a tiny airplane next to some guy way too into men's Olympic swimming, after reading 121 pages of Henry Miller is clearly a bad idea, in fact, I think it's specifically counter-indicated in the owner's manual for Life, productive, human. Along with a lot of other things, like, spending your vacation in Manitoba.

That metrep was wrong, by the way. It rained so hard we debated building an ark, then realized that we were hard pressed to find a female anything at the time, which would have made pairing off a bit of a short-straw kind of issue.

On the way out to Manitoba, courtesy of a lengthy airport delay, I re-read Starship Troopers - the old sci-fi book, not the bad sci-fi movie where you get to see pretty much everyone's tits but Denise Richards. For a Navy man, Heinlein has some pretty useful insights into Army life. Mostly in his claim, and I'm paraphrasing here because the book is easily on the other side of the room, that women are the only reason men ever go to war. That is to say, that when anyone says they're fighting to protect society, yeah, they mean women. And when anyone says that they have to make a stand for humanity, for sure, they're talking about the soft, pretty, good smelling humans.

And really, I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but at least I figure, this Army racket should make me look good to the ladies. And it does, every time I'm on vacation and someone is looking for a quick cheer-up rebound.

And yeah, that's life and it's as funny as it is sad, and I'm as a complacent as I am a victim and this isn't whining or complaining it's just illuminating a fact that isn't so obvious to those of you who still manage to lead something resembling a normal life. Of course it's not like I have anything better to do. If men are fighting to protect women, and I buy that the male vision of society, the community, the body politic, the Republic, the Leviathan, is entirely sex and reproduction centered, I'm wondering where myself and many of my peers fit into it. We haven't even been fighting, other than not to fail out of the training program for a profession where we'll have to fight just to get a platoon to take overseas to fight, and even 3 levels removed from any fighting, most of us wouldn't even remember what to do with a woman anymore, except for maybe an incredulous 11 seconds or so; sex that lasts just long enough to remember that A: you miss sex, and B: it really has been a long time since you had any.

Where this is all going, is that if I'm really pursuing my dreams of leading brave Canadian soldiers into violent, brutal combat against the enemies of freedom as a means to an end nestled between milky thighs and smooth, soft legs, this may explain just what the hell I was doing in Manitoba.

So I went and I visited the base, where at last indication I'm to be posted as a course officer to oversee the training of young infantry privates, and where I've got aspirations of seeking a permanent posting with a battalion. And it was small, and flat, but not without its charms, and built in roommates, among other inter-personal arrangements.

And of course, I'm looking gift-horses in the mouth. And it's not because I'm paranoid, or an asshole, but because I've been burned enough times that its getting embarrassing. Not to mention annoying. I'm real good at being a stoic (read: douche bag) loner; you want sure you're trading up to a good thing if you're going to abandon a sweet gig like this.

And it's that feeling between feeling like you're missing something, and knowing that everyone is laughing at you but not being able to figure out that joke. That feeling that you know something is up, and you know you should figure out what it is, but you don't have the heart to pry the answer out of the liar.

But really, it's that feeling when you're almost happy, and you know that whatever is you don't know is going to ruin that, and maybe you'd rather end up the ruined fool so at least, for now, you could be almost happy and just almost believe it yourself, almost.

And you almost have to respect the liar - and I use liar here in the Camusian sense - that it is not just a lie to tell someone something that is not true, but also not to tell someone something that they should know - because it takes a special kind of courage, to dance around a lie like that, to pretend that it's not there, even when you know that just in avoiding it you are tracing an outline of the lie - in trying to ignore it you are sketching its limits and shape with painful accuracy, to anyone who wants to know the answer.

But then again it takes a special kind of courage to be lied to, to know there is a lie, and yet to move forward anyways, to play the fool, to take each step further when you can see the liar dancing, can start to guess at the the true nature of the lie, like some reluctantly clairvoyant Wheel of Fortune contestant, who knows just what phrase the letters will spell out, but it desperate to live their full 15 minutes of fame under the camera lights.

And like so many things, this isn't what I meant to write, it isn't what I thought I would write, and it isn't want I want to be written. But it's what happened. And I've watched myself, so many times, just accept what got written, that really, I'm just afraid that when it really matters, when it really should be exactly what I meant, I won't tear it up and try again.

And it's worth noting, that Camus. that chain-smoking old French stoic (read: asshole) bastard didn't have the heart to tear up all the crap he wrote, but he knew better than to publish it. Sadly he did not know better than to avoid running his car into that tree head first, and leaving his entire life's work at the hands of his survivors to publish. Even the best of planning will always be subject to the cruelty of chance...

Filling Sandbags

Filling sandbags isn't really an art. Yes, there are better ways and worse ways to go about it, and people will extol the virtues of one method or the other, but really, it's just an exercise in time and man power. Except that for some reason you should always turn them inside out, because they are stronger that way, and that you should make sure whoever is tying them up isn't an idiot. Usually in the army there is a table, or a grid, or a matrix, or a rule of thumb that would tell you how long it would take to fill x number of sandbags. But there isn't. There is a matrix about work/rest schedules for those filling sandbags, dependent on the weather, and there is a table outlining how many sandbags are needed for various tasks, or to protect against specific threats, but nothing on time.

This is probably because sandbags are a pretty loosely defined concept. You think it would be simple; take a bag, fill it with sand. Nope. Most commonly, you end up with a dirt bag, or a rock bag, or an ice bag, or a bag filled with ammo you'd rather hide then deal with, or casings you'd also rather hide than drag back up to an admit point, or old ration packages, or bits of beef jerky wrappers, or whatever you have in your pockets that you'd no longer like to carry. Only once did anyone ever hand me a sandbag and point me over to a mound of sand. And frankly, it was a dream.

The other problem with sandbags is that the efficiency of their preparation is highly dependent on the motivation and attitude of the troops. Their morale, to put it simply. And this is usually directly proportional to how tired of being fucked around they are, and how meaninglessly stupid they believe the task to be. If the enemy is advancing in your direction, and you're looking at facing them sticking out of a shitty little hole in the ground you only half managed to dig out, then yes, you're going to dig. Then again, if it's for some shitty exercise that isn't half believable and a complete waste of time and resources and even one of your cocky asshole corporals could have planned better, then frankly, it's going to take some time to get those sandbags filled. Let alone dragged over to the truck, then loaded, then dragged off, then positioned. Then repositioned. Again, and, again, and again. There is a set of sandbags out there that I not only filled, but loaded onto trucks, moved, and repositioned 6 separate times. And this was before we learned those two critical rules, the ones about turning them inside out, and not letting an idiot do the tying.

And whenever you find yourself digging sandbags, it's always in the same kit, the same tools, the same one guy holding the bag and another shoveling, rotating every say 5, or 10, or 15 bags - depending on how many need to get filled, and what you're filling them with. But you're always somewhere new. Not to put too fine a point on it, but usually it's only the shitty things in life that follow you around. The rest is just backdrop, like cities and towns along the highway passing through in your car windows. Or is it the other way around? Do misery and happiness come from the places you find yourself, not the activities that occupy your life?

I guess where I'm trying to go with this is that I've been up to this shit way too long. This morning I woke up rolled into the corner of the spare bedroom at a place I'm house sitting, tucked into my sleeping bag, sleep crusted in my eyes, with no idea where I was; vaguely thirsty, extremely dislocated, increasingly anger, and badly in need of a toliet, not to mention, completely missing my underwear.

It's been around 20 months of this now. of living nowhere, of having no place. I'm the guy who spends more on hotels a year than anything other than student loans, who begs you to house sit while you're gone, who snaps up that offer to stash his spare things in your basement, and who secretly wants to ask you how much to rent that spare bedroom at your place. Because what I have, is a tiny bunk in a small room with 3 other bunks, and 2 tiny closets and a little desk that I'm not allowed to put anything on but 1 civvie book and 1 military book and nothing inside because the Sergeant Major loves to randomly inspect the quarters. I have to make phone calls from inside my car, which is also my closet, and if I was out looking for women, believe me, it would be your place.

I hate to sound like I'm whining, but grown men, grown men with university degrees, grown men who are constantly told they are leaders and role models and all sorts of completely untrue cliched platitudes, should not be bunkmates. Nor should they be marching around like recruits on basic training, from their own graduation parades as platoon commanders, no less. The system is set up like some unbalanced, abusive mother - it places the training of future leaders in the hands of their own future subordinates, who do not stop beating them in punishment for this arrangement untiil the last second before the roles are officially reversed. And I'm sure all of a sudden it will be snapping to attention and neat salutes and yes sir, but the damage is already done. The men who are supposed to be my future sources of experience and advice, in exchange for steady leadership and support, are in fact my tormentors and enemies. I will be expected to attentively care to their personal administration and professional development, despite the years they spent mocking the personal complications and dislocations of myself and my peers. These are men who changed a graduation parade with 2 days notice, and sneered at all the candidates whose families had now wasted hundreds if not thousands of dollars on travel and plans to come and see what should have been one of the proudest days of their careers. Men who laugh at the prospect of candidates spending 3 years total living like dogs in a kennel, making up new locker inspection templates that assure there is no room for anything personal, who can barely contain their giggling when asking knowing questions, like demanding to know why we brought so much personal kit to a course, when they know full well its been years and years since any of us really lived anywhere.

I'm a 24 year old university graduate who owns one pair of pants, who has slept in a sleeping bag for 8 months, and who has earned the right to command troops in battle, but not to walk like a human being from point a to point b.

And the thing with sandbags is that you have to be careful about how much you put into them. Because at the time, they seem tough, and you can just dump and dump into them absentmindedly, because you aren't even really paying attention. But there's a limit, and if if well tied, they will burst apart. And as heavy as sand is, stupidity, pointless meanspirited treatment, and utter disregrard for others way a hell of a lot more.

And the stupidest, stupidest thing of all, is myself.

Because I wanted this, I didn't just volunteer for it - I chased it down. I changed my life to fit with the path that was needed, and I hunted it down until I made it, and I became decent at what I do, and I took all the ideology and ethics and ethos and doctrine and inanity to heart and truly believed in it all, and now I just wish I was somewhere else.

And I could still do it. I could still get out. But all of a sudden I don't just not want to wake up in the shacks, or some hotel, or some borrowed space - all of a sudden there is a place I would like to wake up. And the only way that makes any sense is to stay in the army, and to follow it off to the least likely place I ever expected to go.

And when I asked the guys, the clever guys, who already quit, what they said when they put them before the man and demanded to ask why. And they said they called them cowards. And of course I said bullshit, they just hated to see a youngster that much smarter than any of them.

6 weeks in the field.

I went to bed last Saturday around 4 am after a night out with the guys, I woke up around noon on Sunday and ran some last minute errands. I didn't go to sleep again until Friday, at 2am. And I wonder why I can't sleep anymore. Canada Day long weekend 2008, Halifax, CFB Halifax to be more precise. The Navy knows how to roll, they rebuilt their entire officers quarters as a hotel and a large percentage of my course is currently shacked up here, partying like hell to shake off the last 6 weeks of bullshit.

We're done our hard field time and not a minute too soon. This week was when people started to crack. You could feel it coming, from day one. A tour might be 6 months and a war might be years, but nothing is longer than a course, because every day of your life on course is an attempt by the staff to break you down. And to this end, the defensive is about the best tool you could ever hope for to beat whatever is left out of a group of soldiers.

You recce a position, site your trenches, move the troops, occupy the position, then you dig in. Carry your shovel and your pick on your back, and dig like hell until you're standing in the ground, you're head sticking out looking down towards the kill zone where your enemy will eventually appear, right in the trap you're rushing to set. Except, not on course. On course, you dig in, and before you have a chance to even finish, let alone change your socks, or drink some water, or eat, you're attacked and you withdraw, under contact, and run, and march, and find a new position and start it all over again. And at night, you don't sleep, you dig. And if you eat, you're hammering down a cold rat pack while your fire team partner watches the arcs of your trench, and you listen painfully to each slow scrape of the rat pack as your buddy gets every last scrap of that useless 240 calories that the army swears you can live on x 3 a day.

But what the defensive teaches you is the bare minimum of what you require to live. You live out of your rucksack, like we always do, but you're carrying it everywhere and often. In the dismounted role, who knows if you're going to have transport to get you out, especially in a withdrawl under contact. So we prepare to carry, and run with, and hit the ground with, and conduct fire and movement with our rucks on our back. Between your fighting order - your weapon, your frag and tac vest, your gas mask, 48 hours of rations, 2x first line ammo and 3 litres of water, any extra weight is just going to cause trouble. Anything you pack has to be essential, like, down to nothing but socks and extra food.

So this is where you learn the importance of hold out kit. Snivel kit is slang for all the extra bits of junk you carry with you to make your life a little nicer - fleece jackets, guicci rain gear, hell, a pillow. Hold out kit on the other hand is that last little savior of equipment or clothing that you will not bring out until you are truly fucked. I was once saved from hypothermia but one last old t-shirt I found jammed in the bottom of my ruck, grabbed and put on a few minutes after I had stopped shivering and a few minutes before I was really in some trouble.

And on the defensive, for most people, is the bivy bag. The weather is an unpredictable and dangerous beast. We had a day so hot that at 11pm my friend went down on a patrol vomiting with heat exhaustion and I had to drag him out 300m through thick brush to the road in complete darkness. And that same night by 2am we were shivering uncontrollably in our trenches saved only the clear skies above. But you don't always get so lucky. We abandoned our position on Thursday at 4 in the morning and set out on a 13km withdrawal with full platoon weapons and equipment. By the time we reached our new position everyone to the man was soaked with sweat - so we spent all afternoon and evening withdrawing and reoccupying the same ground until night set in and around 1 am we had finally finished our trenches and prepared to finally get some rest, our last night in the field, after 6 weeks.

And that's when the rain started.

It played out in our trench the same way it must have in every other - no one wants to admit that they are slowly going hypothermic, so they accuse their trench partner. Mine started nagging quickly that he could hear my teeth chattering and that I should do something quick. So we relented and abandoned proper battle discipline, pulled out out bivy bags, and crawled in fully kitted up. A bivy bag is a waterproof - hopefully - sack that you usually keep your sleeping bag in to keep dry, but in a pinch will make an emergency one man tent against the elements.

And around 3am is when I realized that the bivy bag is not completely waterproof.

And around 3pm that afternoon, when I was still shivering and barely awake, I found out that one of my best friends had failed off the course.

I knew he had been pulled to the hospital for twisting his knee in a tank rut, but didn't realize that doing so he lost his chance to re-test his practical and was by default out.

And there is nothing harder than being exhausted but elated for having finally finished the worst, and turning to your friend who was there for all but one day of all the hell and bullshit, and wanting to be excited with him and hop in your car and hit the road to Halifax for the long weekend, but having nothing at all to say to a guy who was always there for you but now is struggling to keep his career from slipping through his fingers.

So he gave up his reservation and his spot in the car, and when I get back he won't be there. The army moves people out pretty quickly to teach us a lesson, that the only people who exist are those still on course, still on tour, still on the mission - still alive. Because people will die and we will lose troops and we can't sit around and dwell on the losses because we lose people in order to accomplish missions, and if we don't carry on then they died for nothing. Which is great, in war, but bad when you already miss your buddy and have to add him to the list of good, good friends who were unlucky, or unhealthy, or just plain incompetent - who are now very gone, and unlikely to ever look up their old life or the old friends their status within it used to grant.

And walking back to the naval barracks, after bailing from the bar early because the guys were hammered and I just didn't feel like dancing anymore, I thumb my NDI 20, my military ID in my pocket, making sure everything is in line to cross through the guard shack. The guard demands and I present and he inspects it and reads my status and tells me, "sir, have a good night." and I can't help but think who am I fooling as an officer in the military, maybe a year away from commanding my country's soldiers in combat in a foreign country, sulking around in a random city feeling bad for friends and missing women and wishing I had someone to share the comfy bed in my room with. I want to be hard, I want to be one of those guys who can take any punch without missing a beat, and I'm not soft by any means, I can survive anything you can throw at me - I just don't want to feel bad anymore about things I can't control.

I guess really, I want to be able to visit random cities without needing to wander around alone in the fog, and to be able to sleep in big comfy beds without lying staring at the walls until 4am, and I want to have friends who won't be posted out or recoursed or med-catted, and to be able to just think about what needs to be done, without having to feel anything, and really, I don't want to have to write anything anymore.

Black Bears

Nothing in life is ever a pure positive it seems. Having done all my military training up to this point in the winter, summer brings a new set of challenges to the table. Hypothermia is off the table at least, though I have seen people go down with heat stroke in February as well as August. Bugs are a new one though. The sheer number of mosquitoes out in the training area is mind blowing, and for a few weeks right after they start hatching they are maddening. I'm covered in the scars from scratching hopelessly at over 300 bites acquired in the last few weeks. Thankfully as summer heats up, the 'skeets die off, but of course, new challenges emerge...Bears.

Bears are jerks. Bears are annoying, dangerous, and hate you. You'd love to shoot bears, but we're not allowed, some environmental protection thing. SO instead, we're resorted to scaring them away. By throwing dynamite at them.That's right, I spent last week throwing dynamite at bears. Bears who stole $20,000 worth of equipment. Bears who stole rucksacks so soldiers came back from patrols, tired, wet, and cold, and found they had no sleeping bags or dry clothes or anything. Bears who woke me up sniffing at my feet, until thankfully the sentry threw dynamite between us, or rather, next to me.

And that's where I am in my career right now, where I roll over and pull my sleeping bag off from over my head and look up at the bear at my feet, and then a third of a stick of dynamite goes off at my feet, and the bear runs away, and I immediately fall back asleep without so much as a shrug. The insane becomes the ordinary far too easily. But then curiously, the ordinary becomes the most amazing thing in exchange.

Friday afternoons have become the most surreal thing. There is no feeling in the world like it. Deploying to the field sunday night, driving the body all week long, smashing yourself against the ground and getting up again and running across broken terrain carrying a hundred pounds of equipment over and over again without sleep or food, in the rain, in the cold, in the heat, in the bugs, passing and failing assessments - it's all worth the feeling of showering and putting on some civies and getting in the car with some of the closer guys and hitting the town, windows open, to get some good food in you before the exhaustion catches up and you are down for the count.

And every sky is beautiful, and every woman is fantastic, and every meal is incredible. And the time slips by and soon it is dark and it is over and all you can think of is the next friday night. Because friday night is the only night with any promise, because saturday ends too quickly and sunday night you start again - but friday, friday is the furthest point between you and everything - putting on a uniform, drawing a weapon, being a soldier. And if I am thankfull for anything about joining the army, it is for knowing that no one else has experienced a friday night as full and incredible and important as we have.

Patrol Week Ex

Nothing builds team work like a mass hallucination. 3 am in thick woods, 38% illumination, canopy too thick to see the moon anyways. 8 km patrol, 4 days without any sleep. I have a dozen dreams before I realize I'm marching, my hand wrapped tight in the tac vast of the man in front of me, holding my friend Alex's hand, pulling him along as he falls asleep at every pause, waking with a shudder and marching full speed right into me. I dream of friends, and places, and memories and hopeful futures that will never pan out. Branches cut and slice at my neck and hands, sticks and leaves whip at my eyes, thankfully protected by my ballistic eyewear, or officially, eyewear, ballistic, for protection of vision, known more accurately at night as eyewear, ballistic, for prevention of vision. At long halts we lie in rain soaked swamps, waiting for some poor candidate who is completely lost to find himself with the flakey army GPS unit and get us back on track, and pass his assessment, and be one step closer to not failing off this most important of courses. I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm not fucked up enough to have to fear an actual patrol - my written assessments have set me aside as successfully meeting the standard, balancing both planning and tactical abilities. If I'm that good I shouldn't fear a live patrol, but I do, because when you're that tired, nothing is scarier than responsibility.

So, I lug my light machine gun and follow the man in front and guide the man in back through the impossible darkness and let my thoughts drift, knowing full well I am shit-pumping, but I don't care, the imaginary enemy of this ridiculous scenario are not going to find us, we don't even know where we are. I can take a few minutes to drift off, and try to think, try to put almost 2 years together into some cohesive story of what the hell is going on, and sure as anything, it won't work.

Riviere-de-loup is the symbolic half way point on the 11 hour drive between Camp Gagetown and Ottawa. I've made this drive a handful of times. 3 provinces and each feels very different. I'm an ardent opponent of New Brunswick. If it wasn't too late, I'd be voting against it. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because half the province is the Gagetown Training Area, but I don't think so. It's just a strange place, I can't justify it, but it's too far from home and I feel nothing for the place. Quebec on the other hand, that's a whole other story.

I had been to Montreal a handful of times while I was living in Ottawa, and really, it never struck me as anywhere special. The city of my birth, where my parents lived their entire married relationship, until I was born, then they split and my prospects of growing up bilingual and stylish died along with the family unit. Cut to 22 years later, the part where I make a wrong turn while checking out some pretty girl walking alongside the highway of life, and join the army. I am sent to do my basic training in Saint-Jean-sur-Richlieu, a little bedroom community 30 minutes from Montreal. I visit a few times during basic, but rarely, I'm still trying to get back to Ottawa every chance I can get to wake up next to a girl I can't forget every time I'm there, but forget far too easily whenever I leave. Basic training ends and I prepare to be sent to Gagetown, but a surprise is in store, and I'm posted to the Canadian Forces Language School for 8 months to learn French. At the time, I'm not happy, but I as time goes on and I learn more and more French, it begins to grow on me. The town is pretty, if small, the people interesting. Maybe it's the lifestyle, the stores, the locales, the food, the products, everything is the same but the culture is still foreign. It's like leaving home one day and coming back to find a family of immigrants living in your house, wasting all your croutons in steaming bowls of beef and onion soup. And frankly it's kind of neat.

So this is where things get a little sketchy. While at the French school, I meet a young aspirant officer who is working on the campus of the prep school for young aspiring-aspirant francophone officers. And it starts completely un-innocently, with a lot of flirting in uniform and abuse of rank and continues right along the same path, with fraternisation and violating barracks orders and sneaking out of buildings and running from security guards and completely forgetting condoms. But it only last 3 weeks before she is off back to the military university and I'm stuck there like a sucker. But after she leaves, before she goes back to school, I come to Quebec City to visit her at her parents house. And Quebec City, I don't know what to say, it's fantastic. Meeting parents, after 3 weeks, in a language you barely command is terrifying, but they are warm and put up with me and make me feel at ease, and I pass by on what little French I know at this point, and make them dinner and win them over with Pad Thai and we try to quickly have sex while they walk the dog and it doesn't quite work, though we don't know if they know and pretend not to. And the girl takes me downtown to the old city, and its beautiful and romantic and I'm in love with all of it, and the history and the streets and the culture and her. And we kiss on the back of the Citadel, allowed permission to the military side of the tourist attraction by our status as serving officers, though we are briefly mistaken as errant young tourists. So she tells me she loves me and I know she doesn't because she is young, and I tell her I love her even though I don't, because I'm old enough to know I wish I did.

And this is the lasting memory I will have forever of Quebec City, looking over the high walls of the Citadel, on a beautiful day, across the river, down on the city, at 400 years of history and a fascinating people, and a beautiful girl.

And the next time I'm in Quebec City it's once I've been posted to Gagetown, 3 weeks before Christmas. 3 of us have packed my car literally to its maximum capacity, and we joined the convoy of recently bilingual-fied (to various degrees of success) young officers and stop to party for one night in far too fancy hotels paid for by the government. We eat a delicious meal and wander the old city in the biting cold before finally finding a popular club. We dance a bit, standing out like English army interlopers, with an army base literally 3 blocks away, still starkly in contrast with the local populace. I meet a girl, and I want her to be the last girl I kissed in Quebec City, but she's not, so she doesn't become the 2nd but we talk and exchange information and I make what turn out to be hollow promises to visit her on the way back.

Then again, on the way back. This time, alone. Another trendy hotel, this time paid for by my own credit card, thankful for a generous military discount. And I walk the old city, wrapped up against the January cold, uncharacteristically bearded after a month of leave. I eat dinner alone and playfully catch the eye of the cashier at the pay by weight vegetarian cafe. I head to the Citadel, and walk the same walls, and sit in the same spot, but everything is different now, 4 months later. The memories encompass so many things. Quebec City, Saint-Jean, Kingston, the home of my dear friends where they let me a room so I could come visit the girl on weekends while she was at school, anxiously driving 4 hours through Montreal traffic every Friday to come see her. Passionate sex and waking up wrapped around her tiny frame, and dressing up for my friends wedding, and talking about getting married ourselves one day, and shopping for a ring, and everything turning sour, and sitting on a cold park bench with the waves crashing up on the shore with my arm around her but my heart hardening against what she's just told me, and then the end.

And to this day I love the French, because they remind me of Quebec City. And to this day, I still can't go back to Quebec City. But I want to. I want to blast through Riviere-de-Loup, through the shortcut we learned when the police escorted us through the first time we got lost on the move to Gagetown, then scream 3 hours down the highway, across the bridge, back to the old city, and I want to live weeks there, then head back to Montreal, and eat delicious omelettes in the Jewish quarter with my good friends then head back to another week of learning French, then go back further to the first weekend of leave from basic training, and partying and just trying to be a person again with 40 strangers who were suddenly my entire world, then keep going back, to before it all started, to Ottawa, and taking things for granted, and going home with girls from Thursday night at Barrymore’s, and back to dating dozens of girls in a few months, but never for more than few weeks, then to the big ex, to 2 years of mediocrity I will forever remember as the best years of my life, to her beautiful pale body and her soft pink bra in the bright lights of my bedroom the first time we had sex, the first time I had sex, on top of the sheets, as she smiled at me and looked into my eyes...

And when I open my eyes I'm still there, lying, legs locked in a circle with my 39 fellow soldiers, my machine gun pointed out towards an imaginary enemy, still on patrol.

24 hours back

Backbrief.
Go to the Canadian Museum of Civillization, I think around the 3rd floor, the walking tour through Canadian history. Stand in one of the outdoor areas, maybe the French Canadian village, or by the creepy tent filled with pioneers giving birth. Listen to the looped, pre-recorded ambience of birds and wildlife. You can also hear it at the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Niagara Falls, the disappearing man exhibit. Or check your nearest local outdoorsy museum. Not the Biodome in Montreal though, because that's probably real birds. Or parakeets, or parots. I can't tell a sparrow from Tucan Sam, frankly, but you get the idea. It's definently not the penguins though.

Sentry Shift.
This morning I sat and listened to the forest wake up, the birds and the bugs, the sun creeping up to the horizon, climbing the ridgelines and forests. I breathed in the moist morning air while cleaning my weapon, generously oiling it to keep the rust back, a never ending battle in anything but an August drought. Around me 38 of my friends slept, some out in the open, tucked into old sleeping bags wrapped in top of the line bivy bags, clenched up tight against mosquitoes, just bug bitten lips and noses sticking out into the night. Others slept under low lean-tos and hooches strung between trees, shared for warm or curled tight around their bodies, just enough to keep rain out of their boots and mouths. My friend Jake sat next to me, shaving with a canteen cup and a pocket stove.

Patrolling.
The rest of the day, and all the day before, we lay in the rain, pressed low to the ground, looking over rifles, machine guns, recoiless rifles, grenade launchers, legs crossed over each other's in a tight circle, lying in hiding from an imaginary enemy, fighting nothing but hypothermia, boredom, and sloppy drills. Cold can be dealt with, and wet is tolerable, but when you're cold and wet it takes a little bit more to keep your head in the game, to do your job, to write your orders, to effectively lead troops. So you learn when and where you can turn off your brain and just push on with your body.

Regrets.
By now I've slept with every girl I've ever had a crush on a thousand times over in my mind. I've written my combat estimates remembering the little quirks of those that I really did sleep with. I get distracted from my mission analysis day-dreaming of kissing the eyelids of sleeping beauties from the past, a long history of beautiful women and poor decision making on my part. I try to wargame my courses of action while trying to account for all the false starts and misteps that led me to this point, lying in the mud, trying to keep my map sheets dry, trying to my commander's intent and my operational tasking into a succinct mission statement, single and undersexed despite literally dozens of amazing opportunities all carelessly wasted.

Planning.
At the end of the week, Saturday to be exact, we're back in. I've watched animals pick apart rucksacks. I've watched squirrels pry apart pull taps and crows open zippers. I've seen an entire platoon's food stolen from their packs and tossed in a half eaten mess over an entire patrol base. I've been bitten at least 46 times by mosquitoes. I've snuck back through the woods to avoid an errant bear and her cubs. I've eaten a sausage and hashbrowns raton pack every meal for days on end. And then we're back and everything is in the past and everything is amazing. I just want to see humanity, to talk to people, to anyone, to buy things, food and random movies, standard items of society. And I don't want to sleep, ever, because 24 hours later, I'm boarding a truck right back, with a new load of food, water, and ammo, and the mud scrubbed off my frag vest. And I'm planning ahead, with old pictures and journal entries and anything I can find, stocking up the nostalgia and regret to keep me going for another week in the woods, lying in the rain, reminding myself all the time why backwards is never an option, but why backwards must always inform forwards.

Between Courses

She walks into the room and two thoughts come into my head at once; I want to fall in love with her, and I’m embarrassed by my ridiculous haircut. Sitting on a couch watching DVDs of old cult Saturday morning kids shows, trying to make a good impression looking like a cop sticking out like a sore thumb in the midst of skinny, shaggy haired, bearded scenster types. She isn’t classically beautiful, she isn’t even specifically pretty. But she is cute and something about her strikes me and it doesn’t hurt that I am fresh from digging trenches and patrolling through swamps and giddy from the return to world, if only for a brief week of leave. I’m suddenly self conscious, but try to hold onto my confidence; that I can strap live grenades to my body and crawl through the dirt but my heart skips beats if I stand too close, close enough that I can smell a woman, is the result of coming on two years of insanity that isolate us so thoroughly from the people for whom we sacrifice a normal life. But things are ok, after all, charm comes easily to a man with nothing to lose and a plane ticket in his pocket.

And we all go out to the bars, we all dance, and I stare at her when she’s not looking, at the lines of her neck, her back, all the parts of a woman you begin to appreciate sitting in a shell scrape with your best friend at 3 am, shivering through the freezing rain trying to stay awake telling the same old stories of conquest and loss that have kept each other awake and depressed for months and months of training. And it isn’t about sex. It’s about trying to catch a glimpse, trying to seize and hold a tiny moment of normality for as long as you can. It’s about living in a bunk bed for two years of your life and spending every second with your coworkers until you can draw all the scars on their bodies, and all the scars on their souls. I don’t want to sleep with her, I want to hold her, to hug her, to love her, to wake up next to her late in the morning, to have no idea where I am, as long as it isn’t the barracks. But it’s not going to happen. The travelling soldier routine doesn’t work much with the kind of girls you want to be with anyways, or maybe I just don’t have any game anymore. But when my friends decide to leave and she decides to stay, I tell her goodbye and lean in and whisper to her that since I’ll never see her again I can tell her that I think she’s the most beautiful girl there tonight.

And it’s ok, because I shouldn’t have, but it was liberating to say it, to voice the truth at least, to not have to carry any thoughts with me that will remain unsaid forever. But it doesn’t make me feel any better. I’ve been gone long enough now that nostalgia and homesickness, if not even for a place but maybe a lifestyle, have eroded the sense of purpose that made me sign on the dotted line in the first place. At least there is pizza, and two slices and 15 minutes on foot later I am sitting in my friend’s kitchen with my best friend and another acquaintance. So I drink water and check my e-mail while they have another drink and talk. And he tells her a story, about her, about the girl who walked into the apartment and stole my attention for the rest of the night. He tells her how they hung out the other day, how through a combination of booze and drugs they ended up in bed together, how he accidentally slept with her and regrets it because he didn’t feel like it. And maybe that was there I began to remember why I gave up so much. How a young man of 20 can regret sleeping with a beautiful woman, I don’t understand it. I’d sell my soul for a fixed address, let alone a warm body to wake up next to every now and then; but he has everything I want and to him it’s nothing but baggage.

And for a brief second, yes, I feel like beating some sense into him. To these boys who never grow up into men and play video games of my job all day, while taking for granted all the fantastic things in their lives, and the fantastic people, and the women, while I’m stuck doing the job for real in the middle of nowhere, living in a sleeping bag with a rifle and my full fighting order at arms reach, but precious little else. But I know for sure that nothing lasts forever, and one day I will get out of the field and the barracks and have a chance to grasp at the same straws. And unlike this guy, or my friends, or my father, or any one of a million assholes in the world who will never realize the value of what they have, I’ll never take anything I have for granted.

Doubts

It's the last week of course and I'm at a loss as to where the previous 10 weeks went. But that's how it always seems to go on course, you lose your entire life to it, and then you wake up on the other side with a bunch of stories and some new skills but no real appreciation of what just happened to that little sliver of your life. This course is no exception.

SO I threw hand grenades and I fired machine guns and I ran ranges and I lead patrols and I dug out and built a battle trench and lived in the stupid thing for 9 days taking turns sleeping in the covered protection with my fireteam partner and burned a hundred or so little tea lights for warmth and I taught classes and ran far too much and rucked a little too long and hurt myself in more places than I'm ever going to admit or seek medical attention for. And of course I was inspected and succeeded and failed and did pushups and marked time and all the other standard bullshit of courses. But I didn't care, and I never worried, and I started to feel comfortable in command and never be at a loss for what to do.

And now I'm hanging around avoiding sleeping, avoiding the start of the last week of courses. All courses wind down in the last week with administration, dotting the last Is and crossing the last Ts of paperwork, signing course reports, returning kit, etc. No one really cares anymore, the staff even less than the candidates, because for all intends and purposes its over. I've learned what I was required to learn, past all the tests, met the standards. Anything past this has no training value. They can punish us all they want, but no one cares and there's no training value. By now we've all perfected the art of shutting down. I can stand there or kneel there or mark time or do pushups till infinity, but I'm not really there. My enthusiasm for the army has waned dramatically since I began, and my anxiety has all but disappeared. I understand the rules of the game now, because for almost a year and a half now, the game has been my life.

But that's just what is distressing me now, when I should be enjoying what little opporunity I have to relax. Course ends on Friday, and we're graciously enjoying a week off before we start our next course. Recovery and recuperation are luxuries that we don't have time for, hell, we're too tough, this is the infantry, we're infantry officers, we're tough beyond physical constraints, we only know the job, we only stop when the mission is accomplished - and our mission, to become trained, useful, deployable members of the Canadian Forces, is far from achieved.

Well, fuck that. A year ago, I wanted nothing more than to learn my job and go overseas, and do my part for my country. Today? I want to have a fucking life, for once, I want a real life. Not a fantasy life measured out in 48 hour weekend leaves between 5 days of reality. No, I want the real thing. I want to wake up and go to work, not wake up there already. I want to go home at the end of the day, I want to live somewhere, have personal effects, cook for myself, hell, I want to come home to someone. I want to stop hurting people because I think I can be someone or something for them, that I can sustain the energy I can put into a weekend over a real relationship when there is no way I can. Or maybe I just don't want to wake up every morning staring into the plywood floor of the top bunk, or sleep in my PT gear, or eat anymore artifical scrambled eggs at the mess.

Or maybe I've just been a transient, untrained, useless junior officer for so long that I forget what it's like to have a place in the world, and definently, I just don't know who I am anymore. And I don't even need to know who I am. I just want to do my job, or I want out.

Surprises

The problem with unexpected things is that you never know how to react, because of course, you never expected to be in that situation in the first place. And I know that sounds pretty obvious, but for the most part I don’t think anyone is ever really surprised past a certain point in their lives, a given age, or accumulation of experience. Everyone resorts to standard operating procedures to reduce any bizarre occurrence to its basic, previously experienced themes. But every now and then, we are taken completely off guard. These are the kinds of events that get you killed, or in day to day situations, confused, hurt, angry, frustrated, surprised, etc. In the military, just about everything you could ever expect has been thought of, planned out, war-gamed, adjusted, demoed, exercised, and written down. There is almost nothing for which a clear and concrete doctrine is not published, outlining in exact detail the standard reaction which you are to follow.

Weapon drills are the earliest building block of this kind of thinking that soldiers are exposed to. The core of any military force is the individual soldier and his service battle rifle. With this standard arm, the soldier can defeat the enemy and defend himself, and given this importance he must know the weapon intimately and be able to expertly operate it in under any conditions, most commonly the stress and confusion of battle, and quickly remedy any stoppage that occurs. When a soldier’s rifle ceases to function the enemy stops dying and his comrades begin to. Only a few weeks into basic training, when recruits can still barely dress themselves correctly, they begin to have the drills for the service rifle beaten into their heads. Failing the handling test is possibly the surest and simplest way to cease being a soldier and end up back on the streets selling pencils. Everyone remembers the call of the instructor, “Weapon fires, weapon stops!” and the immediate, unconscious canting of the rifle left to verify the position of the bolt.

This training continues with each new weapon system that is introduced to a soldier, so that reactions become completely automatic and that nothing short of a catastrophic failure can take the soldier and his weapon out of the fight.

And frankly, I think it’s a failure of both society and the public education system that we as people don’t receive this kind of training. How many times have you caught yourself or your friends lamenting indecisively over some difficult situation; a break-up, unemployment, depression, existential crisis, etc, and you just wanted to scream at yourself, or them, and get on with your life. It should be that easy, we should all snap to attention, analyze the situation, and react appropriately; feel sad for a week, go out to a bar, meet new member of opposite sex, bang! print resumes, hit street, find work, bang! start working out, switch up your routine, smile, bang! read a lot of Camus and Sartre, realize those old French bastards didn't know anything more about the world than you do, take a trip, get the fuck over it, bang!

But I suppose that would take all the fun out of life, not to mention all the fear, grief, frustration, and other amazing emotions that really are the core food groups of the human soul. Now I like to think that I have seen and experienced a lot of weird stuff, and that I’m pretty well rounded and capable, at least in that I can usually sort myself out whenever I encounter a new weird experience and keep moving on, but I learned this weekend that I really have no fucking clue how to react when you run into a stripper who is the spitting image of a girl you once seriously considered marrying, at the single, ridiculous, hidden away secret strip club in Fredericton that your buddies tricked you into going to.

So, that was pretty much the weekend. I have to be up for PT in a few hours, but I’m not sleepy and just lying on my bunk. I can’t help but laugh that the first time I ever went to a strip club it was by trickery, and that in the middle of this nasty place filled with hideous people, the one good looking employee was a startling and gorgeous clone of the last girl I dated. The world is a strange place, and thank gawd, because otherwise what the hell would we have to talk about on Monday?

We may be lonely but at least we’re laughing out here.

Boredom, Bunkbeds, and the Training System

Mail isn't a common thing these days in the military. Some people get lots of letters, but for the most part, e-mail and texting and telephones has taken over. Packages are still a thrill for everyone, but again, most of the time it's things we've ordered for ourselves. Shopping in the wonderful village of Oromocto is limited to groceries and the Canadian Tire. The single mall in Fredericton isn't much better, especially when the average infantry officer's tastes run to $20 socks and an ever increasing range of both strange and common place items remade in various combinations of gore-tex and camouflage. Waterproof breathable membranes are possibly the single greatest thing ever invented, after women and coffee of course, for the army.

Now I needed to get something shipped out to me (a completely unnecessary but warm and snively jacket that weighs slightly less and packs up much better than the issue equivalent) so I had to figure out my address. Which of course got me thinking, as did a customer service struggle to get my cell phone and internet access figured out for my new home in New Brunswick. I hate when you try to shop somewhere and they ask for your address, and I have to say, sorry, I don't have one. People usually roll their eyes as if through this refusal I am trying to make their underpaying job just that much more difficult. So then I offer something more specific, really specific, say, Bunk 4 (clockwise), Top, Room XYZ, Shack H#, CFB Gagetown, New Brunswick. Now, in this town that will get you a pizza delivered, but not a bill.

Thankfully everything was resolved and now my roommates and I can both order in food or socks, and access the internet without driving over to the not quite worth it coffee shop that is the only game in town for wi-fi. We've settled in here now, into this barren, wind-swept land where neat rows upon rows of young saplings grow to repent for someones idiotic decision to cut down all the trees on base, and where the morning gusts freeze our sweat to our faces as we run PT. Of course, 7 men in a room designed for 4 soldiers or 1 college student generates a fair bit of heat so we sleep warmly, wrapped in our camo ranger blankets, weening ourselves off of luxuries like sheets that must be forgotten for the year to come.

Now, the holidays are over and we have all been back to work for one or two weeks, but I can hardly call what we are doing work. Myself and most of my friends are members of the 72 strong and holding Infantry School Support Company, also known as PAT Platoon, also known as holding platoon, also known as 69 bored men and 3 bored women waiting desperately to go back on courses where they will hate every minute of their lives but at least be moving forwards, or some direction vaguely approximate. Here is our daily schedule:

6:00 AM: Wake up to 4 beeping watch alarms. 4/7 roommates jump out of bed, having worn their PT gear to sleep, drag on running tights, shoes, and hoodies, smash into every other bunk or chair in the room, and drag themselves out into the bright never-dimming lights of the hallway miraculously without waking the remaining 3 who get to sleep for another hour.

6:15 AM: Breakfast. Scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, either too much or not enough bacon. Fibre cereal with mango yogurt. Soy Milk, apple juice, coffee. Usually two coffees. We eat quick and then drag out the coffee to let our stomachs settle.

7:20 AM: Form up in the Infantry School building for PT. The trip from the mess to here being the coldest, most underdressed, and difficult part of the day, all 3 minutes of it. Run 5 KM fast, or 5KM at pace with pushups, or 8KM under pace, depending on the Captain's mood.

8:30 AM: Back in the shacks, shower, get dressed, lye on bunk, nap or read a book.

10:00 AM: Show up to the LAV hanger, stand around, gawk at veh techs working on the giant 8-wheeled armored vehicles, dream of commanding them one day. Hang around for 6 minute meeting.

10:15 AM 11:30 AM: Lye on bunk, think about lunch.

12:30 PM 01:55 PM: Lye on bunk, think about dinner, share pictures of ex-girlfriends with other roommates on facebook.

02:00 PM: 4 minute afternoon meeting. Nothing to do with you.

02:15 PM: Day officially over. Go to the gym to kill time. Fail.

So basically, I work for around 10 minutes a day, and exercise for 2 to 3 hours. The rest I mostly spend puttering around the shacks, trying to maximize the efficiency of my 7 cubic feet of personal space. Or watching movies, or nodding at my best friends across the room, because we've run out of things to say but at least we are together. Or planning which cougar bar we will go to on friday night, depending on if people are trying to go home with some girl or if we just want to have a chaotic night of east-coast lunacy. Either way.

Course starts again on February 11th. Hemmingway wrote that in war "we burn the fat off our souls." Well, waiting to go to war is where we pack those pounds on, and it is a sad irony that every day I train and improve my physical body that much more, but that every day, I lose another small piece of myself out here in the middle of nowhere, thinking of people 2 provinces, and yet a universe away.

Here's to a good soup in the mess tomorrow. I'm hoping for cream of broccoli.