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.