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.