1. The first week.
'Smash week' it's called, and that's a fairly accurate description of it really. Every morning at 6am the drill sergeant would walk down the hall way and scream out 'Revelli Revelli Revelli!!!' And god help you if you don't wake up instantly and scream it back to him whilst pulling out your bottom sheet, tossing it over your shoulder and sprinting into the hallway to stand at attention. From there you have 15minutes to make your bed (perfectly!!! Corners tucked in at 45° angles!!!) Get dressed and be ready to start the day. Days which would consist of hours and hours of marching practise, PT sessions which made people hyperventilate and throw up, and best of all; Impossible timings.'Right. All 130 of you have 6 minutes to go up three floors, get your shower stuff, come back down here, shower, go back up and get dressed and then back down here and lined up outside for our next class. Go.'
I legitimately had 15 second cold showers that week and in my rush to print my name on my PT shirt I accidently wrote it as 'ELYNN' which made the staff laugh. However they told me a cadet last year had done the same thing and dubbed himself 'MONG'. So...it could have been worse I suppose. After smash week finished we were relocated to Majura where we met the rest of our boot camp staff and continued the next 6 weeks of Initial Cadet Training.2. The people.
The people I've met here have been amazing. There's one man who hid notes all over the house for his wife to find progressively over the weeks that he was away. There's another guy who just can't help himself and HAS to make at least one stupid joke or pun per day (what's the difference between roast beef and pea soup? - anyone can roast beef!) The girls who all look out for one another; who give each other massages and head rubs and plan waxing and cocktail parties - much to the envy of the guys and the disgust of the sergeants. Some of the sergeants are amazing too. They're all very proffessional and continuously in 'Sergeant mode' but every now and then something will happen and you'll see them try to hide a smile. For example, we had to pass a series of shooting continums which went over 2 weeks. I went just fine in all of them except the last one which I had to redo ten times before I finally passed it. As I came running down the hill to record my score the sergeant at the bay looked up and said. "I don't even need to ask if you passed Glynn. Just get that rediculous, goofy smile off your face". The same sergeant called me out just last week too. He goes "I've figured you out Glynn" and I was like "uhoh. What have you figured out Sergeant?". He said "You're the social hub of the cadets. Wherever you are people are always talking loudly and laughing" he gave me quite a reproachful look the said "not necessarily a bad thing I suppose but not always really a good thing here either".
3. The psychosis.
It gets to you after a little while. The Army gets into your head and under your skin and you start having crazy dreams and doing crazy things. I am no exception. There have been some great stories though. Not mentioning any names, one of my friends here routinely woke me up every night for a week by pulling on her clothing at 2am whispering frantically "hurry up! Hurry up! The sergeants are coming!". She also used to catch herself sleep walking, once standing beside the bedpost at attention waiting for orders. I did it too. I had a vivid dream that a sergeant was yelling at me 'get on your guts!!! Hurry up!!!" And when I woke up I was facing the wrong way on the bed, perched over the edge, holding an imaginary rifle. Just recently when we were out field I dreamt so realistically that a sergeant had told me to go wake everyone up and put them all on sentry at 2am that I was halfway out of my sleeping bag about to do it when I took a moment to stop and really try to work out what had been reality. It was a bit nuts. Lucky for everyone in my group I figured out it had been a dream.
4. The jargon.
God it makes me laugh when we go out as a group and people are speaking 'army'. Things like giving out drunken target indications.
'300m, my axis of advance, one McDonalds, rate of advance - 3 metres per second'
We text each other using correct radio procedure too. I was trying to meet up with a friend at a bar and legitimately got this text.
'Diamond formation. Patrolling, then single file into the harbour position. Correct drill necessary, complete silence and clearing patrol to be conducted".
5. The random moments.
In a world which is so structured and so orderly, you find you live for the random and unpredictable moments.
A friend of mine was preparing to do piquet for the evening (guard patrol) and she was rugging up in layers because it was freezing cold outside. The final additions to her ensemble was to pull a skintight silk beanie over her head which made her look like a skull. Then she put her balaclava over that - so that only her eyes were visible, and finally she put the head harness rig on that we had to wear every night when patrolling. She looked absolutely ridiculous and it was just as we were all laughing at her that one of the sergeants came bursting into the room to give her instructions for the night. He was halfway through his first sentence when he registered what he was talking to. He stopped dead, tried for a second to get back on topic with what he'd been saying, then threw his hands in the air and walked out saying 'I just can't. I can't have a conversation with that. Nope'.
Overall it's been uniquely the hardest and best thing I've done. I'm literally learning something every single day and the people I'm doing it with make all the difference. They're all good, smart, intelligent, witty and hard working people. Despite the fact that some days have really just been absolutely awful someone at some point during that day has made me laugh.
