We left the camp, toting huge overstuffed bags with items of varying shades of green. First thing we did was to head to a Starbucks (“what’s your name?” “Call me ORD LO.” didn’t turn out so well after all)
I was devastated for the few nights leading up to the big 030315, sinking my attention into work like sweeping the parade square and ordering people
to load stores onto tonners to distract myself from the eventuality.
Anyone can be a hypocrite; obviously I hated it in BMT (and the first half of NS) when every commander was tyrannical and every day was nothing but sweat, sun and aches all over. (I asked my then-sergeant once “do the aches ever go away” and he looked really sad as he had no answer) But at the end of it all, we’ve all been in this depressing pit in the ground for a year and 8 months and that’s gotta mean something.
Cookhouse food that got better after we returned from Seletar, and even better still after we returned from Thailand; the evening after the CO COC when there was a freeflow of beer and everyone got drunk; that time we kiwied the parade square on all the dirt-stained spots, and the retard of a sergeant had to dismiss us when he realised that rain would fix that problem way better than a different shade of black would.
That time I joined you in training and we ran past all the Concertina wire, you yelling encouragements while I felt simply infinite.
And that other time we sat at the pull-up bars one Sunday evening, talking the night away as the others booked in at more sensible timings.
And perhaps when I saw you alone in the corner, and asked, “Hey, would you kind of want to keep in touch? After all this?” I never really expected you to smile or even say yes, because… I’ve this thing with my confidence.
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