It's two weeks left until discharge (jesus fuck, we're all looking forward to it so much). The last week is "discharge week", full of waiting, bullshit, more waiting, handing in our kit, hearing tests, waiting and more bullshit. The week before that is exercise YMER, a large exercise with the entire Royal Guard. The week that just passed was "prep YMER", a preparatory exercise. Why we always have an exercise to prepare for exercise is beyond me, but it gives us extra field days on our records. So the week started out rainy, but the rain cleared up after lunch on Tuesday and left us to a world of sun. The days were spent sunbathing when not on 5-minute trauma alert. We had the most wonderful alert times too, eight to eleven twice a day. Last exercise we were two until five, so we got no quality sleep at all. So there was sun (only sporadic rain), heat, and plenty of sleep. It was SO WONDERFUL! To top it all off, all our cases were completed with little or no hitches, and we got more than our share of praise. The days and evenings were busy, filled with case training and other driving. At around eleven thirty tuesday evening we were called to give some patients "further transport" (in effect, drive them back to their own tent camp). The drive out to Venneråsen was about 15km long, and so lovely on the country roads. Despite being midnight, you could have read a book in the light. Funnily enough, we passed a moose calf standing RIGHT by the side of the road. 200 metres down the road, there was a sign warning that there was danger of moose. I called up our companion car, Echo 2, on the radio, saying that we had just observed a moose and warning them to keep their eyes open. The unit commander of that car, the lovely Mahle, later told me he and the driver had at that moment been discussing what would happen if they met a moose, going all "oh, we'd probably die", and his blood had run cold when I called him up. Funnily enough they hadn't seen the moose on the side of the road. Scary!
Being far away from 5 Mike, our commander, we sped along the darkish trails, climbing hills and taking in the view. All in all it was a lovely drive. On the way back we decided to go on a
BMP, "Bamsemumspatrulje". The word would translate to something like "gummy bear patrol". Sadly however, all the petrol stations were closed at 1:AM and we had to go back empty-handed. The BMP led to one of this exercise's ROFL moments, when Echo 2 stepped on the gas without checking that they had Olsen, their medic, in the back. He performed a spectacular save, jumping up into the ambulance backwards. (For the record, that treatment compartment is high, high up from the ground) Selvåg, my driver, told me inbetween laughs that Olsen was getting good at these things - Echo 2 would so often forget him.
We were woken at 3:40AM Wednesday to go out case solving. We had a reported two casualties, and an out-of-bounds road because of high danger of mines. All four ambulances were sent out. Once there, of course we went into contact and immediately took two more casualties. We had only two stretchers and needed to get the hell out, so it was field casevac time. The case went more or less to hell. Our drills were lacking. Of course four casualties meant that our original number of ten (two drivers left in the vehicles to man the radio) reduced us to two able fighters. When one "able" fighter was smart enough to venture out onto the road and was immediately told he had lost both his legs, I'm not entirely sure it was right to give us stick about our road drill being lacking. It's not easy to perform a good retreat when you're alone! On a positive note, we were praised highly for all having been out of our sleeping bags and ready to depart camp in eight minutes flat. That is NOT bad at four in the morning.
One back in our tent camp again, we were tired and angry about having been woken up for a case that went batshit. But with the sun up and shining, and field rations eaten, the mood quickly lightened. I spent the day on creative writing in my notebook while listening to the radio on my cell phone. Lovely!
Here's something that struck me that I wrote down:
In our situation, equipped with cars, when we need something we've always got SOMETHING with us, though it may be intended for something else. Q-tips, for instance. I have them in my backpack, in my weapons cleaning set. They're meant to clean the trickier parts of my HK. But if I ever need to clean my ears, they'll serve that purpose.
During our "time inside", I've established a routine for things I bring out into my field that aren't on the packing list. The thing I obviously can't do without is a good supply of ibuprofen and paracetamol. Then there's intimservietter. I don't know what they're called in English, but they make a world of difference to a girl. I usually don't go on exercise without Leo, my little stuffed lizard, though this week he had to stay behind because of all the rain. He'll come with me next week. I like to have my little pen-format spray bottle of Antibac for cleaning. I also bring with me a good hand lotion because when handling the multifuel tent oven for extended periods of time, the F-34 dries out your hands and gives you what we call "field fingers". Your hands go black in all the nooks and crannies, underneath your nails, your cuticles become a complete bleeding mess, and your hands crack. So hand cream, though it can't solve the problem entirely, helps.
On the subject of F-34, the smell of that fuel will forever stick with me. It is so ingrained in me now that I don't ever think I'll be able to forget it. I came home from exercise once this winter, tired, dirty, wearing my field uniform and smelling, as I called it, "of field and exercise". My mum, who has spent many hours in F-16s which run on the same fuel, immediately commented that I stank of F-34. I didn't until then make the connection that F-34 is the smell that I associate with field. That and the smell of the rotting textiles the Army has issued us with. That smell comes out when things get wet and dank, and the moment I sense that smell (especially when combined with the smell of forest floor) I am immediately transported back to our training school days at Terningmoen - or Gærningmoen as we like to call it.
On Wednesday we arrived back in camp after a case to see Sergeant Scholz of KDO in our camp. The Command Post platoon had set up camp right beside us - we go hand in hand - so it was no surprise to see him there. But Selvåg and I were commenting on how much of a machine he looked. Scholz is very, very tall, and quite good-looking. Standing beside one of the drivers of the Evac team, he looked like a train. I was laughing, commenting on how small our driver looked, though in reality he's quite tall. He came up to us and asked if we had any FR's to trade or sell. He wanted pasta bolognaise and had chicken curry to bargain with. Selvåg happened to have pasta bolognaise and loves chicken curry, so we had a deal set immediately. While Selvåg went off to find the popular FR, I couldn't help but laugh as I reflected on how the scenario looked. It was all such an old-fashioned "I come to your trading post looking for good wares", and I loved that the sergeant had struck a deal with a private, on the same level of worth.
I really felt like this was one of the nicest exercises ever. Then, in the evening, as I was writing in Echo 3, I noticed some friends from command post walking along the road looking in the least bit conspicuous. Sure enough, they started shooting at us. I was immediately out in my position. Close-quarters defence positions are always taken when we establish camp, and I knew they would test our level of readiness. I had a very good position, but my lieutenant came over and told me I was, paradoxically enough, shot in the right foot. How she got that into her head I have no idea. The way I was lying, the only place I could have been shot was the head. But the message line went on and the team was informed. I put my tourniquet on. Despite this, corporal-you-know-who came FLYING in, screaming at me in his usual there-are-officers-present-so-I-have-to-kiss-ass tone to get my tourniquet on. I barked back that "for fuck's sake, I put my tourniquet on ages ago". He ordered me to get to safety, and I sarcastically asked him how I was supposed to do that, seeing as I couldn't walk. "Crawl!" he barked. I laughed, called him a twat, and was off, through a 20-cm deep ditch of water, crawling through the wet and rotten forest floor, and back towards camp. I was moving quickly, but slowed down for a moment as I suddenly realised I was surrounded by the deep, all-consuming and RANK smell of piss. I was ticked off. I had to get through it, so off I went, finally rolling over and ending up in a dug-out square about 20 cm deep, giving me some cover. It didn't take long to surface that I was lying in a spider nest. Lovely. I was lying at the feet of two sergeants, my second-lieutenant and the lieutenant who had "shot" me, and they were laughing and joking while watching the firefight. I was so pissed off. My lieutenant informed me that it was only about a hundred metres to the aid post. I was so pissed off at her ridiculous suggestion that all I could do was laugh. Thankfully, someone ordered someone to help me, and I limped off to the aid post.
I was pissed off that the lieutenant picked me to be shot, as I had one of the best positions with the least chance of that happening. All in all though, it was a very nice exercise, and this post is far too long already, so I think I'll end it off there.
