The heading refers of course to the quote; “Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.” (1870 Longfellow poems, 1960) The army, whilst not god, does have to slowly grind through every process, however time consuming or irrelevant. Take the farcical case of my blood group. They told me to take written proof of my blood group to the assessment. They stated either written confirmation from my doctor or my blood donor card. Having neither I took my army issue I.D. from when I served in the regular army. An I.D. that the army issued me, with my blood group written on it. They wouldn’t accept it as proof of my blood group! O.K., it is twenty years old, but I’m not likely to have changed my blood group because B positive is so last season. So I went to the doctors (again) last Monday. She said my blood group was personal information and not stored on their system (!) so I had to arrange to see the nurse, again, for more bloods on Wednesday. Turned up Wednesday morning morning, the nurse said “Oh, we can’t take blood for blood groups here, you’ll have to go to the hospital.” I went home, fuming about the pointlessness of it all, and the fact the documents officer wanted this information A.S.A.P. An hour later the nurse ‘phoned me back and said “We can do your bloods here, can you come back?” So I did. Friday I got another call off the same nurse saying “Somebody has to pay for blood group testing, so they’ve not processed your sample.” In desperation I said I’d pay, so now I have to wait until tomorrow (Monday) to ring the doctors, to arrange another appointment, to have more blood taken, to pay for it, and to wait for the results to get back, then arrange to have the doctor put my blood group in writing. Then, finally, the army will know that my blood group is B positive, as they put on my I.D. card. In more positive news, I got a ‘welcome to the regiment’ pack yesterday. That was nice. It looks like I’ve got to do my basic training then a conversion course to army driving, then I’m fit to deploy. Sounds like I could be off to Afghanistan by the end of the summer, doesn’t it? But no. Even with opting for two out of the three fast track basic training courses I won’t finish my basic training until the end of September. The idea of the fast track courses is to try and put them more or less back to back, so students and the like can get it all done and dusted on their holidays. I considered doing all three of the fast track courses, but that would have meant starting training 10 –23 July (the first two courses, which I am going to do) come […]
Continue readingAuthor: Buck
What I did on my holidays.
Hi all, not posted for ages as I didn’t have anything definite to say. I was trying to get into the T.A., but had many doubts as to whether I’d make it. I have had encouraging noises from several driving agencies, but as is the law with agencies, nothing has come of it. I’ve applied for Tesco’s as a warehouseman, just to escape the crapness of my current job, not heard from that either. So nothing actually happening to blog about it. Well, nothing changing. I was still being sent to the freezer to work in these conditions; Thus engendering happiness of this order; My Kung Fu has been progressing apace. I took my first assessment and passed it, though not with any elan. Not without a bit of commitment either, for that matter; But as for any change for the better in my driving career, nada. This weekend it all changed. I had my assessment for the T.A. As I say I really doubted whether I could get in, right on the limit for age (too old in 27 days, that’s how on the limit I actually am!) medical record from last time I served stating ‘temperamentally unsuited for military service’ or words to that effect. No actual driving experience, being a codger therefore too old to meet the fitness requirements, etc. I booked some holidays (hence the title of this entry) and trotted off. Bloody hell! The first night there, me and about fifteen other lads (and they were lads, most teens and early twenties) in one room, bunk beds, army horse blankets. It was a total flashback to twenty years ago in basic training. I hated it then, and I was hating it from memory straight away. To add to my misery we were all marched (I say ‘marched’, they weren’t allowed to march us anywhere, we were put into three ranks and ‘ambled’) to the NAAFI bar. I don’t drink any more, so that was a trial in itself. Obviously I didn’t get much sleep, everyone tossing and turning, snoring, and all the kids getting texts and such on their mobiles in the middle of the night. Then, being newbies, they were getting up at 5.45, when we didn’t have to get up until 6.15. Had about three hours kip. Less than loving it on the Saturday then. From 5.45 until end of last lesson at 8pm. Bollocksed. Anyway, we did team building exercises and such and I was a lot happier by the end of the day, back in army mode. We did lots of test, and I was the second highest (that I know of) scoring person. The highest scorer was an A&E doctor, so not too shabby from me. It was all hanging on the 1½ mile run, which I had to complete in under 14 minutes. Not too harrowing. Just a matter of focusing your chi and putting one foot in front of the other. So I thought. The uncertainty lay in […]
Continue readingFinally!
..You know I’ve been trying to get into the T.A. ? The Royal Logistics Corps, to be specific. To be more specific, re-enlist, was their term. Anywho, been at that since near the end of last year. I applied, they sent me a load of forms, I returned them, they had to dig up my previous army record and get a reference off my employer. Then I heard nothing for about three months. I thought that they’d decided they’d had enough of me last time. Out of the blue, I got a ‘phone call about two weeks ago from the T.A., they said they’d faxed a reference request through to my employer in January, heard nothing so tried again in February, still no reply. Could they have a personal reference? I gave them my mate, Jo, as a referee, and went in to HR to raise merry hell. Their excuse was; as I wasn’t leaving the company they couldn’t give me a reference. Apparently they’d passed the request up and down the chain of command, and basically sat on it. Bastards. When I was first thinking this would probably be my best bet for kick starting my driving career one of the senior managers I approached about the company policy on the T.A., mentioned that if I get mobilised the government sends them a letter to force them to release me for the duration, and they have to keep paying me! Hence their wilful delaying/ blocking tactics. Bastards. They T.A. immediately contacted Jo, who did me proud (I asked her to put ‘lover of women, slayer of men, driver of trucks’) and a week later I got another call saying all was well, they’d got my records back, come for a medical assessment on the 23rd of April! Woo- hoo! This could be just right. I don’t have to risk leaving a secure job, I get experience and possibly more training in a really professional environment, and they don’t quibble over you running the natives over! Also, I get to screw my works over! Deep joy. They asked if I felt confident about the fitness side of it, having to run a mile and a half in fourteen minutes, said ‘yeah, I keep fit with martial arts’. Went out this morning for my first run in years. Previously when I’ve done stuff like that I’ve at least had a base of fitness and stamina from push-biking. I worked out a course, approximately 1.8 miles long. I have been working through a really nasty enervating cold as well, in my defence. Anyway, I set off and within the first minute I thought I was going to have to give up and collapse gasping for breath. I didn’t. I looked at the patch of dirt in front of me, tried to breathe and carried on. It took me fourteen and a half minutes. So, by my (distance) calculations I’m within tolerance. I staggered back to the car, lungs burning, spit in strings, […]
Continue readingWork.
….It’s been another rum old week. I was sent on that fork lift training course at work. That should have been a skive and another skill gained. Alas! They are having an overhaul at work. The Assistant General Manager has (jumped/pushed?) left. The General Manager’s prospects don’t seem much brighter. They are having a massive crack down on mistakes made in the picks for the stores, and time off sick and accidents. So instead of our on-site trainer taking us we had a crazed Jock! He is re-testing all the current fork lift drivers in an attempt to weed out those that might be an accident risk, and being harsh on those being trained, ie, me! Our on-site trainer gave the lads time to practice so they would be ready for the test, allegedly helped with the written part, and let one lad have ten attempts at the test until he passed it! Others have told me they failed and were told to go away and get their heads together then come back the next day. Not so with the crazy Scot! He gave us two goes at each exercise, most of the course was spent in the canteen drinking coffee whilst he went for fags, Bollocking each mistake like you were in the army (instead of pointing out how to rectify the error) no dummy run, straight in to the test. I was well on top, I’d done the hard moves. I thought I had cracked it so I started to relax. I got myself into a challenging position, managed to get myself out of it, was dead chuffed, reversed out ready for my last move….’Park up and get off the truck’. What? In my haste and relief I’d forgotten to retract the forks before I backed the truck up. FAIL! He was such a crap instructor I wasn’t that bothered. I’d already overcome the urge to beat the crap out of him after one of his screaming harangues, and after he’d threatened to cut me from the course I had started to get off the truck to go home. He stopped me, but I was ready to walk right then. In the end I was just glad to have it over and done with, either way. So that was less than fun. Yesterday at work the new AGM came and asked me how I’d failed, I told him about relaxing and being forgetful, didn’t mention the crapness of the trainer as it would have sounded like sour grapes, he said that they would put me back in for it. Then I saw the trainer again and he said that he’d told them to put me on a three day one to one course with the manager they are sending away to become a trainer. Tesco’s opening a big warehouse has scared the crap out of them, it seems. HA! Then I noticed that there was a missed call on my ‘phone. An event in itself as I don’t […]
Continue readingHelp for heroes?
Right! The time has come, I need to speak out. First and foremost, let me say that in my experience being a soldier is a shit job, done extremely well under even the most trying of conditions. The lads and lasses put their lives on the line and do their duty. I’m not about to knock that. I will start by saying; that is their job, for which they volunteered. Nobody made them enlist. The thing that distinguishes the armed services from any civvy job is that it is in your job description that you will die if so ordered. Tell a copper or fireman to stand firm in the face of certain death and he has the option to quit. It is a soldiers job to die if necessary. They are doing their job, come death or mutilation. That is not heroic, it is for that they are paid. But they are being brave, that makes them heroes! I would argue that the modus operandi of the army is to make you more afraid of your Sergeant than you are of the enemy. You are bullied into being a mindless drone, afraid to not obey an order. In the first world war the Royal Military Police were positioned in the trenches to shoot any man who didn’t go over the top. In the second world war they had conscription with jail and dishonour for anyone who wouldn’t go. I know from personal experience that even the most jaundiced of cynics would prefer the possibility of death than the certainty of a lifetime of shame with the stigma of cowardice. It was proven at the Nuremberg Trials that following orders is not an excuse for committing war crimes. Yet we have recently gone in to illegal wars. Every soldier should have refused. They did not. Nor were they ever likely to. My point is; bravery takes many forms. Killing Johnny Foreigner for his oil may well be the least brave option once you’ve taken the Queen’s Shilling. Then there is a technical point; a hero is someone who goes above and beyond the call of duty. Who does something without thought for personal danger, to serve his unit, and somewhat nebulously, his country. To call everyone in uniform a hero is to devalue the word and dishonour those who have earned the epithet. Clarkson did a piece on some chap who kept going back into battle though they tried to cas-evac him on several occasions, firing a mortar like a bazooka, bleeding from his ears, shot to shit and still fighting. That is a hero. Some desk jockey who happens to wear a uniform is not. Then there is the actual campaign, ‘Help For Heroes’. Started by the Sun. The mouthpiece of the evil Murdock. Why did they start it? To whip up patriotism and support for our boys and to stifle questioning dissent amongst the ‘screw oil concerns, let’s keep our boy’s alive’ lobby. The aim is to have […]
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