Training and guarding

On a week that was supposed to be brutal because our company was guarding the base, it turned out not to be that bad for me. There are a number of guard posts on the base and from Thursday to Thursday all we did was guard duty. When we weren't doing guard duty they had us doing other nonsense for the sole purpose of keeping us busy. Off the bat, I missed half the week of guard duty because I went home for the weekend. When I got back Sunday afternoon they told me i was going to the field for 2 days to do the tank exercises that I didn't do last week because we ran out of time.
Monday was spent on the tank all day which was fantastic except for the fact that had a splitting headache and my stomach was killing me - I think it was something I ate the day before. By the end of the next day I felt fine, but it was a shame that the one day I felt like crap I actually had to work hard. I would have also enjoyed myself a lot more if I didn't feel so bad. The first "act" we did was to make a 60 ton tank disappear in under 3 minutes. We practiced camouflaging the tank - it works so well that when the tarp is on the tank its easy to step somewhere where there is a hole and injure yourself even though I know where everything is.
The next thing we did was to practice leaving the tank on foot. This was fun because for the loader, instead of taking my M16 I get to take the MAG! Unfortunately we didn't get to practice this drill with ammo, however it was still fun. The last thing we practiced was the most fun but also most complex and difficult thing to do quickly. The exercise simulates what you have to do if one of the links in the tank tread breaks causing the tank to be stranded and stationary. Basically what we (commander, loader, and gunner) have to do is get out and fix it. We have to spread out the entire track on the ground, replace whatever is broken and re-wrap the tread around the wheels. This procedure involves lots of hammering (with a 5kg hammer) and a tug-of-war. We ended up doing this 2 times - with the goal being 13 minutes - the first time in 23 then 28 (because the stupid pin wouldn't budge) and the last time we did it in 16 minutes which so far was the best time in the company.

On Tuesday it was back to base to join everyone in guarding. Our living conditions were brutal. There is a centralized room for the people who are guarding the base, and we all slept in one room. There were 16 bunk beds (36 beds) in the room and you physically could not fit another bed into the room. In addition to that with all our bags and vests you could not see the floor and everyone was stepping on everyone's stuff. We could barely open the door to the room because of all the stuff blocking the way. On top of that we were more than 32 people doing guard duty so nobody had their own bed - when the people woke up to do guard duty the guys that just finished guarding picked an empty bed to sleep in. So since I was one of the 'new guys' who was just starting to do guard duty on the Tuesday I was obviously given the worst shift - midnight-3AM. On Wednesday I was put to work instead of guard duty. From 8AM-11PM I was working for the Rasag, which means a bit of picking up garbage, sweeping, gardening, inventory, cleaning, and a LOT of nothing. It wasn't that bad because I didn't have the stress and paranoia that comes with doing lots of guard duty and the thought of ending up breaking the rules and getting caught. The difficulty is that no matter what, the second you start guard duty you instantly become completely exhausted and feel the need to sit down. If you've just eaten you become starving and need to eat. If you've just gone to the washroom you immediately need to go again. You also feel the immediate urge to talk to someone on the phone. All of these things I just described are breaking the rules. So the best part of working for the Rasag until 11PM was that they moved my guard duty shift from midnight until 6AM, so I could get a COMPLETE night's sleep!!! The funniest part of the week was that in a week that was supposed to be filled with guard duty I ended up doing more guard duty on Thursday (7 hours) than I did the entire rest of the week!!!