Eleven days in the forest can give you such a stink in the clothes! (Hands up who knows which kids movie quote I just minced.)
So... er...... Forest. It's bit, it's full of trees, and the assholes in charge of us succeeded in finding the only stretch of land in Estonia that is NOT flat. There were so many hills in such a small piece of land, that I have absolutely no idea how it's possible. Of course, running around in full gear over said hills is...... not exactly my idea of fun. :P
So, what did we do in the forest? Here we go!
Camoflauge
The very first thing we did/got was a stick of two tone camo (green and black) and we had to paste it on, thicker than the thickest make up you will ever see. On top of that, we assaulted a bunch of fir trees, taking their branches and putting them on our gear, to mask the outlines, making us a small forest of moving trees, because seeing 40 fir trees stand up and walk in single file through the forest is not suspicious at all. I didn't like the way the needles just kept on poking. :P
Tents
For the really cold and wet nights, we have the half-platoon tent, which fits 20 men. Of course, fitting here is pretty much the same way factories fit sardines in cans. Oh, yeah. That elbow room. That elbow room. Oh, and right in the middle of the tent is a beautiful little oven, to drive the moisture and cold out. Now, does anyone see a problem with fitting people like sardines around a red-hot (not joking, by the way) oven? No? Oh, OK. It's cool then.Oh, what? Someone has to watch the oven all night? Oh, OK. So let's just shave off an hour or two of sleep and add a red-hot oven into the mix I think I'm perfectly fine with that. :)
Trekking
Don't even get me started. Did I mention the hills? They were more like cliffs and mountains I had to climb over. IN GEAR. After all this, I had better be able to carry two or three younger cousins and siblings on my shoulders all at once for an hour or two. If not, I'm asking for my money back (no, I didn't pay money for it, so there's no money to ask for). Shameless plug incoming: I can't say how much the 10 Snickers bars saved my life. Those things were my emergency fuel because we all know that 24h survival rations are not exactly brimming with calories and energy. Don't get me wrong, they get most of the job done, I wasn't simply living off of Snickers bars, but the bars certainly picked up where the rations couldn't go any further. From here on in, I hereby ADORE Snickers bars.
Orienteering
Hey dawg, I learned you like getting lost in the forest. So let's get lost in the forest while we're lost in the forest! :D :P
Oh, and to make it interesting, let's do it at night, so that you get no sleep, it's pitch black and.... Oh, I know! Patrols that you should avoid. Oh, and you're not allowed to use lights. Now GO!
I need to eat more carrots. :P And work on my stealth.
Patrolling and guarding posts
It would be a shame if some annoying "spy" entered the camp while we sleep, so..... Let's set up guard posts on all the entry points and an all-night patrol. What's that? There's no enemy and therefore no spies? NONSENSE! An extra hour patrolling for you! (no, that didn't happen. :) )
Because it's obvious tat we were getting too much sleep (6-7 hours? Preposterous! You don't need that much sleep!), we had to patrol and/or guard posts in hourly shifts. If you were really unlucky, you got a full-day shift guarding the roads heading to the shooting range, so that no silly civilians got caught in the hail of bullets. I mean, just because it's the Central Polygon of the Estonian Defence Forces doesn't mean that civilians don't see it as their right to enter.
Wake-up calls and Morning Excercises
I hereby love my alarm clock, for it doesn't demolish my tent to wake me up. It also doesn't throw grenades into my tent to wake me up. Neither does it throw more grenades into the middle of the mess of tents to wake everyone else up. And to top off the wake up, we have a wonderful surprise for you: a morning run through the forest (did I mention the mountains and cliffs?) at a speed that leaves everyone gasping for breath and wishing they were dead?
Grenades
You know the little green things that blow up in your face? Yeah, they are cool. Except when you have bosses like ours. Those guys are like little boys with toys, tossing grenades (OK, they were learner grenades, not the real deal) left right and centre.
Oh, what's that? People are not working fast enough? GRENADE! Hmmm... Wake-up calls are not working well enough? GRENADE! Oh, I'm sorry... are you bored at your post? GRENADE! Hmmm..... I see you're peacefully refilling your water bottle. I wonder...... GRENADE! Oh, what's that? You're practising your grenade throw? GRENADE!
Alarm
We were given defence positions around the perimeter. If, at any point in time the alarm were raised, we were to stop whatever we were doing (even if it was taking a crap (or killing a bear as we called it), put on our battle gear and sprint to the defence positions. Fun, yes? Did I mention the hills?
Oh, and the cause for alarm? Anything. An accidental misfire? ALARM! Someone left their weapon unattended? ALARM! Someone forgot to remove their clip from their rifle before making it "safe"? ALARM - On that topic, the idea is to take out the clip then reload. That way, the bullet currently sitting in the gun gets kicked out and as there is no clip, there are no more bullets to take. If you were an idiot and douchebag and left the clip in.... Yep. You got another bullet in the gun thus nullifying your work. Such situations always ended up with an unexpected gunshot. Not life fire, thankfully: always blanks.
The STICK
For those idiots who simply have to mess something up, you give them The Stick. More accurately, you give them a flipping huge log that they have to lug around for a day or two, just because.
These are the highlights. I know this because I left my notes on the forest camp in my other trousers and these are the things that I remembered. Despite the dripping sarcasm and what it might imply, I had lots of fun and enjoyed myself thoroughly. I might make a follow-up post expounding on something, or describing some awesome thing that happened.
So... er...... Forest. It's bit, it's full of trees, and the assholes in charge of us succeeded in finding the only stretch of land in Estonia that is NOT flat. There were so many hills in such a small piece of land, that I have absolutely no idea how it's possible. Of course, running around in full gear over said hills is...... not exactly my idea of fun. :P
So, what did we do in the forest? Here we go!
Camoflauge
The very first thing we did/got was a stick of two tone camo (green and black) and we had to paste it on, thicker than the thickest make up you will ever see. On top of that, we assaulted a bunch of fir trees, taking their branches and putting them on our gear, to mask the outlines, making us a small forest of moving trees, because seeing 40 fir trees stand up and walk in single file through the forest is not suspicious at all. I didn't like the way the needles just kept on poking. :P
Tents
For the really cold and wet nights, we have the half-platoon tent, which fits 20 men. Of course, fitting here is pretty much the same way factories fit sardines in cans. Oh, yeah. That elbow room. That elbow room. Oh, and right in the middle of the tent is a beautiful little oven, to drive the moisture and cold out. Now, does anyone see a problem with fitting people like sardines around a red-hot (not joking, by the way) oven? No? Oh, OK. It's cool then.Oh, what? Someone has to watch the oven all night? Oh, OK. So let's just shave off an hour or two of sleep and add a red-hot oven into the mix I think I'm perfectly fine with that. :)
Trekking
Don't even get me started. Did I mention the hills? They were more like cliffs and mountains I had to climb over. IN GEAR. After all this, I had better be able to carry two or three younger cousins and siblings on my shoulders all at once for an hour or two. If not, I'm asking for my money back (no, I didn't pay money for it, so there's no money to ask for). Shameless plug incoming: I can't say how much the 10 Snickers bars saved my life. Those things were my emergency fuel because we all know that 24h survival rations are not exactly brimming with calories and energy. Don't get me wrong, they get most of the job done, I wasn't simply living off of Snickers bars, but the bars certainly picked up where the rations couldn't go any further. From here on in, I hereby ADORE Snickers bars.
Orienteering
Hey dawg, I learned you like getting lost in the forest. So let's get lost in the forest while we're lost in the forest! :D :P
Oh, and to make it interesting, let's do it at night, so that you get no sleep, it's pitch black and.... Oh, I know! Patrols that you should avoid. Oh, and you're not allowed to use lights. Now GO!
I need to eat more carrots. :P And work on my stealth.
Patrolling and guarding posts
It would be a shame if some annoying "spy" entered the camp while we sleep, so..... Let's set up guard posts on all the entry points and an all-night patrol. What's that? There's no enemy and therefore no spies? NONSENSE! An extra hour patrolling for you! (no, that didn't happen. :) )
Because it's obvious tat we were getting too much sleep (6-7 hours? Preposterous! You don't need that much sleep!), we had to patrol and/or guard posts in hourly shifts. If you were really unlucky, you got a full-day shift guarding the roads heading to the shooting range, so that no silly civilians got caught in the hail of bullets. I mean, just because it's the Central Polygon of the Estonian Defence Forces doesn't mean that civilians don't see it as their right to enter.
Wake-up calls and Morning Excercises
I hereby love my alarm clock, for it doesn't demolish my tent to wake me up. It also doesn't throw grenades into my tent to wake me up. Neither does it throw more grenades into the middle of the mess of tents to wake everyone else up. And to top off the wake up, we have a wonderful surprise for you: a morning run through the forest (did I mention the mountains and cliffs?) at a speed that leaves everyone gasping for breath and wishing they were dead?
Grenades
You know the little green things that blow up in your face? Yeah, they are cool. Except when you have bosses like ours. Those guys are like little boys with toys, tossing grenades (OK, they were learner grenades, not the real deal) left right and centre.
Oh, what's that? People are not working fast enough? GRENADE! Hmmm... Wake-up calls are not working well enough? GRENADE! Oh, I'm sorry... are you bored at your post? GRENADE! Hmmm..... I see you're peacefully refilling your water bottle. I wonder...... GRENADE! Oh, what's that? You're practising your grenade throw? GRENADE!
Alarm
We were given defence positions around the perimeter. If, at any point in time the alarm were raised, we were to stop whatever we were doing (even if it was taking a crap (or killing a bear as we called it), put on our battle gear and sprint to the defence positions. Fun, yes? Did I mention the hills?
Oh, and the cause for alarm? Anything. An accidental misfire? ALARM! Someone left their weapon unattended? ALARM! Someone forgot to remove their clip from their rifle before making it "safe"? ALARM - On that topic, the idea is to take out the clip then reload. That way, the bullet currently sitting in the gun gets kicked out and as there is no clip, there are no more bullets to take. If you were an idiot and douchebag and left the clip in.... Yep. You got another bullet in the gun thus nullifying your work. Such situations always ended up with an unexpected gunshot. Not life fire, thankfully: always blanks.
The STICK
For those idiots who simply have to mess something up, you give them The Stick. More accurately, you give them a flipping huge log that they have to lug around for a day or two, just because.
These are the highlights. I know this because I left my notes on the forest camp in my other trousers and these are the things that I remembered. Despite the dripping sarcasm and what it might imply, I had lots of fun and enjoyed myself thoroughly. I might make a follow-up post expounding on something, or describing some awesome thing that happened.
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