Thought you all might like to see this. I also thought it might be nice to send him some "postcards" from "home", either from the MUD on Wed, or feel free to send them to me and I will pull them together in a few days so they can be sent in a group, etc.
Eythain was around on list (I think pretty much from the start), but has been up to his eyeballs with school, etc over the past year or two. He is doing his mandatory service time in Norway. As you will see, he is not short on words at times, hence the L-3 or LLL, or ELL (Eythain Lazh like Length or some such) Dee ******************************** Hey, everyone! How are you all doing? I'm doing great! No scratch that... the military sucks with a capital punishment. I'm writing this in English since that's the language all of you will understand.. just no way I'm writing this twice. Also, I don't have telnet from this machine, which means I'm pretty much stuck for the e-mail addresses I remember. So if you see anyone who you think might like to hear a few words from me, like W&W, Dee and May starting from the top of the list, please forward it to them. (BTW, W&W, I heard I got a postcard or something from you but I haven't seen it yet) I've been here for appr. two and a half weeks now.. which means I won't have to be here too much longer. I'm done here on the 21st of February, no word yet on where I go from there... but in addition to FFI and FTD (Military Research Department and Military's Tele and Computer department respectively), I've applied for service abroad, either in Brussels or the US (Virginia).. all of which would be very cool. I am the oldest person in my detail, as the only 24 yo, while there are four or so 23 yo. Other than that there are some 19 yo, and quite a few 20-21. But sadly, they don't all behave their age.. what little of it they've got to start with. A typical day here starts with getting up at 5am, taking a quick shower, shaving and then starting with the daily cleaning. This starts by looking through the locker. Everything has it's place and if it's not on a hanger, it has to be properly folded to a width of approximately a hand's-breadth. At the same time you get dressed in the work uniform (which is called a U.S. don't know if there's a particular reason for that, and not inclined to ask). Then there's the bed which has to be made... the rule of thumb is that if you take your hands on the sheet, and pull out the fabric, that's how it should look all over. No wonder they call it stretching rather than making the bed. Then we have areas which have to be cleaned every day. And things can get rather dirty considering that we walk around in boots all day and drag in all kinds of dirt. A related problem is that once particularly the floor is clean, how do you keep it clean when x number of people walk around on it with dirty shoes? And that's just the normal inspection... every Friday there's a main inspection where everything has to be sparkly clean, with a standard which is impossible to attain.... Basically, instead of having a fail and different degrees of passing, there is a pass, which in civilian terms would rank as absolute perfection, and then you have different degrees of failing. Failing marginally will have bad consequences, while failing badly will have catastrophical consequences. and everything has to be orderly at all times... If this doesn't sound too bad.. it is, trust me.. it is. Everything else we do here is childsplay, really... as long as you make an effort, do your best and have the right attitude, that's okay. Otherwise, the days are occupied by different activities, running, doing push-ups, other exercises, like using our weapen (appr. 5 kg), holding it at arms length for minutes at a time, then "weaving".. etc. At the end of the day (which is usually between eight or nine, you're so tired, you just want to jump into bed and catch some shuteye before it's up again at 0500. Here the other day, we ran the 3k, where I failed the NATO-standard (don't know exactly standard for what..), of 15 minutes (I clocked in at 18.49), other fun standards is disasembling the gun in 40 seconds, and reassembling it in 1 minute, technically the standard is 1.20, but our commanding officer told us for us it was 60 seconds. One of the reasons why assembling takes longer than disassembling is that you have to take a functionality test by checking that the chamber is empty and then taking a test shot to see that it's working properly. Oh what fun. When you bleed on the gun, which you'll do at some point since it's easy to get a cut while handling it, you have to babtize it. I've called mine Satan, a name I'm rather happy with. By tradition it should be a fem name, but I've never been a stickler for following the crowd, and Satan is a good name in my opinion. I'm very much looking forward to the day when I'll never have to touch a weapon again. My fingers were designed for typing on a computer keyboard, not for manhandling a weapon. In addition to the physical activities, there are some lectures, where the biggest problem is to stay awake. Not because they're insanely boring.. slightly, maybe, but not insanely.. but simply because you haven't had enough sleep. Like the beginning of this week, I had Night Watch from 23.30 to 03.30, so I caught a little shuteye before eleven and got a couple of hours sleep after, then the next day, I had to stay up to fill in an application for the service abroad, which I had to spend some time on for there to be any point of handing it in, meaning I wasn't done before after midnight, and didn't get much sleep then either... and then there was the day that they'd decided that we'd had it too good in the weekend, so there would be an extraordinary main inspection on Tuesday. Normal service ended as usual around eight and we wondered if there would be time, or if it would be schedualed for another time or somesuch. But no, we got until 22.30 to be done, and got off to a bad start when a lot of clothes which had been to the laundry had to be sorted and folded first. Before we started, they told us that no one had ever been finished for a main inspection in two hours, the first time and implicitly a prediction that we would fail. Predictably we failed, and got our heads shouted off for not being finished. Another fun thing about main inspection is that for regular morning inspections you declare it ready for inspection in US, or our work uniform. On main inspection, you have to be in parade uniform (what is commonly referred to here as a gakk-gakk (rough translation: quack-quack), but you can't clean in parade. So when you fail, you have to change back to US, clean then change back to Parade for inspection, and no throwing clothes into the locker, which as you remember have to be sparkly clean for inspection. By the time we passed it was 01.30, and four hours of sleep that night. Then on Wednesday I had to fill in my application for service abroad, which took until midnight... So by the end of the week, we were pretty much gone every single one of us.. and even if you have breaks in the middle of the day is not allowed to lie in bed with your clothes on, and it's not allowed to sleep with your clothes on. Oh well.. Recruit School for the Navy is just six weeks. And next week I'm half-way there. Next weekend we can go home over the weekend, so I'll be able to see some of you then (speaking now of those of you living in Norway). And rest assured, even if were're allowed to go in civilian clothes from the 1st of February, I'll be in uniform to give you all a hearty laugh. Oh yeah, I might also mention that I've cut my hair, not completely skinned, but to 5cm or shorter. Oh yeah, and I should tell you the story about the gas-chamber.. but that'll have to wait, I'm afraid since it's five to four now, and I think they close at four... Oh well, all the best, and hopefully I'll have more time to stay in touch after Recruit School is over. Don't worry about me though, I'm a survivor, and I'm hanging in here without too much trouble (which can't be said for everyone, our troop has been reduced from 57 on the first day to 35 today... and we'll lose a few more who'll want to go to command school, which means they'll have most of the day to day training of new recruits in half a year when they're quarter master aspirants (kvartermester in Norwegian, I think quarter master is the equivalent English term, but not totally sure. In any case the Ranks in the Navy goes Private - Quarter Master aspirant - Quarter Master - Fenrik - Luitenant - Captain-Luitenant - Orlogcaptain - Captain-Commander - Commander - Flag-Commander - Rear Admiral (Kontreadmiral) - Vice Admiral and Admiral. Which may or may not interest anyone, but there you have it. Anyways, adios, see you later, etcetera, etcetera... Eythain - Ta, ta
