Saving private Jamaha

[KefkaticFanatic]

Of course you would ask him that.  First thing you want to know, isn't it >.>

[Jamaha]

285 remaining

Okay, story time. 11 weeks of service behind me, 8 of which was basic training. Now I'm in the process of non-commissioned officer school's 1st phase, lasting for 4 more weeks. After that, it's either NCO school phase 2 or reserve officer school. By the end of the year I get promoted to a Corporal or an Officer Candidate, depending on which training I go through. Either way, once my leader period begins, the hardest part is over. Then it's just 6 months of bossing Recruits and Artillerymen around.

So what they're actually training me as is an artillery observer. It's up to my squad to measure the location of the target and call for fire. Basically we're the gods of indirect fire, as they like to put it.

I used to have lots of fun (or "fun") stuff to share with you but since it's been a long time I've pretty much forgotten the most of them. In fact, I'm not sure if I can say anything about the basic training, which is kinda a shame. Guess I'll just tell you something about the NCO school time.

So yeah, we wake up at 0600 every morning. The morning exercise begins at 0607 so you have the whopping seven minutes to get up, change to your exercise suit and possibly go to the bathroom if you're fast enough. Then it's 30 minutes of running, stretching, soccer or rifle gymnastics. Then 30 minutes to brush your teeth, shower, wear your service uniform and make the bed.

Speaking of beds, they need to be very well done. No wrinkles whatsoever. Should any wrinkles be found, you might notice that your bed has mysteriously exploded when returning from service. Beds also have a habit of exploding should someone forget the lights on in the room.

Anyway, then it's breakfast time. Each line (artillery emplacement line, signalist line, artillery observation line) marches in their own formation. The march and the accompanying singing is then rated and the order of who gets to eat first is decided by that. Thankfully us observers are awesome at marching.

Back in the basic training, the squad leaders weren't too generous with the time to eat. We usually got something like 10-15 minutes which frustrated me a lot. One should be allowed to eat in peace. Nowadays we get something like 20-25 which is definitely an improvement.

There's porridge for breakfast every single morning. Pretty sure that after the 362 days I don't want to see it ever again.

After breakfast there's the morning's service. It can be anything from lessons of leadership to combat training or sports. Usually you just hope for it to end so you can get to eat lunch.

After lunch, afternoon service. Same stuff as the morning. Then dinner, woo. (Notice how everything of interest I mentioned is about food)

Then we have the delightful cleaning service. Every day we need to clean our room, washing the floor, wiping the dust. We then go wait by our beds in attention while one of the leaders comes and tries to find some dust. Don't clean something good enough, leader's finger has dust on it - ROOM NOT THROUGH, CONTINUE! And time to try again. Our free time begins once the room is considered clean, sometimes it's before six, sometimes after eight, depending on the leaders' mood. They will always find dust somewhere, should they want so.

Free time. Spent either by lying on bed or going to the cafeteria. I guess we should also spend it for studying but meh. Either way, that time flies by way too fast and it's 9 in the evening already - free time over, time for roll call. What we need to yell changes every day. From ordinary "In attendance!" to "Sir Corporal" or the more unusual ones, like the name of our left testicle, "The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick.", the winner of this year's Finnish hockey league, our favorite Pokémon, the name of the corporal that's the biggest dick ... Just to name a few.

We used to get the day's feedback after that, though the new service guidelines forbid that nowadays. It usually involved lots of yelling, standing at attention and some more yelling. My favorite was during the first week in NCO school; "You guys wear a hat with pride, thinking it's a fancy crown. BUT IT'S NOT! IT'S A BUCKET OF SHIT THAT KEEPS POURING SHIT ON YOUR HEADS AND YOU STILL THINK IT'S SOMETHING TO BE PROUD OF!"

Then it's the bed cover inspection. Basically we are given a minute to fold the bed cover on our stools. They are then inspected and exploded if they suck. This is repeated until they are good enough.

Then it's the evening exercises, pushups, situps etc. If things went fast enough, we even got some free time before the silence at 10. Then it's time to go to bed and sleep only to repeat the same process the next day. And the next, and next ...

Fridays are an exception though, as it's time to go home for the weekend. It involves a weapons inspection, to see if our assault rifles are clean enough and a locker- and room inspection. Same as the cleaning service, except our lockers must look identical. The leader then spends some time playing "spot a difference" with our lockers while we wait hoping for them to match.

Exceptions to the normal day routine include combat exercises which last for multiple days. We march a few miles somewhere and set up a camp. They also give us a time to set up the tent in, should we fail the tent is taken down and the process has to be restarted. Setting up that tent five times was fun.

Back in basic training we slept in half-platoon tents, at most there were 23 of us in one tent. Was a bit crowded. You pretty much need to sleep on your side, as you take too much room if you sleep on your back. Now we sleep in guerrilla tents though, and there are only six of us. Much better. The only downside - as we are in a combat exercise, we need guards. One to watch over the stove and another to patrol the area or sit outside in the guard's foxhole. Nothing like spending two hours in the cold and dark watching for the "enemy." The light amplifier was kinda cool to play with though.

Have yet to use my sleeping bag, usually just sleep with my clothes on. Pillows I've used include my jacket, a composite helmet and a shrapnel vest. They aren't too comfortable.

The next two weeks are spent almost entirely outside in combat exercises, though there's a weekend of vacation in between. By the second week we'll get to direct real artillery fire, watching grenades fly over us and explode in the distance.

But yeah, that's all for now as my vacation is nearing it's end, time to take the bus back to the garrison soon. Meh, weekends fly by too fast.

As a bonus, I'll be giving you a picture:

[KefkaticFanatic]

Hm.  Sounds like damn hard work.  At least you get to be all JaMaSexy with those fatigues.  Keep tough out there, and be glad you aren't in a real combat scenario

[Harvest]

JaMaHa is ready for the Russians

[Cobraroll]

Haha, sounds familiar. May I tell about my regular days in service? They are surprisingly similiar, but we're slacker on some points.

We get up at 05:30. In theory, we are to get up at sometime before 6, but the rooms are inspected at 07:30, and you have to get breakfast before that (our barracks is about 600 metres away from the mess hall). We use to make our beds (not a single wrinkle is allowed. It's supposed to look like moulded plastic) and our lockers (same thing. Everything has to be neatly folded) before we go to eat breakfast. After breakfast, we clean the floor and wipe the room clear of dust. Every room has another common room to clean alongside their own. Oh, and breakfast here is superb. Bread with all sorts of topping, cereals, yoghurt, juice, cocoa, you get to pick. About the only thing we don't have is porridge. But you have to eat fast.

Lessons typically start at 8AM. Or started, is perhaps more accurate to say, as I'm telling about my recruit period, which ended this Thursday. In the meantime, we had to change to today's uniform (field uniform or work uniform, with or without battle stuff and a backpack) and get to the place where the lessons were to be held. From 7:30 to the end of the service, we weren't allowed to go anywhere if not the entire platoon followed. We were about 60 men. If one guy was late, we were all late.

Lunch began at 11 and lasted to 11:40. We had to make lunch packs from the breakfast, because there was never time to eat lunch in the mess hall. Also, we usually spent lunch cleaning the rooms for a second inspection. After that there was lessons again, until 16:30-ish. If we were lucky, the day ended at that point. If not, it was another lesson after dinner, typically starting around 17:30. If so, the day ended at 21.

Anyway, free time. Usually spent doozing off in the TV room, doozing off in the sleeping rooms, or shining your shoes, cleaning your weapon or washing clothes. Generally, we can exchange dirty clothes for clean ones at the depot once a week, but sometimes, there isn't enough time, or you've just made all your boxers dirty before the end of the week. We live 180 guys in the barrack, and there are four working washing machines. Do the math.

Combat exercises are... well, different. We've only had one so far. It's almost identical to the one JaMaHa describes. Though, we use our sleeping bags. And the tents we sleep in... well, each man has a piece of cloth approximately 2 by 2 metres, three tent pegs, and a rope. The cloths are lined with buttons, and are to be buttoned together to form a tent. Quite cool when you understand the concept. Our field rations taste good, just add water. Though, they clog your intestines if you don't add enough water. To fix that, there are lots of raisins and some cookies included with the rations. I was stupid and ate too many raisins once, and... well, let's just say that there are times and places when you wish you don't have stomach trouble of that kind. Our field toilet consists of some sort of stool and a plastic bag, plus a bucket to throw the bags in. If there's a hole in the bag, well... (please, don't ask)

Oh, and I'm in the artillery too, but nothing as fancy as JaMaHa. I'm a supply man. Who, thanks to bad luck in the drawings, doesn't even get the driving license for trucks. Boo.

The Internet possibilities in the camp is limited, to say the least. After the recruit period, we're allowed to use our own PCs, but the barrack connection is 5Mbit/sec, which 180 guys have to share. I think I'll get some sort of mobile broadband. I'm home at the moment, and will be until Saturday, but after that, I'm not sure how it will work. We'll see.

[Winter]

You seem to have a great attitude towards basic training, That's badass. Most people just complain about how crappy it was. An the bed thing, its a pain, I had to deal with that in Juvenile detention, It's no big deal but you are pretty damn optimistic, I like that.

[Jub3r7]

Vonderful exploding beds.
Come join us in the US where there is no "forced family fun"! (jk)
Hah, but make sure to come to the nicer, suburban areas.
The urban areas are full of pollution and gangs, and the rural areas are full of red necks.
The nicer suburban communities make you think that harsh army conditions only exist in halo books.

The not-so-nice ones have old men with needles (for halloween), gangs, and murder! Woohoo!

[universe-X]

Cobraroll & JaMaHa- Good luck! o_o Try to make the most out of it

[Concerto No.20 in D minor]

I like watching the bricks fall down.

[KefkaticFanatic]

Exploding them is even more fun.

[Jamaha]

266 remaining, 25% done.

Yeah, no vacation last weekend. Thankfully this week we got a personal vacation in addition to the weekend vacation so I got home Thursday evening, yay. Going back to the campus this weekend to see my university friends and party.

Got to observe some actual artillery fire last week during the three-day artillery exercise. Sounds probably cooler than it is. Especially since I got to be signalist 2 during the first bombardment, meaning I just sat in the bottom of the pit we were observing from and typed the commands to the message device. Oh, and because our radio failed to work, I got to keep the phone line active. That meant saying "Attention" to the phone every 30 seconds for like 20 minutes. This all while the other guys watch explosions. At least the second day I got to observe the distance to the target with the laser rangefinder. Boom.

Also I don't really think of my rifle as a weapon anymore since it's been like a month since I've actually fired it. It's just an annoying piece of metal that hangs around your neck, being heavy and always getting in the way. Oh and which also needs to be cleaned all the time because it just likes to collect sand and other crap.

Then, we have this fun thing called "time bank". Basically each time we're late, the amount of time is collected into the bank, with a nice coefficient that get's bigger every week. Starting from 1, now being 3, and ending as 11. The bank is then emptied in our free time, 90 minutes a time, in a form of a preparation exercise. "NEXT SERVICE IN 10 MINUTES, EQUIPMENT: COMPLETE FIELD EQUIPMENT", "VACATION IN 3 MINUTES, EQUIPMENT: PARADE UNIFORM". Quite possibly the most hellish 90 minutes I've experienced for a while. And we even get to repeat it next Wednesday, yay.

As for reserve officer training, student H wasn't deemed worthy. So no moving to Hamina's reserve officer school nor becoming a 2nd Lieutenant. Though I don't really mind remaining a Corporal. (Or Sergeant, if I'm considered awesome enough during my leader period)

Oh, and fun fact: If you type RESERVEOFFICERCANDIDATE (in Finnish obviously) as the encryption key in the messaging device, the verification code is DICK. Coincidence or a bored engineer? I'm hoping for the latter.

[KefkaticFanatic]

JaMaHa, become king of the Finnish army and throw snow at the commies

that'll teach em

[GaryOak]

Hahaha, joillain niitä aamuja riittää . Ite pääsin just viime kuussa sieltä pois, olin lääkintämiehenä Säkylässä. Meillä oli alokaskausi melkoisen kauhea, kun tuli oikein kunnon talvi. Sulla taisi taas olla päinvastoin, ite ainakin olin tukahtua siihen kuumuuteen, vaikken mitään joutunutkaan enää tekemään. Mutta hienoja kokemuksia sieltä tuli kokonaisuudessaan, alikkina niitä saa varmasti vielä enemmän ja parempia.

[Jub3r7]

Google's translation: Hahaha, some mornings it is sufficient to Cheesy. Ite I was just last month, then off, I was a medic Säkylä. We had a pretty awful rookie season, when it came to correct a real winter. Sulla would again be on the contrary, ite, at least I had stifled the heat, even though I no longer had anything to do. But then came some great experiences as a whole, alikkina they will certainly get more and better.

[Winter]

Uh huh...........