BASIC TACTICS

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Well., there are only so many driving lessons one can have before the driving school goes all “Okay, that’s good enough, now go do those exams.” And without driving lessons in my schedule, my truancy from forest camps would come to an end. Time to grab me rifle, don me snow camoflague and do some tactics.

And apparently tactics involves a lot of sitting in a hole you dug in the ground. On of our lieutenants gave a good summary for the week: “So you’re shoved into a patrol, do that for an hour or so and then you have to go man the observation post for another hour. That’s done, you’re back in the tent and now it’s your turn to guard the stove so that it stays warm and doesn’t burn down the whole tent. That done, it’s finally time to get some shut-eye when the sound of gunfire rattles everybody awake, y'all run to yer trenches, ready to fight off any assailant….and then spend the next hour sitting in your cold, snowy hole, seeing nobody in the dark and wondering if you were just forgotten there. Also, it’s now 4am and you haven’t slept at all yet.”

Really, the only ones with something interesting to do were those sent out recon or attack assignments, pestering nearby camps of other platoons/companies. “pestering” as in taking back hostages from there, cutting some landlines or shutting down generators (or getting into firefights - half the reason the rest of us were awake so often).