Drat!
Here I am packing. It is like nothing has changed since seventeen years ago when I was stuffing the uniforms and stuff into the backpack except that this time, there is no pressure. The memories come flooding back. Damn.
Packing hurriedly on the floor of a fluorescent-lit barracks in an old Royal Artillery Building dating back to 1940. It was one of those tension-filled nights where every one in the platoon was packing and preparing.
The army was a place where one spent more time preparing than anything else.
The superiors of this forthcoming mobilisation exercise must be eager to achieve high attendance rates this weekend. I have received two reminders via mail, two calls on the telephone and a SMS message all in the space of this week!
Fortunately, I asked them which unit I had been assigned to. No one had bothered to tell me earlier.
And the mail reminders had a map of the reporting centre. It is certainly different from the one I reported to four years ago. Phew. No one had told me the new location until the receipt of this mail.
4 comments:
How long are you in for this time?
my colleague's nsman brother nearly got charged for not reporting for rt - he got a letter of warning for a possible offense, even though he'd passed his annual ippt during his last ict.
Tim, that was just a mobilisation exercise, not unlike those in Israel. So, I was in camp for about four hours. Phew!
I will be in for five days in March. However, someone I know has said it could be an administrative mistake. Hopefully, it is and I don't have to go in.
Ian (Mors), getting charged is very common. Even for RT.
My impression is that getting charged for lost equipment seems to be common in reservist too.
In 1992, when I went for my first reservist stint, I recall that there was an NCO who came five days late. He was subsequently charged and spent a week in the dreaded detention barracks. He came back with a clean-shaven head.
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