Get A Move On

In the military there is no such thing as weekends off. As I have said, you are, to put it bluntly, on call 24/7. And in my line of work, trained as an assistant air traffic controller, I was expected to work shifts whether that was in the Controller Tower itself, or in Flight Ops, or the Operations building.

Shifts was not something I was ready for, not on any level. So when I got my first posting to Plymouth, in Devon (UK) I was in for a rude awakening at just how demanding a boring job could be. While my childhood had prepped me for so many aspects of military life, these kinds of working conditions were a whole other ball game, and one I wasn’t prepared for.

A day after I arrived on camp with only hours of orientation and briefing on where I was working I was handed a shift schedule for not the next week or month, but the next 3 months. They were short handed due to early out going postings with new recruits, like myself, still to arrive direct from training and, as such, I was about to find myself working what they called a 3-watch.


Expressions

“I need an expression, dammit!” Tom barked from the spotlit corner of the room where he was writing.

Teddi closed her eyes, placed a finger in the book she was reading, and shut it. Two heartbeats, she opened her eyes, “How about pi as expressed as a fraction over…” she never got to finish as Tom yelled.

“No, no, no, not a maths expression—“ careful to not add the word ‘idiot’ at the end of his rebuke. “I need something witty for my main character to say to his girlfriend.” His head bobbed over his keyboard as if the keys themselves would start typing.

Teddi chewed the inside of her lip. She knew it had been a mistake to let Tom have his ‘office’ there, in the lounge not four feet away from the couch—her reading couch. Ever since he had ‘moved’ in, putting his small computer desk against one wall, and setting up enough standing lights to illuminate the Eiffel Tower, she’d not had a moments peace to read uninterrupted. And woe betided her getting up to go to the kitchen, thereby disturbing his concentration. The filthy looks still unnerved her. Not sure who this man was, sitting in her lounge. She didn’t recognise him anymore.

Teddi got up and tried not to sigh as she put down her book. “How about, the early bird gets the worm,” she offered straight-faced.

“What?” Tom grunted and then, bit his tongue at the acid retort that made its way to his lips.

Teddi could almost feel the deadly look knife her in the back as she passed Tom on the way to the kitchen. She made her way to the stove, flicked on the under cabinet light and stared at a set of kitchen knives in their stand—a gift from her Mother-in-law as a wedding present. Fine German steel: Heckler & Koch, one of the best sets money could buy.

Had the woman known she would have need of something so sharp? Teddi picked up the largest blade and hefted it in her hand. It felt good. And, as calm as day, walked back into the lounge, the knife held down, and slightly behind her right leg. Concealed.

“Yes, I know, it’s not really an expression,” she said coming in behind him, “that’s more of a saying,” she laid her left hand on his shoulder and leaned in as if to kiss him on the head. Tom, startled, tried for a smile and turned his neck and head to accept the kiss as an apology. Laying the right side of his neck bare.

He never saw it coming.

Teddi grabbed a length of long brown hair, tugging Tom’s head to the left, and plunged the large, sharp blade into his neck. There was a gurgled scream as blood spurt from the wound. It surprised Teddi all the same, despite what she had just read in her book. She watched it gush as she held Tom’s head with one hand, and the knife with the other. Marvelling at how quick the man stopped jerking. His face gone almost as white as the wall.

No, that wasn’t true, the wall, the computer, and, indeed her arm, were all splattered with rich red and, surprisingly warm blood. She stared, fascinated. Slowly, the spurt turned to a trickle, as she lowered Tom’s head down onto his precious keyboard and lay it in a pool of his own blood.

“How about, nothing special is ever achieved without a lot of blood, sweat, and tears?” She said close to his dead ear and, removing the knife, walked calmly back to the couch. She tossed the bloody knife onto the cushions, sat, picked her book up, and carried on reading as if nothing had happened.

— THE END —


Gas Attack, Gas Attack

I’m writing this because an online friend asked whether or not, as part of my military training, I had to go through the “gas tent”. The answer is: Yes. This is a process whereby newbies on receipt of fancy new NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) suit had to test it and their skills at putting it all on, in the correct order in under 9 minutes, and walk through a large tent or building filled with CS gas.

A test no one got out of doing.

Funnily enough on the day I had to do my training with a couple of other newbies, we had the newly arrived Group Captain and a couple of high up Senior Officers for training as well. Our little group sat on the same benches with the higher ups listening to the training sergeant drone on, while watching a very graphic video of soldiers and airmen dealing with fake injuries that included, among other things, disembowelment.

It was fun to watch the guys in the tent squirm at the vivid and graphic nature of seeing someone in the NBC gear trying to stuff what were pigs innards back into a writhing screaming airman. All simulated for us to learn what we might have to do in the midst of war. Not that we were there for emergency medical training. Not that that stopped them making us sit through 30 minutes of gore before we even started leaning about what our suits did, and did not do. And more importantly, how to put them on properly, while being timed with a stopwatch, and yelled at to go faster.


Sporting Chance

I was never thought of as being a sporty type by build alone and, in fact, was probably in that group picked last for any sporting event based on looks alone. Not tall, or willow, thin or fit looking. But, as it turns out, given ample opportunities to prove everyone wrong. I got to join in on just about ever sporting event going, on the military bases I was stationed at by virtue of the fact they always needed the numbers. They needed warm bodies to make up any kind of team, whether it was netball, field hockey, ping pong or fencing.

I got picked also, because I volunteered. As I said in previous posts, I was young, naive, and eager to be involved and volunteered for everything in the military. As a result, I found out I wasn’t half bad at a lot of sports that would never, under any other circumstance, have been available to me to participate in. Take for instance, the fencing or squash which I won a medal playing.

Stationed in Germany on a huge camp with just a small contingent of women, as was usually the case. A senior officer who was a champion fencer wanted to make up a contingent to go to Berlin to take part in the inter-military championships. So, without any experience whatsoever to my name, and after 8 weeks of intensive training with other warm bodies needed to fill the slots, I found myself, epee in hand, a part of a team that ended up in Berlin for a long week of intense bouts.


The 24/7 Life

Even though I had a vague understanding that I might be asked to work at any and all hours of the day and night, while in the military, it wasn’t really till I was posted to Germany on my first overseas assignment that it hit home exactly what that truly meant. Being in the military is a 24/7 commitment come rain or shine. There are no lie-ins, not taking a sick day, no skiving off. You are on call whatever time of day or night it is.

When the shit hits the fan you better be dressed and stood in front of it, ready for anything.

My first serious wake-up call happened not a month in after arriving on base. I was totally unprepared for the reality. Even though I had already been issued with my NBC (nuclear, biological & chemical warfare) gear 5 minutes after my first work shift, it hadn’t quite sunk in that here, on this frontline base, Exercises (yes, capital E) were done on a micro level (your immediate team), mini level (your whole section, which, in my case, was air traffic control & operations) and the dreaded TacEval (Tactical Evaluation), which was station wide and brutal on Newbies.

Guess who was woken at 2 am on my supposed day off for her first major Tactical Evaluation?


A Leap of Faith

Within weeks of arriving at my first military posting in the UK after I had completed my Basic Training, I was being encouraged to sign up for, well, everything. Including participating in helicopter rescue training exercises. Which wasn’t a stretch, given where I worked, which was the RCC (rescue and coordination centre) in Plymouth, Devon—an Air Force detachment working along side the Navy. They got all the new arrivals to sign up for this to build character, I was told. Uh-huh. Character. Right.

Signing up to do the helicopter rescue was made to sound wildly exciting and something we would receive a badge for doing. A fancy patch made especially for such training exercises. Not that anyone told me it was a patch we’d never get to wear on our uniform. Nonetheless, wide-eye, I went into this endeavour, like ever other endeavour I got talked into or volunteered for in the next several years, eager as only youth can be.

Now you would think I would have grasped exactly what I was being asked to do. Ha! Not so. I was completely and utterly unprepared for the reality of jumping out of a hovering helicopter into the sea.

The event didn’t happen straight away, there was training for those of us gullible enough to sign up. First came the silly stint in the gym, where they had us jumping off 10 inch heigh benches up into the air, legs straight, arms folded across our chests, to have us at the last minute before hitting the floor, star-fish our arms and legs out, to simulate hitting the water, and not sinking to bottom of the ocean.

Reminder. They had us doing this for a solid 2 hours … jump, star-fish, jump, star-fish … Do you know what it’s like to hit the floor and try to roll after all this? I was oh so innocent.


Taking the Plunge

I didn’t join the military thinking I’d have a life of adventure but, as it turned out, adventure found me anyway.

I was too young to sign up for myself and had to have my father sign the papers allowing me to join the Woman’s Royal Air Force — I was 17 years of age. A decision he had a huge part in suggesting given, at the time, I was in a constant battle with my menopausal mother. And, let me tell you, had I stayed, one of us would have ended up strangling the other.

So a solution was found. My father told me there was a way I could keep my sanity, have a job, and get paid to do my studies. A dream my mother had quashed with, “if you’re going to live here you have to contribute to the household,” meaning, get a job you’re not going to university.

With that particular dream in tatters, my father steered me towards somewhere I was very familiar with: the military. I was after all, a military brat, and had travelled across the planet with my parents, going from one country to another. And, knowing that life already, readily agreed with my dad here was the answer to all my problems.

So, rather than murder my mother or go insane, I signed up, took the oath, and left home to pursue a different path. And, in doing so, had a whole other set of adventures than those I had originally imagined, all the while earning my BSc along the way.

Life sometimes take us down a different path than the one we envisioned. And, to be honest, I’m very happy with the way things turned out in the end. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be here.


My Dad Kicked Bombs For A Living

As a child growing up I use to tell friends, “… my dad kicks bombs for a living.” when asked the inevitable stupid question, ‘what does your dad do for a living.’ One because I was never sure at first what it was my dad did actually do and had overheard him talking to someone, one time, and say, “I kick bombs…” and giggling to myself though, oh, that’s cool. Never once, at whatever tender age I was at the time, realising what kicking bombs for a living actually meant or, entailed. And two, because I loved the look on the other kids faces when I told them that.

It wasn’t till much later it all made sense when one of my older brothers explained to me and, having a half ass explanation, had gone and asked my dad what exactly it was he did. By this point I was about 8 years old and we were living in Singapore, and I vaguely knew he worked putting bombs on planes. Though why they needed to carry bombs in the first place was still a little beyond me.

My dad had laughed for a good five minute when I told him what I told my friends. Yes, it was true that at one point he had kicked a single bomb, a dud he told me, when being pranked in his early career in Bomb Disposal just after the war. It turns out this was a phrase they guys used to pull the ladies in with when dating just after the war. Not that my dad mentioned this at the time, this was again, something I learnt from my mother much later as an adult teenager about to join the military myself.

Still, I have fond memories of grinning when I told other kids that my dad kicked bombs for a living and seeing their faces light up in glee and then, fear, seconds before one or two might call me a liar. But those kids were mostly civvy kids who didn’t know any better. Kids in the Air Force all knew their fathers could be doing some sort of scary job involving weapons and explosives. And, for me, as a kid, it seems wild and exciting, as I grew up, I began to understand the humour people like my father used when talking about some of the work they did, because it was far from exciting or glamorous.

My dad had the physical and metal scars to prove it. A three inch gash along his scalp to start with, when a missile fell on him from the undercarriage of an airplane during load-up.

He never did tell me if that was when he had his first heart attack. I often wonder.


My Mother The Runaway

My mother, by all accounts, had quite the life, especially in her younger years. Though some of what I know I only know from stories my sister told me much later, after my mum passed. What I did get to hear from my mother, firsthand, was how, despite being in a loveless marriage and an arranged marriage at that. And despite still only being a teenager (18), she ran away from home.

Let me tell you I was as surprised as anyone, knowing not only had my mother been married before she met my dad, but that it barely lasted a year before she knew she was suffocating, and left. That’s how she put it. From somewhere deep inside, she found the courage to not only leave a man she didn’t love. But in doing so, defied convention, this was back in the early stage of WWII. A number of women, she told me, were doing the same, signing up for service.

Why? Well, for the obvious, but also, because, at the time, the military were desperately recruiting as many young women as they could into the services. And, like many, my mum knew she wanted a better life. A different life, and one that gave her opportunities. She left to join the WAAFs and trained as an MT driver. Her first posting was to the outer most reaches of Scotland, to Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides. She served as a driver for the aircrew of squadrons patrolling the North Atlantic for U-boats, flying Avro Ansons under Costal Command.

She told me a story about how one night she was called up to drive out to the runway, in the dark, with no lights on, in order to help a troubled aircraft land. She had to guide the plane in by driving, still in the dark, but pumping her breaks to flash out a small red light for the plane to see and follow.

Can you image? I know I can’t fully grasp doing what she did, out there on her own, being guided by people in the tower to effectively slow drive her way up the runway for the plane to know when said runway was. All in the middle of the night in the pitch black of night.

For her, even terrified, she said it was one of the most exhilarating things she’s ever done in her life, and never once regretted escaping her family and marriage to create a life for herself. And for that, I salute her courage.


The Impossible Girl

THE LEAN AND LANKY RYAN CONNOR jumped out the back of the 4-ton truck and landed in the wet mud with a soft thud. It sucked at his wellies as he moved off toward a large pit, and the reason they were all there. He turned just in time to see his Corporal, Jack Blase, a man in his late 20s, man-handle himself out of the truck like a 60 year-old. Working bomb disposal did that to a person.

“Come on, Old Man, you’ll be late for the party.” Jack flashed him a look that said, ‘don’t mess with me.’ Ryan cocked his head to one side, fixed his Service-issue woollen hat further back on his head at a jaunty angle, and grinned. He waited for Jack, William ‘The Bagman’ Herschel and their lieutenant, Sandy ‘Shingle’ House, to catch up with him. He turned back toward the gapping maw of the pit. Workers had been hand digging the area up until yesterday when, as it happened all to often in this area of Hanover, a perfectly preserved and unexploded 1000 pounder had been unearth.

It was one of theirs, that much was for sure. Someone had taken the time to write on the pointy end, ‘a gift from Ol’ Blighty’.

Connor pulled out a pack of smokes from an open top pocket and made to light one.

“Not here, you bloody idiot.” Connor turned just as Herschel dumped two bags and a couple of shovels at his feet. Connor shrugged and slid the smoke back into the crumpled packet and re-pocketed it.

“You really are dumber than a spud,” the man continued bending to retrieve something from one of the bags. Connor made a sour face at the man’s back and walked off toward the lip of the pit, scrambling over loose earth, cracked brick and rubble. It was ten years plus since the war had ended but still, people were unearthing unexploded ordinance. It was their job, as part of the British Royal Air Force’s bomb-disposal task force, to clean up the mess. Connor wondered why there were no German teams scouring London doing the same thing for them, and shook his head. He would, of course, ask Jack.


Obituary

BILLY RAY MELNIK (aged 13) of Pensacola, Florida, died today, March 6th, when his DNA registered his final act of stupidity and terminated his existence under the Statute of Evolution regulations, section 7(a) para 1(b). Which states that, no entity can forthwith continue its existence if deemed to be in violation of watering down the Gene-Pool.

Termination occurred on the corner of 12th and Main, as, spray-cans in hand, Melnik engaged in the vandalous act of graffiti.

A bio-hazard clean-up crew for the city managed to collect enough of the gelatinous remains to fill a funerary pot. An interment service will be held Monday at the Pensacola City cemetery.


Life After Death

Or, surviving the loss of my parents.

Surviving a loved one’s death can only be personal and subjective. We all react differently, we all perceive differently, we all emote differently. Some feel the loss more keenly than others, some not so much. But one thing you can be sure of is, the loss of a loved one changes you no matter what your relationship was till that point.

I lost my father to lung cancer in 1991, he was only 68 years of age. His ‘illness’ was slow, debilitating, terrifying and painful right through till the last few weeks when, being cared for in our local hospice, my father passed quietly, almost peacefully after his (and yes, our) two year ordeal.

Heroic in her efforts and, till those last few weeks, my mother took on the all but lonely burden of looking after my father almost singlehandedly. Albeit with help, where we could, from the rest of us. Supporting and bolstering my mother, where we could, during a time where home care from any nursing services was, at best, minimal. Closer to the end, and before he was lucky enough to get into hospice care—and yes, I say lucky, because, due to space limitations, and the lack of hospice care in general, most people either die at home, or in hospital. And usually, with minimal care and attention. My mother had to feed, bath, dress and care for my father—a man she had already dedicated her life to for most of her adult life, sharing all the highs and lows along the way and giving birth to, and bringing up six children.


You've Got Mail

I was reading Veronique’s post recently, Just A Small Town Girl, and smiled at her lovely doodles. But there was one that caught my eye and then, brought a lump to my throat. It featured a hand drawn stamp and the words, Post Air Mail. And it hit me. I hadn’t had any real mail from anyone (not including birthday or Christmas cards) not since my mum passed away back in 1999.

It sent a shiver down my spine not just because that was over 20 years ago, but because, the last handwritten letter I ever got was from a dead woman: my mother.

Where ever I was in the world, travelling and or working, my mother almost religiously took time out of her day to write an aerogramme to me. Do you remember those? You buy them at any post office, singularly or in packs. I think my mother had a draw full of them—after all, she had six kids and if she wrote to me, you can be sure as hell, she wrote to us all at some point or other.

The thing is. The last piece of mail she wrote to anyone, was to me. She wrote to me, as she always did, on a Friday, so she could catch the last post. That last letter she wrote, was duly posted on a Friday and, would you believe, the following Monday, here in Quebec, I got two shocks.


The day paradise put up a parking lot …”