Author: Alexandra

One of the hardest things about being in the military was dealing with loss. And I don’t mean the sporting kind, I mean, the loss of life. And while it didn’t happen all that often, a single event could bring us all to our knees physically and mentally.

My first loss was an abstract loss, in that, while I participated in the on-going situation—the rescue of a young child who had floated out to sea on a lilo (an inflatable pool raft)—it was from a distance and on the periphery of the event that, sad to say, ended in the loss of life. The child drown before either the helicopter or lifeboat launched could reach him. That loss, nonetheless, hit all those involved, from the rescue crews to those on-scene at the holiday beach, to us at the rescue centre when we heard the awful news. It was heartbreaking.

The second time I was involved in loss, was so much more painful and real as I knew those involved, even if they were officers. This loss hit the whole base I was stationed at, in Germany hard. It involved two front line jets colliding while on a joint exercise training mission within restricted airspace. The jets were simulating a dog fight, one playing the good guy, Blue Forces, and the other, the invading Orange Forces. When, in a split second of what must have been absolute terror, something went wrong and the two planes collided mid-air. And while one pilot was lucky enough to eject, the other was not so lucky.

I was on duty in Operations during this exercise, manning the mission comms following the dog fight, as were personnel in Ops, Eng Ops, Intel and the other departments within the Ops building at the time. The shock that reverberated through that building when the collision happened was one of sheer devastation. Only once in my life time to that point had I ever seen a grown man cry, that day I saw more than a few openly sob.

To add to everyone’s grief, as most of us knew the deceased pilot, was the fact his fiancé, a pilot officer working in Ops that day, collapsed. Yet, worse was to come.

The planes collided over an area set aside of these kinds of training missions for a reason, it was rugged, rough, covered in peat moss and scrubland. A difficult terrain on every level.

Teams were assembled who had the delicate tasks of going into this terrain to not only collect body parts, but the remains of the plane. While a number of teams were sent in to put out—or at least try too put out—the subsequent fire.

Not only did the station go into lockdown, but into mourning as well.

Sad to say, this wouldn’t be the last plane crash I was involved in one way or another, there were others, each as devastating emotionally, as physically to all involved.

I still remember you Flight Lieutenant John Reed, you were one of the good ones, so funny, and so full of life and promise.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

One of the highlights of being stationed in Germany, on a front line base, was that during a major exercise we were issued with fake guns. Yes, fake as in wooden, because, if we were really at war certain female members within the operations block would be able to carry a sidearm.

I’m not sure how this came about, but, once the decision was made (and not rescinded by subsequent Group Captains) wooden replicas were issued in our mock invasion exercises. All of which meant one thing. That while we might not be allowed to be issued with the real thing during said exercises, we still had to have training on the actual <em>real</em> weapons. And so, on a given day, I was sent along with a handful of other women to the range up by the armoury for weapons training.

You would think they would start us off with the actual hand guns we were going to use, but no, after going through over an hour of training films and an armoury sergeant showing us the various weapons; pistols, rifles, machine guns, and how to handle each one, we finally got out on the range to shoot.

The first weapon? Yes, a ruddy heavy machine gun.

Why you may ask? Which is exactly what I did, my mouth working before my brain. The instructor explained he wanted us to understand how dangerous these weapons were, and just the kind of damage they could do. And proceeded to talk us through, step by step, one at a time, how to fire one. No, not at a target as you might imagine. We had to take up an awkward stance, gun almost on hip, and spray the contents of the clip, left to right, across a series of sandbags piled about 20 feet high some distance from each of us.

Let me tell you, not one of us knew what the hell we were really in for. Those of us who manage not to fall over and kill everyone assemble, hidden behind a barrier, felt like we’d been hit hard, by a car.

These weapons are extremely heavy, they buck, recoil, and are notoriously difficult to control. A few of us manage a quick squeeze, a few fell backward on our arses. A few even hit a sandbag or two. But none of us really controlled the weapon for longer than a heartbeat. Thankfully, the offending weapon was gently taken from our cold fearful grip and made <em>safe</em> before the next victim stepped up to take her turn.

At the end of that session we were all fully cognisant of what it meant to shoot a weapon. And by the time we were handed a handgun, were respectful, alert and utterly focused on the targets at the far end of the range.

The whole course from beginning to end was over 4 hours, and by the end, I for one had a healthy respect for handling weapons. Oh, we also received a nifty certificate of weapons training that, still to this day, I have stashed safely away in a briefcase somewhere.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

Following on from my post about my introduction to shift work, the reason most of us survived and, quite possibly flourished on night shifts, was nothing to do with the copious amounts of thick, treacly black coffee we all consumed, but the fact we all played cards. A game called Bastard Whist, to be precise.

It didn’t take me long to find out where the card games were being played throughout each night shift. All I had to do was stumble into the Comms room and there they all were, staffers from every department; sergeant, corporal and junior airmen alike, rowdily playing this crazy fast game where, I suspect, everyone, including myself (eventually) cheated. As that was all part of the game and what made this mad-cap game so much fun, never mind, an addiction.

Each session could be played with between 3 to 7 players. No less no more. Not 2, not 8. I’m not sure I can explain just what the game involved, you would have to play it. It took me a few hands to understand not only the game play itself, but the strategies involved. It was simple and yet, it was as complex as the people playing it.

Playing this game kept us all sane and, for the most part, I guess, gifted us a sense of camaraderie. It was these people outside of shift who we usually sat with at meals, or at the NAAFI bar of an evening, and celebrated milestone events with, like birthdays, postings, births and weddings.

Even today, I still wonder what happened to some of these people who, over time, became good friends, and those who I stayed in touch with for a long time, over the years. Certainly long after we had all left the military. I still think of them fondly, along with the game. And wonder if service personnel still play Bastard Whist in the wee small hours on night shift, on bases around the world?

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

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.

That mean the day after I arrived I had to be up at 6am, dressed, showered and breakfasted by 7:25am and on the transport to work by not later than 7:30 sharp, as that was the departure time. Miss that and you were stranded and, in BIG trouble. The RCC centre was on the other side of the bay which, at one point in the history of the camp was reached by boat direct from a landing on base. A 20 minute ride in whatever the seas threw at you. But, because of the obvious inherent problems, this was changed to staff being bused to work from camp to the other side of Plymouth.

Leaving me always wondering why they hadn’t built our camp closer to our base of operations. But hey, that’s a whole other story.

That first day I was on shift from 7:50 (for a ten minute hand over) to start work at 8am through till 12 noon. Staff were then bused back to camp to do what they wished until the evening shift, which started at 8pm. And yes, you guessed it. We had to muster for the bus again at 7:25pm sharp for a 7:30 departure. With our shift starting at 8pm through till 8am the following morning.

After a long, long night of little or no sleep (after all, we were on duty) we’d be bused (once again) back to base for what was laughingly called our day off. It was, in fact, a sleep day. And let me tell you, after a meagre breakfast and unable to coordinate I slept right through till 5pm that evening, waking in time to be able to stumble to the mess hall for dinner.

It took me the best part of a month to get this routine down pat, in working out how long it took me to wake in a lukewarm shower, how quick I could do breakfast (aboard the bus to work) and save myself an extra ½ hour in bed. How I managed to squeeze anything else in became an art in time management, but yes, I did it.

It’s funny how on that ‘sleep day off’ I found the energy to stay awake and not only do some of the voluntary things I signed up for (search and rescue anyone?) plus go sight seeing about the city of Plymouth, drive out into the countryside of Devon, and at times, go on a pub crawl for charity. Yes, really. This was, after all, why the gods invented caffeine right?

The job itself was endless hours of routine boredom punctuated by emergency call outs and adrenaline rushes that could last minutes to an entire shift length in subdued panic. While most of our daily routine was covering Nimrod flights out of RAF St Mawgen, our primary mandate was the coordination of all Search and Rescue for the whole southern UK area.

We could be coordinating anything from a kid on a blow-up beach raft floating out to sea, to someone dangling off a cliff face, to a US nuclear submarine in distress in the English Channel. We saw it all and then some.

Some how I managed to survive the gruelling shift schedule and, before my first year was up, finally got a coveted posting to Germany.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧