Author: Alexandra

I’m writing this because an online friend, Lou Plummer, asked whether or not, as part of my military training, I had to go through the infamous “gas tent”. The answer is: Yes. This is a process whereby newbies on receipt of fancy new NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) gear have to test it and their skills at putting it all on, in the correct order, in under 9 minutes I might add, and then walk through a large tent or room 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 their NBC gear trying to stuff what were pigs innards 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 to do. And more importantly, how to put them on properly, while being timed with a stopwatch, and yelled at to go faster.

Yes, even those senior officers got yelled at.

We all clumsily ran through these manoeuvres several times during that hour till, coming up for our lunch break, they had us all line up to be filed through the gas tent, one by one.

This is without our masks on.

We had to put our masks on inside the tent while trying desperately not to breath in the CS gas, and, with eyes streaming, correctly put our masks on in less than 9 seconds. We were all told the precise process of how to put the mask on, pull the ties tight, check the seals and filter canister and then …. wait 3 minutes to see if we ended up choking or not.

If we’d done it right, we could exit the tent and go to recovery. If not, usually coughing a lung (or two) up, you had to go out where you came in and start all over again. You got a couple of minutes to catch your breath and then, go back in.

I’m proud to say that both the Group Captain and I were the only ones who walked through, unscathed, to the other side. Where, this big corpulent man, laughing, took off his mask, smiled, and clapped a big hand on my shoulder and said, “well done airman.” And, just so you know, we were all called airman back then, in my day.

Also, I should point out, I never did tell anyone I was really good at holding my breath for well over 3 minutes. The perks of being a good swimmer.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

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.

No. Before you ask, I didn’t win anything but I did hold my own among a plethora of high level players. The key to the team coming second over all, were points accumulated and that, in the end, was the reason I was there. I scored enough to help the team, over all, get a placing. And, of course, in doing so, got into the good books with that senior officer who, at a later date, invited me to join her MahJong group which played in the Officers mess once a week.

Now that I was an expert at playing. But that’s a whole other post another day!

Other sporting events I found myself taking part in included, playing squash competitively, badminton, netball, field hockey, and swimming, something else I was born to do. I surprised my other swim team members when I won all 3 of the events I was signed up for. Excuse the pun, but the pool of talent among the women of the Army, Navy and Airforce, at the time, was limited. I was, therefore, bound to place somewhere.

Playing sport afforded me a great deal of time off to represent not only my camp, but at times, the Women’s Royal Air Force thanks to being a willing volunteer. It didn’t matter to me whether we won or lost, it was all about the team camaraderie, and the chance to travel all over. And for that, I will be forever thankful to the military for those amazing opportunities. Because I went to Berlin, as part of a team of fencers, I also got to see this famous city, it famous sites, including Check Point Charlie, the Opera, and a very famous beer garden, Prater Garten, where I had my very first Berliner Weisse.

Ah, those were the days.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧

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?

Yes, me … along with several thousand other personnel on camp. Sirens blare waking up not only us, but everyone three villages over. The tannoy announces we’re at war, and we’re all instructed to don our gear (in nine minutes of less please, we don’t want you to die from gas/chemical exposure) and report to our place of work immediately.

No wash your face or take a leisurely shower, no breakfast, you barely have time to take a pee. As every last person is timed getting into work down to the second. There are monitors everywhere, stop-watches in hand, jotting stuff down on clipboards. As if the sirens waking you were not terrifying enough.

Hell settles in pretty quickly when you realise you can’t breath, the mask you are wearing is fogging up and you’re trying to ride your issue bike 2 miles across camp at the same time as several thousand other people. It’s organised chaos. You can spot the Newbies instantly. Like me. Clumsily trying to avoid crashing into everything.

But there is worst to come. By the time your logged in at your place of work realising you’re last to arrive, you then have to quell your rising panic as you are briefed the Russians have invaded and, for the next 2 hours aid in the take off of four full squadrons of fighter jets on sorties to repel the Orange Force invaders.

Six solid hours of sheer terror later, usually somewhere around 8 am, the cookhouse delivers breakfast. And, if you’re lucky, by this time, masks off, you get to eat a slightly cold bacon and egg sandwich washed down by a large mug of bitter strong tea.

If you are unlucky, as I was this first time outing for me, the tannoy announces a gas attack from the enemy and you have to sit, mask on, watching your breakfast congeal into a cold lump of stone, while clipboard carrying monitors stop by to spray you with bug repellent to check the seal and filter on your mask!

Yes, really.

There is, of course, so much more I could write about this, rest assured I’ll come back to the topic in a later post. For now, know this much, I learnt pretty quickly how to be in the right place at the right time for future evals.

𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧