Thought out loud

War ja irgendwie vorauszusehen. Es war schon nach 23 Uhr und das Korpsmaterial warnoch immer nicht gefasst.

Die nacht war nur bedingt erholsam. Die unterkunft erfüllt ihren zweck und bleibt auch wenn alle drin sind einigermassen kühl. So weit so gut.

Allerdings gibt es ein manko: das duschwasser ist ARSCHKALT! mal schaun was es heut zu mittag gibt

Am Montag ists wieder soweit, das Vaterland ruft. Wie patriotisch, gell? Ein weiteres mal gibts in meinem Keller plötzlich wieder Platz.

Ich starte mit gemischten Gefühlen in diesen WK. Auf der einen Seite “schissts mi aa”, auf der anderen Seite kann ich dem ganzen auch etwas positives abgewinnen.

Es ist immer wieder mühsam, wenn man auf irgendwas warten muss, oder rumgestresst wird. Warte zum seckle, seckle zum warte halt. Auch gibt es immer irgendwelche Querschläger, welche aus Prinzip nichts machen. Auf der anderen Seite gibt es die Armee-Geilen welche päpstlicher als der Papst das militärische Verhalten zelebrieren und vermutlich sogar Unterwäsche und Bettzeug im “Vier-Frucht” Design haben. “Mer sitze alli im gliche Boot. Wenn mer jetzt Gas gän, chönemer nochher in d’Wiese ligge” Das ist meine Einstellung. Ich sehe ein, dass es gewisse Regeln braucht, vorallem wenn so viele Leute auf so kleinem Raum zusammengepfercht sind. Allerdings müssen die Aufträge schon mindestens einen Funken Sinn haben. Sadistische Machtdemonstrationen der Offiziere und Unteroffiziere gehen mir mächtig gegen den Strich und da kann ich dann auch “Dienst nach Vorschrift” und nicht mehr machen.

Oft hört man den Ausdruck “Grüne Ferien”. Irgendwie stimmt das auch. Nicht Ferien im Sinne von Füsse hoch und entspannen, sondern eher Ferien für den Kopf. Etwas ganz anderes machen und den Kopf mal durchlüften.

Ich freue mich darauf die Kameraden wieder zu sehen. Und nach dem letztjährigen Einsatz für Amba Centro freue ich mich auch darauf, mal wieder das zu tun, wofür ich eigentlich ausgebildet wurde. Mal schauen was es mit dieser grossen Übung auf sich hat.

Hoffentlich haben wir dieses Jahr eine vernünftige Unterkunft. Es muss nicht luxuriös sein, aber nach den Unterkunft vor 2 Jahren (31 Grad bei 70% Luftfeuchtigkeit) in einer Zivilschutzanlage wage ich zu sagen, so nümm. Da schlaf ich lieber im Fahrzeug.

Wie auch immer, Ich hoffe, dass die nächsten 3 Wochen schnell vorbei gehen und ich nicht allzu geschädigt wieder ins Zivilleben eintauchen kann Ich halte euch auf dem laufenden…

Today I had the new edition of “Armee aktuell”, a magazine for the members of the Infantry Brigade 5. Unlike magazines of some other formations of the swiss army, this one is not so strict army-style. You get reports about the last WK of all battallions in the brigade and whats coming up in the next year(s). As I was on a “real” engagement this year, it was very interesting to read what the other companies did. Who knows, maybe we’ll get mentioned in the second edition?

The best thing though I found on the last page. Finally, all the dates of WK, KVK and so on are made available on the internet using google calendar. On top of that you can download a .ics file per battallion to import the the dates into outlook. They even use tinyurl!

Here is the calendar for the InfBr5! YAY

Here is what happened the last few days of my WK.

On my way back to Bern I’ve met up with some other guys from the section. That made the train-ride a lot shorter and helped to find the way through Bern . OK, we were about 20 minutes late. But that didn’t disturb us too much, we had the car-keys . We then moved back to the encampment and slept the night through.

On Tuesday we went back to the usual schedule, only that it was shifted back 12 hours. That meant we got up at 5am. I won’t go in to deep detail on the schedules, as I have explained it before.

The sad highlights were, that the higher ranking officers were now inspecting our posts (as we were doing day-shifts, this happened more often now), and they were not entirely happy. Some guys didn’t have all their equipment with them (But who needs a raincoat in bright sunshine), or were smoking obviously (Well, that’s plain stupid).

When working during the day, sleeping in the dorm room in the basement suddenly lost its attractiveness since the sun shone outside. So i decided to take a nap on the roof of my truck. I should have known that the captain wouldn’t take that for such a good idea….. I then picked a other truck which wasn’t that visible.

After we finished our shift on the second day packed up all the material we got on the first day, and loaded it in to two trucks. The section then had their “easy evening” with barbecue and everything. The 4 Truck-Drivers (including me) left for geneva. One of the soldiers was missing and didn’t return his material. Soon we found out that he left some of the stuff at home and was on his way to pick that up. We were already about 1 hour late when he finally turned up, with just a belt. He already returned the rest of his stuff. Yipee!

After about 3 1/2 hours we arrived in Geneva. The two drivers with the stuff on their trucks went on to deliver the material to the Staff Sargeant. At this point I must make a big compliment to our “management”. The Spare-material was counted and bundled through the night and then returned to the arsenal on thursday morning.

At 2am in the morning we finally got to our beer, which our friends gave us. As drivers have to sleep at least 6 hours we slept with the sargeants. that way, there would be less noise when they get up at 5 in the morning. Unfortunately they didn’t know that we were there, so they switched on the ghetto-blaster to wake up at 4.30am. After shouting around a bit we got to sleep again.

At 8am I got up, had some breakfast (coffee & cigarette) and then left for the AMP to bring back the VW-Bus they left for me. About 1 1/2 hours later I arrived at the AMP. From there on, the program was the same like every year. Wash the car, clean the windows (and the VW-bus has a shit-load of windows :-/), vacuum-clean it and then check all the fluids (Windscreen-water, oil, cooling fluid, brake-, and servo-oil) and then, WAIT. For about 40 VW-Buses we had 2 vacuum-cleaners. Great, even more waiting.

At about 3pm everything was over, we got our pay and headed to the train-station. Another 3 hours later I could finally hold and kiss my girlfriend again….

Yep, im on my way home. Another WK done. As soon as i’ve taken my shower and slept a bit i wil update you what happened the last few days.

The last two days went everything but smooth. It seems obvious that during day-shifts the major will check our guards more often. It also seems obvious that you shouldnt smoke, at least not when about 3 cameras are watching you. We had quite some trouble with the upper guys. I’ll write about that when i have my keyboard. But hey, its almost over! Yay!!!

The weekend is over and the ipod is filled with new music. I’m back in the encampment and getting ready for bed. The last week should pass quickly. Or at least thats what i hope… Will keep you updated

Here we go again. It’s just a few hours left, and I’ll be on my way back to Bern to do the (hopefully) last week of Military service this year. Looking back, its quite good to do 10 days in one piece and then have a few days off. Its even nicer when you know there’s not much left to do. We have 2 day-shifts left, and then we’ll have to get all our stuff (spare uniforms, vehicles, etc) back to where we got it from. Only downside to the last weekend was, that my Girlfriend was on a training. we saw us only on friday. Too bad.

I used the long weekend to fill up my Ipod with fresh music and I brought everything home which I wouldn’t need for the last week. That will make it a lot easier travelling home next weekend.

I’ll let you know what’s happening as soon as I get there. Don’t expect too much, its still the same schedule like before, just shifted by 12 hours.

This morning the 7th and last Night-shift ended. I arrived at home a few hours ago and enjoyed a long and hot shower. It feels good to be home again, in your usual surrounding. Doing so many Days in one go on the other hand has also its advantages. After the holiday you don’t have that much left. We have 2 day-shifts to do, and then get back all the material we received in the beginning, clean the encampment and then get out of there.

I’m now on Holiday until monday evening.

I will clean out all the Posts I made using mBlogging to make them more readable. Most likely I will also find some miss-spelling. Who ever finds a miss-spelled word may keep it

I know i didn’t write a lot lately. The reason is that there’s simply nothing happening here. The schedule looks exactly the same every day.
Nothing spectacular at all.

Only highlight was the parcel i got from my girlfriend. And knowing that there might be one from my mum on the way.

Time will tell…