--- I ---
I realise that my combat fitness is almost totally zero.
The SOC ground being in use by seven or eight groups, our company cannot afford to sit there and wait. So our sirs bring us on a run about the camp compound - he estimates 2km - before heading back to the company line.
We set off, running in crocodile file. At the beginning, I'm thinking, "Okay, you managed to run your 2.4km, now this shouldn't be a problem."
But it's a different thing altogether. Now I'm running with a load on me. Rather, loads. My webbing, my helmet, and my rifle. I'm pretty used to running in boots already. Less than 400m and I am nearly gasping the life out of myself for breath. Carrying the webbing with two full water bottles behind is bad. Include the rifle, it's worse. I totally forget to change the direction my rifle faces: its butt ought to be at the bottom, in order to even out the weight. Even so, I wonder if that really helps.
Now, add the helmet, and you feel like you're in hell. Imagine one of Doctor Octopus' tentacles squeezing your head and chin. That's how the helmet feels like, particularly when you have to do strenuous physical activities - all the while you just feel like you want to strip the stupid helmet off your head before you faint from collective heat build-up. And then I've got those stupid camouflage leaves dangling in front of my face - they drop so low that as I breathe, I actually suck one of the leaves to my nostrils like a vacuum cleaner.
Darn. Should have trimmed those excess leaves.
Eventually we run a distance of 1.6km, but very progressively slower, because many people are on the verge of collapse.
I really wonder how I'm going to run the SOC myself, since I run at such a slow pace. And I have problems with the low rope - an old haunt from BMT days. If I'm lucky I can even get across the low wall.
--- II ---
The dunking of the commando trainee's head into water resulted in his death. Now we're attempting the same thing with our field pack items (i.e. our apparel and toiletries and such equipment wrapped inside Ziploc bags) by performing the dip test on their waterproofing. The packs are "dead" if water enters - it also means that we are dead because we have to repack the whole fucking thing again.
When it is my turn, I realise that my toiletries pack is badly pocked with holes that could erupt from the pressure underwater. I beg the tester not to dip it. Thank goodness it's Sergeant John. He says okay, and takes my No. 4 and Admin packs to place under water. Bubbles appear, but not from holes. Rather, they are air trapped on the outside of the Ziploc bag, at the excess which I fold inwards and tape up.
I don't really know the remainder of my packs are waterproof. Anyway I shall have to examine the quality of the Ziploc bags again, before everything gets wet in a future test with a not-so-nice tester . . .
