The happiest day in my army daze

When I was in the army, I was an M.P (Military Police). The place I was attached to had me working 12 hr shifts for 5 days and then, awarded 1 day off. The following day after that, I have to report back to camp. It was pretty much like a security job where we had to guard key places on the island. As you can wildly guess by now the work was exhaustive, depressing and potently mind-numbing.            

Every year, a soldier has to go through this thing called Combat Shoot where we are separated into smaller details of 6-8 men and have to shoot down targets in a prone, knelling or standing position while running towards the target in 10 meter intervals. There are two parts of the shoot, day and night. It’s pretty much the same process only with and without daylight. The objective of it is of course to hit the target as many times as possible with your rifle. The detail who scores above 85% overall, will get the marksman badge and also a $200 reward.

Me and a few buddies have just finished our 5 day stint, though the next day was our off day, we had to stay in camp for the combat shoot was tomorrow. Uber bummer!! But the great news is after the combat shoot and after cleaning and returning our arms and equipment, my platoon gets to enjoy a 2 week leave. Uber yeay!! Just the thought of it at that point of time made us have mind-blowing orgasm and ejaculate tears of joy from out eyes.

Now, I am not the most pious person in my religion but the day of the combat shoot also falls on the last day of fasting in the holy month. And of course the following day is the 1^st day of Eid or more commonly known as Hari Raya.

So I decided to at least… at least make the last day of fasting count.

So I woke up with my muslim friends before sunrise to have breakfast at the cookhouse, inhaled 2 fags and prepared for the combat shoot.

When we reached the shooting range, I got news that me and my muslim friends are in the same detail and we were also the last detail for the day shoot. The reason we are last is because the 4 of us are to wait for 3 more of our friends who were just relieved from their 12 hour duty and together we will form a detail.

In my mind “4 starving guys + 3 exhausted = no badge and no money”

                                                  This is starting to look like a fantastic day.

Seeing that there is nothing much I can do about it and I also don’t like being a pessimist, I just accepted the predicament and enjoyed my day and the company of my platoon mates.

Close to noon, the remainder of my detail finally arrived. They came waltzing in with a slight hunch and wide smiles under their eye bags. They practically dropped on their butts beside me and bellowed a deafening sigh. I looked at them with a half smile and asked

“How are u guys?”

They instantly regurgitated a combination of complaints on how tired they were and how the shoot could have been in a more worse timing accompanied by a colorful string of profanities. We had a good laugh after that.

Lunch came. We had to witness people eating, drinking and having a smoke. It was tough on an ill-disciplined person like me. But I made a promise to myself and intented to keep it. So I just kept reading the novel I brought along and ignored the world. It was going to be my details turn soon anyway.

2 details before mine, something happened that dampened our mood further.. it started to rain.

                                             Rain rain go away, come again another day

The detail that was doing the shoot at that point of time came back wet and muddy, basically bedraggled.

The rain stopped just before it was our turn. That doesn’t change the fact that the ground would be wet and mushy. But we went on anyway, because we had no choice. In our minds all we can do is motivate ourselves and make the best out of it.

It was time. We positioned ourselves at the start line, waited for the command to commence and then started walking until the target popped out. At which point we instantly prone down, took aim and take a few shots. The targets then went down which was a signal to us to quickly get up and run to the next bound, take position and aim until the next target pops out.

That is pretty much the sequence until the end with of course with the difference of knelling and standing near the end.

After the exercise, we walked back with the relieving thought in our minds that it’s done.. its finally fucking done.. now all that is left is the fucking night shoot. When we were reaching back at the starting point, the officer in charge came to us with his hands up to his chest and a nervous smile.    

He explained that we had to do the whole thing again for there was a glitch in the scores. I wish I had some bullets left so that can put some into the malfunctioning contraption that didn’t register our scores. We all gave him the blank look of disbelief. Hoping and waiting for him to say “ Haha!! Im just kidding guys!! Awww.. u should have seen the looks on your faces when I told you guys you have to redo it.. It was SUPERTATIOUSLY EPIC!!!!”. But the moment didn’t come. We groaned and sighed a bit, sucked it up, went to our starting positions and repeated the whole process again on the wet-puddled ground. This time our efforts seemed more energetic. Must be the boost from the anger and disappointment supplement we just took.

After the heroic-like shootout, we walked back again thinking again that its done.. its finally fucking done and just like the broken record of deja vus, the officer came up again with his hands again, apologizing… again. Turns out the same error occurred and we have to re-enact what we just did again. I respectfully told the officer to please fix the glitch before we do the shoot again for we are humanly tired. He gave us his assurance and we went back to our starting lines.

They say third times the charm. That is exactly what happened, we ran through the course again with less enthusiasm but to our delight the scores were recorded and we can head back to the waiting area to rest and wait for night fall.

While resting, a sergeant approached the waiting area and called for our attention. He was announcing the results for the day shoot. Everyone passed the shoot but only 1 detail and mine made the sharpshooter grade. We looked at each other and were like FUCK YEA!! IN YOU FACE FAGGOTS!! FAGGOT FACE!! THAT’S WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT!!! That injected hope back in our veins and painted our faces with tired but genuine smiles.

                                                                 Happy faces

Dusk came and it was time for me and my friends to break fast… YEY!!…. Today’s specialty… army food… BOO!!…. Oh what the hell, I gulped down what I can without throwing it back out and all of us hurriedly went to the edge the forest to light up our sticks. I felt like taking a leak, so I excused myself and went a little deeper in to relieve myself with half a sick still hanging carelessly on my lips. Just like what the warden from “Shaw Shank Redemption” said “Peeing outdoors is a pleasure that a poet has never came around to write” or something like that. It felt way better when you are smoking similtaniously.

The sun has set and everything has been set to place. Time for night shoot. The good news is, all muslim details are to go 1^st so that they can be released earlier to celebrate Eid the next day. The way better news was, my detail was 1^st.

Nourished by notoriously tasteless food and nicotine, my detail had nothing on our minds but malice for the target boards.

                                                                  malicious faces

We went to the starting line, took our positions and waited… waited for the go sign… waited for our time to vent out all our negative feelings, release hell, get the marksmanship, head home and get some well deserved rest!

When the targets came on, we dived into prone position and shouted like mad men with a bulldog biting our testicles while shooting. Some of us started shouting and laughing at the same time. Sounded something like “AAAAAAAAHHHHHhhhhhHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAAAA!!!”

It was done, we did our best and the shoot was complete, no one told us there was an error or a malfunction. We went back to the edge of the forest with our things to smoke again. We had to wait for two more details so that the transport would be in full capacity to send us back to camp.

While waiting, our platoon sergeant came up to us smiling. The first thing that came to our minds is that he is out of cigarettes and wanted to ask us for one (he rarely smiles). But to our delight he came bearing good news. He told us that so far, we were the only ones who got the marksman badge and money! We high-5 each other in elation we couldn’t believe our luck. We were wet, muddy, underwear soaked, had to repeat the day shoot 3 times and shagged out of our existance. But all the effort, patience and attrition we put in paid off well.

Finally we went back to camp, cleaned and returned our equipment and arms and headed home.

When we came back after our long holiday, we got news that our detail were the only one who achieved marksmanship. That really boosted our egos. It was a happy ending to a day that seem hopeless. It rarely happens but if it does happen to you treasure its memory.