The Army

 

Having reached a peak in friction ahead of the weekend, the pressure has disappeared and all has been fun and games since Friday. Almost… One of our trucks had an accident during a “turn and break” exercise on Sunday and turned completely sideways down a ditch.

 

I was asked to save my friends together with a wrecker truck. However, on its way to the rescue – the wrecker also went off the road! Military police was called out to block the road and I had to save the day by pulling up the wrecker truck using my winch for the first time and placing my truck in four different positions across the road. The wrecker was buried deep into the snow but after three hours of digging and winching, I got it up on the road again.

 

My poor friends had to wait outside for several hours before getting rescued, but thanks to making a fire and with plenty of food in their vehicle, they were OK.

 

After a weekend of working 24hours per day we finished Monday night at a spa in central Boden. The Psyops Unit had rented the entire Relax and massage floor and spent the evening indulging in steam rooms, Jacuzzis and slides. I was one of the brave who made it into the outdoor pool on the rooftop. The only challenge was getting into the 38-degree round pool, as the steps were covered in ice.

 

There was also a bar, where I managed to get a perfect Vanilla Sky...

 

We had a special herb sauna together at the end, which finished with smearing honey onto our bodies. It may sound like a strange thing to do with male colleagues but believe me – by now I’m completely comfortable with the guys and I’m happy to say we were all wearing swimsuits!

 

The exercise in Boden has been a true bonding experience and I am feeling very close and happy with the group at the moment. It’s a great bunch of personalities and I think it’s the first time in a very long time that I am experiencing the phenomena of belonging to a group. No matter what I get put through by the Army – I feel confident, calm and strong. I know I will handle whatever comes up especially as I have the trust and energy of the troop, as a part of me.

 

Despite being strong individuals, perhaps we’ve become an integrated Unit, at last.

I’ve gone off to have a pizza on my own. It’s been a tough day, and it finished with having news about a death in the family – a hard day then and on many levels.

 

We’ve been away for several days now, either on the road or in combat training – or force integration training as it’s also called. People in the team are getting tired, agitated and emotional in general and today it was particularly noticeable. Personally I felt so weak this morning I struggled getting my rucksack up the stepladder and into the truck. I wanted to scream, cry or just walk out and give up. My eyes were hurting and I started thinking I must be sick. Lots of people have started showing flu symptoms and I’m sharing a room with 12 others. It’s difficult to wake up rested on top of a narrow bunk bed, and I keep waking up with my duvet on the floor.

 

Doing these types of exercises is hard physically as well as psychologically. Each day I am learning and performing and being evaluated. After each exercise I am asked to do it again and again and improve myself, or the team effort. At all hours I am listening, learning, focusing and delivering. And I take it seriously. I get up at six every morning to have an early breakfast that I have bought and cooked myself, I change into my full army combat clothing and shortly afterwards I am outside ready to pick up my weapon. My lunch comes in a green bag outdoors that I cook by stirring in hot water and letting it swell for ten minutes. Late at night when the day is over, I have a shower - it’s the only time of the day that I have to myself. When standing in the white tiled room there is only myself and the sound and feel of the hot water running down the drain. The sound of the water, that’s usually all that I think about at the end of the day.

 

On this mission, I’ve taken on the responsibility of the Radio Group. I gather information to brief and instruct, however sometimes the information isn’t delivered, or it’s delivered straight to the group, which make me feel surplus at times. I can’t do anything about it, rather than address it afterwards. One of the guys in the group took out his anger on me today for not doing a good enough job, and although I knew he was on edge and upset at someone else, I still felt it – the upset. Yet, I acknowledged the critique aimed at me, and said that although I see the situation from a different perspective I’ll take onboard the comments and continue my responsibility the best I can.

 

Looking back at the training today: As I stood in the snow with my weapon aimed in the direction of a potential enemy, I remembered how I used to play in the woods as a child. I used to invent a pretence scenario or a fantasy role-play that I got so into, I started believing it was for real. I had the same feeling today. We were searching for mines in the snow, rolling our vehicles out of an infected area, protecting our camp and whilst looking for an enemy and signalling to the post nearby - the situation felt just as real as when playing in the woods as a six year old.

 

This job may feel like a fucking waste of time sometimes, but when I have to perform and deliver, no matter what it is – I’ll take it seriously. Even when standing on a snowy hilltop looking at nothing but a bunch of pine trees, that’s what I’ll always remember. It’s been a tough day but I did my best and I’m proud of that.

It was a special feeling arriving in Boden last night. My dad did his military service here in the 70s and it’s still a huge military base located in Northern Sweden. I’ve never been this far north before and the road trip here was a true adventure through snow, spectacular coastline and mountains. I had to drive over 1000 kilometres with my Scania P124 truck!

 

Before falling asleep last night, I went to Regiment I 19’s gym, which must have looked the same even when my dad was working out 35 years ago. In the small basement room with low ceilings and wooden walls, I counted ten young men with well-defined muscles from the exercise bike in the middle. Perhaps I am getting used to always being around men, or it could have been the loud music by System of a Down blasting out from the speakers in the former USSR looking sweat spot – but I felt instantly at home.

 

The Psyops team is in Northern Sweden to participate in something called CET – Combat Enhancement Training. It kicked off today and apart from planning a new radio station in Norway, I spent half of the day shooting. I wore my brand new snow uniform and blended in well with the environment. Having been called Nikita during my soldier training last summer, my nickname in the snow became Sniper!

 

I hadn’t used my AK5c with Aimpoint since June last year, and I felt a rush of adrenaline ahead of the shooting. It didn’t happen when I shot with Glock in September, so it was a nice surprise. I skipped lunch since I had a feeling I wouldn’t be able to digest well and it turned out to be a good idea. My heart was pumping and even my fingertips and toes got warm from the first firing.

 

Right now, I’ve finished cleaning my weapon, locked it away and I’m getting ready for dinner. I’m starving and looking forward to putting on my own clothes and taking a walk. It’s snowing outside and the temperature is mild.

It’s been an interesting week.

 

On Monday I was still tired from our pre-Cold Response mission, which apart from setting up a radio station included guarding and defending the area at night. It takes time to get back to normal after a week of minimum sleep. Also, the guy I’ve been seeing lately failed to get in touch on Valentines Day. Everyone else in the world remembered! Rude, I say. If not retarded...

 

Anyway, the week got better as I attended a class in half duplex signalling. It was a lot of fun pretending to be extremely serious about talking in a walkie-talkie.

 

Every time someone made a mistake on the radio, our instructor shouted “WRONG”! He then repeated the mistake and told the correct way to say it. The style is typical the Army and it sounded so silly I had to question it there and then. Luckily there was another instructor in the room who didn’t take it personally and basically explained it’s the pedagogic approach that military officers are taught. I never knew.

 

The lesson learnt was to say as little as possbile (over the radio) and the key to success is to finish each cryptic sentence with the word "OVER"...

 

Another lesson learnt is that it's not OK to spell out a word or name over the phone using "Lina" as a description for the letter "L" - it's meant to be "Ludvig". Turns out the Phonetic Alphabet in Sweden, is made up of all male first names.

Having finished my week with some 12 hours working days and Friday off, I’m ready for my next mission.

 

Click on the images to enlarge...

 

For the first time since I joined the Army 11 months ago, I've come back from a training mission with a smile on my face. I had more fun than anything else, and yes I do find it somewhat surprising. However, the training mission didn’t start too well on Monday. Whilst driving one of the heavy loaded trucks reaching 4,5meter above ground, my AK5 attached to the ceiling in the vehicle suddenly came off its lock, and crashed onto my shoulder. I screamed out in pain.

 

The fall of a fully loaded AK5 from about 70cm could have knocked me out – had it hit my head. My second driver was grateful I managed to stay on the road and remain calm. I didn’t have the time or energy to care about my shoulder until five days later after the mission. However, by then I was aching.

 

Hopefully the X-rays will give me some resolution tomorrow.

 

After a painful start, our training mission got better. We reached our destination on Monday evening and spent the next four days building and dissembling our radio tower and testing the transmission signal on a local FM frequency. I had spent the week ahead applying for a licence to broadcast and it was granted on the day of arrival.

 

Ahead of the mission I felt restless due to reluctance to participate. It’s a challenge both physically and mentally to be in duty for several days with no personal time or freedom. Someone will decide what is to be worn and carried out at each hour in the day and night. You have to transform yourself into an accepting robot, since you have no right to question an order. Lack of sleep and arctic weather makes it tough physically – apart from the ache in hands and fingers that comes from carrying a metal weapon in the cold.

 

On the second day, my fingers were so swollen I could hardly button my jacket.

 

The anxiety before my mission is universal though. Having spoken to my colleagues during the past week, pre-mission hours make everyone negative, reluctant, or restless – no matter if you’re a civilian or military soldier. Most of the time, soldiers just don’t tend to talk to each other about it.

 

Having spoken about it and heard that everyone else also felt negative prior to our mission, I no longer feel the need to justify or change my emotions ahead of an exercise. It’s normal to feel unwilling or unenthusiastic about giving up your freedom for a few days, especially when it’s something you’re not at all used to. Regarding the emotionally blocked people I wrote about last week – I might as well have been talking about myself.

 

Next time, I will bring on the tension and accept my anxiety and the fact that I don't have to be a super human woman in order to work in the Army.

The stress has started. I wasn’t sure if it would come this time, but the nervous energy has taken on its familiar grip. I keep registering each full hour and the sound of the clock ticking away whilst trying to study, yet conscious of my anxiety. I keep reading, focusing on the meaning of each word and sentence.

 

Only 20 more pages, then I will go to sleep – and the next four days away from home will fly by, surely. I will be fine on next week’s Psyops training mission.

 

Taking a break from my psychology studies, I start to write and words spoken by a friend earlier this week, enter my mind: “This is how a society penalizes criminals – people who deserve punishment”.

 

Think about this statement; to punish a criminal you strip a person naked and take all of his belongings away. You isolate him from his family, home and comforts. You send him away, where the rest of the world can’t see him – where he has no voice. You make him perform and obey. He is isolated, and has lost all that he was, including his freedom. He has become a slave, or a vulnerable puppet. This is how we punish criminals.

 

Why would any normal person join the Army and freely put himself through training missions and a life that is similar to a convict’s? And why am I doing it?

 

Aside from the questions, this thought of mine is a defence mechanism of course – comparing criminals with life in the Army. It’s an intellectualization of the situation I’m in, and an attempt to block the emotional tension, or stress concerning the coming five days at work. Which lead to my next conclusion, or question: Is this blog post merely an escape from anxiety – through the isolation of thought from accompanying emotion?

 

If such intellectualization is a common defence mechanism from anxiety, is the Army particularly attracting such a group of people - that for one reason or another has become emotionally blocked, or insensitive? People craving more intense external stimulation since they've become numb to more subtle stimuli, or ways of expressing themselves?

 

Is this why I am in the Army – to learn to deal with the emotional challenge that life and various people in the Army bring out of me? Am I pushing myself in this environment since it is making me uncomfortable and since I can’t stand experiencing the tension? Will I stay for as long as it lasts and until I have mastered it?

 

We have an intense period of several training missions ahead. This means I have the next two months to practise letting go of my freedom and learning to find peace in my mind, despite having my life controlled by others.

 

Inspired by the band with the same name, let’s just hope I won’t be Dead by April...