Introduction

I am a bit overwhelmed by the great comments on my earlier posts in this serie, it gives me even more inspiration to write the next part. Thank you all for reading and those great comments, they are much appreciated and proves that the engagement on @Steemit is still going strong, even with the current prices ;)

Last week I started a serie about my time in the Army during my Obligatory military service. At the end of this post you can find a link to the other part(s). My idea to write about this came from the news that on Morocco they are planning to re-introduce the obligatory service again. It reminded me at myself servicing the army when it was still obligated.

On to the real job

In the previous parts I have written about my time in training to become a 'real soldier'. My primary memorie for that period is quite positive. Only I still can't find a good reason why Obligatory service is a good thing. From the 20 guys in our battalion only 2 guy's were really interested in going in the army and I am convinced that if you don't like the situation you're in, you are not motivated enough to do your absolutly best...Just my thoughts...

After the training you were expected to fulfill your service for the remaining 11 months on a 'real' job within the military. They tried to place everone on barracks near their home but depending on your skills it could be you still stayed far away from home.

I was assigned to the communication services in Ede, Holland. It was the trainingcenter of the Dutch Army for anything that had to do with communication within the army. My platoon serviced the eduction teams, for instance: When there were military exercises in the field we had to drive the students of facilitate the practicing when had to do assignments. As I was trained being a Land Rover driver, I got my 'own' stretched one during my time in this barracks.

Source

Because I was responsible for the car I also had to maintain it, not the technical maintainance (they had pro's for that) but the little things like checking oil, fillin it up with gasolione and repairing paintwork. Painting was very spartan, just with a brush on the sheet metal, not neatly masking or spraying. And of course it wasn't required to paint it like a luxury civilian car because the car only had to drive...

The group I was in wasn't a very nice group. A lot of 'tough' guy's with big mouths. Although I had my moments of big mouthing, I always treated everyone with respect. These guy's weren't. So I couldn't say I was in the right place at that time. But we had to make the best out of it.

Assist the exercises

The students from the communications division had to bring the things they learned into practice. So we had to acompany them with out car. The had to create a communication line between two locations in the woods. To do that they had to physicaly lay I telephone line on the ground and had to hide it with some sand. You can imagine that I turned out to be quite some lines in the woods.

The telephone lines where on a pully and one soldier was in the back of the car unrolling the pulley while two others were behind the car putting the telephone line on the grounds and hiding them. So for me it was only a matter of driving at walking pace so they could do their job. To get that pace the only thing I had to do was pulling out the choke of the car, so I didn't had to use the pedal. So for me it was really relaxed ;) I only had to do some steering.

After a while I got a little bored because there wasn't really much to it for me so I wanted to prank the soldiers who were laying down the telephone lines. As they were busy I pulled the throtle just a bit more so that the car drove slightly faster. I speed up bit by bit without saying a thing. I already heared the pully spinning faster and faster. I was laughing silently because I didn't want to let the soldiers know I did it on purpose... I saw the guy behind the car in my mirror walking faster and faster to put the line on the grounds...I kept speeding up untill one of them asked if I could slow down because they couldn't manage the telephone line anymore .... Of course I did and told them I was just bullying them, lucky me they could laugh about it.

One of the parts of the exercise for student was to discover a break in the telephone line as fast as possible. Their captains went into the field and cut the wire on certain places. They then had to find the break and had to use a efficient way to find it. They practiced this in 'war' situation, which ment that I (with my Land Rover) had to use the special war-lights. Those are tiny lights just enough to see the road but (if it works well) to little for enemies to notice.

Because of the woods all being sandy with deep tracks I drove quiet fast with the soldiers in the back of the car. As you can imagine there isn't much comfort in the back of a Land Rover so the guy's were flying all around. And of course I had a lot of fun doing it...

Assisting these exercises was a big part of my job in Ede and to be honest it wasn't the most exciting time.. I'll come back to that later on.

retraining

One day a sergeant came to our workshop, he asked us if we wanted to be retrained for driving a Necaf (see picture below). The Necaf was a small jeep, quiete simmilar to a American Willy. Of course we wanted that, for us it was a break in our daily routines and a extra license for the army.

Source

The retraining consisted of some practical information about the Necaf, on of the main difference was the gear box. The first gear was in the opposite of the Land Rover, so one shift back. The reverse of the Necaf was on the same place where the first gear was on the Land Rover. This was something you had to pay close attention to otherwise accidents would happen.

We drove one round in the Necaf and then we received our license for the Necaf too. Way easier than in civilian life :)

After we got the permit to driver a Necaf the Sergeant asked us if we would like to drive a Necaf to Assen (from Ede it's a long distance). Of course we said yes. Together with a colleque we got on our way. We didn't think of the weather before leaving, but soon as we were on our way we noticed that the temperature was very cold. Not to say our balls froze of..
We had to stop several times on our way to warm up a little again, along the way we both regretted we agreed to go :)...
But afterwards we did had a laugh again about it.

Well, so far this sixth part. Stay tuned for more :) There are still some great stories comming..

See also the other parts in this (true) story

Part one of this story
Part two of this story
Part three of this story
Parth four of this story
Part five of this story

Thanks for reading,

Have a great day

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Proud member of SMG

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