The Stumblings of a Young Armed Forces Officer

Well last night turned out to be an eventful one after all.

Was going out on the town with two of my buddies, we'll call them Jon and James for arguments sake, and we had planned that it was going to be a rather big night! For a bit of background Jon is a bit of a beefcake, loves the gym and is a bit of a perfectionist in everything he does, and he most certainly loves the craic. James isn't the biggest one for going on nights out, and is a bit of a military geek who doesn't drink that much, but he certainly gave it a good go last night.

So we get the train into town, having booked a taxi for our return at 3am (this turns out to be instrumental in my near demise). We rock up into town and it is decided that we'll have our first drink in an Irish pub just outside the station. A swiftly drunk Guinness later and we're off to a piano bar - god only knows why. It was most certainly a wine bar as it had only one beer tap and the beer was off, so you had to go for a bottle. It was James' round and when Jon wasn't looking he bought them both dry martinis - they certainly looked like the only gays in the village. Unphased by this lack of manliness I got a bottled beer and tried my best to look manly in a bar Gok Wan would've been proud of.

This trend continued with a couple of bars* until we ended up in our final club. It's one of those massive jobbies that has lots of different rooms depending on your musical taste, you know the kind every big town has. Jon cracked on trying to hit on a big girl while James unsuccessfully tried to dance with girls he'd not even spoken to. This was all getting a bit much for me so I tried to hit up a booty call of mine in town. This was going spectacularly well by text until I asked her where she was and she replied with a club I'd never heard of (unsurprising as I'm originally from nowhere near where I'm based, and still getting my bearings). Unphased by this I asked around and no one knew where it was either. Figuring that it wouldn't be an issue I told the guys I'd meet them at the agreed taxi location and ventured off into the night. I should've realised this wasn't going to go well when the doormen of the club I was leaving hadn't heard of the place either...

15 minutes later and I'm meandering around the city trying to find this placed based on a hunch Jon had when I asked him about the Booty Call Club (I'll refer to it as this to save confusion). I got to where the hunch led me and had no joy. I proceeded to take some cash out (as I figured I'd need some for when I got to the Booty Call Club). It was about 1am at this time so I asked a doorman of a random club if he knew where it was and it gave me directions which I maintain were a wild goose chase.
The next 45 minutes of the search for the Booty Call Club were fruitless to say the least. I've since looked up online where it is and I'm sure at my closest I was no further than 100yds from it, although there was a massive building obstructing line of sight - so I never knew!
I ended up admitting defeat and returning to the original club, much to my mates confusion as they never realised I was leaving and wondered where the hell I'd gone. Jon was still cracking into his big lass and James was still unsuccessfully dancing with drunk girls.

2.45am finally rolled around and we left for the taxi pickup, which was opposite a take away. We got kebabs (we're only human) and were waiting for our taxi when I could've sworn I saw it pull over up the road and some random girls jump in. Jon phoned the company and lo and behold it was our taxi that got stolen, meaning we had a 20 minute wait. Just then I started to come over all funny, and started getting bizarre cold sweats. This confused me as I hadn't had a drink since about midnight, and my take away as far as I could tell was kosher. I started to get an uncontrollable urge to vomit, and felt like I was going to pass out, on the illness scale I'd say I was definitely West Nile Fever. A taxi pulled over about 5yds from us and James went over to see if it was ours. As he did this I decided to get up and walk over (I say I decided, I don't remember conciously making the decision). I made it about 2 steps and collapsed behind the taxi in the road. I literally blacked out and flopped uncontrolled onto the asphalt (this is the bit where I nearly died, if anything had been coming in the road I'm pretty sure my head would look a bit flatter right now). I got helped up by James, and then sat back down where I had been waiting before. I was covered from head to toe in cold sweat, and had no idea what was going on. Now here comes the bizarre bit - 2 minutes later I WAS ABSOLUTELY FINE. I mean, what the fuck? I've heard of 24hr bugs before, but I'd just caught (and lost) a 10 minute bug! When the taxi finally arrived I was out like a light all the way back to the base. In bed by 4.30am (miserable) slept like a log until 12.30pm.

Before I went out I said that I wanted this to be a night I either told the grandkids about, or one that meant I didn't live to have grandkids - little did I know how close I came to having the second one come true.
I'll never tempt fate again.

OWAC.

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* I blame Jon, he's a bit of a poseur - we even went in one bar that only served cocktails and had grapes hanging off the walls, I mean what the fuck?

...and like many Junior Officers during the first half of the month I currently have more money than sense - so the scene is set for a night on the tiles*. This obviously has potential to be a glorious opportunity for story telling (especially as I'm going out with fellow JO's), or the potential to be decidedly average.

Watch this space for more tomorrow.

OWAC

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*Possible the bathroom tiles if the night is too 'good'

Part of this blog will also be my own (not necessarily party line) opinions on current affairs.

Something that has caught my eye in the press if you haven't already noticed it is the conflict between the former Soviet state of Georgia, and everyone's favourite former* communists, Russia.

BBC News Website Link

The whole Russia sabre-rattling affair is growing in intensity to almost critical levels. At the end of the cold war everyone was convinced that Russia was a relic from the past, and that the future lay in China/India and their coming of age in the industrial world. However, events in recent years have highlighted that there is more than a little bit of life in the old girl yet. The Russians continue to meddle in the affairs of former Soviet states, leaning on their governments as much as they can, both overtly and with backhanded methods. Be it with agressive military methods as shown in Chechnya and now Georgia, or with underhand methods such as threatening to cut off supplies of fossil fuels - the Russian Federation continues to be a thorn in the backside of western politics.

Obviously something has got to give somewhere. If Russia is to progress** fully into western society then the full dying out of the leftovers from Soviet times needs to come to completion. The man in charge at the moment is ex-KGB (Putin still pulls all the strings), and a true believer in the fact that Russia is one of the world's main superpowers. Once the last of the old school generation of thinkers peters out of the Kremlin, then hopefully we will see an end to their imperialistic meddling that has continued to exist from the end of the cold war. As it stands they will continue to influence neighbouring states, and deliberately oppose measures put forward in the UN much to the chagrin of the western powers that propose them.

Funnily enough, you could read I've just said about Russia, and draw parallels to unnamed western powers and certain conflicts they've participated in during recent times. Oh the irony...

OWAC.

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* Has that much really changed in Russia since the end of the cold war, especially with Putin in power? Answers on a postcard, and don't rush all at once.

** Obviously the term 'progress' here is used relatively, who are we to claim we're better?

Welcome to the inaugural post of my new blog!

The purpose of this blog is purely selfish if I'm being honest - whether or not anyone reads it is by the by. It is going to detail the ups and downs of being a young, single officer in todays modern armed forces. As you might imagine being a young member of the armed forces can be extremely rewarding on the whole, we're out and about in the world as much as ever; arguably trying to do good in the world. It presents opportunities to forge friendships that will last a lifetime, and to do and see things that you would not get to in a million lifetimes as a civilian.
However, service life inevitably presents the rough with the smooth. Working unsociable hours, in unsociable locations, a long way from family and loved ones can put an almost critical strain on morale and emotions. It is the pursuit of this fine work-life balance that I will try to document in this blog.

For the purposes of privacy and anonymity everything I post here will be done anonymously, and I will not even divulge the base I live and work on, or even what service I am in. Feel free to speculate whether I am a Matelot, Bootneck, Pongo or a Crab* - it makes no odds, people across all services will likely be having similar experiences and as such the service is inconsequential.

I hope you enjoy reading this blog as much as I will enjoy writing it. Unless I hate writing it, then I hope you enjoy it more.

OWAC.

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*Translates roughly to - Sailor boys (Navy), Calculated Thugs (Royal Marine), Knuckle Draggers (Army), Prima Donna Flyboys (RAF)