Third week in country and I am on the third of the roles I will be doing in the first phase of this op. We are finally getting out among the public and seeing how things are run here. Much more interesting than watching a prison or cleaning up after the others. One hiccup so far is that for some reason I am one of the few people with the right license to drive the boss around. I enjoy the driving but would rather be doing other things.
We got into the ocean a couple of times for a swim, rather fun having a jetty to jump off but it soon leads to stupid competitions like bombing, diving and creative jump styles. We also got out to play volleyball with some of the locals the other day which was great fun. Although it brought to light the fact that we need more practice in the game.
we have had a bit of downtime here, mostly it is filled with reading mens magazines and watching movies. It occurs to me that I may have underestimated the number of movies I should have brought. Luckily one of the other guys has lots too. Also discovered that there is nothing better after a hot day than a nice cool Gaytime. Golden Gaytime that is, the ice-creams we have in stock at base and the source of many a joke. Time to go and get ready for some more action.
Wednesday 30 July 2008
Thursday 17 July 2008
The great journey - prologue
In the lead up to my deployment I decided it would be a good idea to do some traveling around the North Island and visit some old friends. Last Tuesday I drove up to Hamilton Where I had dinner with a old flatmate however due to a communication breakdown I did not see anyone else from this area. Wednesday saw me on the desert road where I set a new distance record for my car, 615km on one tank.
I carried on South through Palmerston North and got to Wellington after nightfall. This did not aid me in trying to find the house of an old friend in the suburbs. However I did and after a quick catch up I carried on into Wellington Central. Stayed with another old flatmate right in the heart of the city in Mount Victoria. Had a few drinks here then walked down to Courtney place where I found a nice Irish pub and some friends from the army. Continued drinking and had a very good night. side note, you know you are an alcoholic when you go home from town and keep drinking.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday saw me drinking in Palmy with Simon despite the fact I was going to continue my tour. However this would have been difficult as When I was not drinking I was either sleeping or hungover. Overall had a good time in Palmy. Finally on Sunday I drove home and then got my brother to drop me off at Ohakea for my flight on Monday.
The flight itself was long (6 hours) and relatively uneventful. I spent the flight either sleeping on top of luggage in a raised nook or staring out the window looking for land. Arrived in Honiara to discover that it was unsurprisingly, hot. I have spent the last two days trying to get used to the heat and the routine here. The locals are very friendly and wave all the time, some gave us some watermelon today. Had better wrap this up now as I still have things to do and tomorrow is a busy day. Oh, it is 10pm as I write this and it is still hot.
I carried on South through Palmerston North and got to Wellington after nightfall. This did not aid me in trying to find the house of an old friend in the suburbs. However I did and after a quick catch up I carried on into Wellington Central. Stayed with another old flatmate right in the heart of the city in Mount Victoria. Had a few drinks here then walked down to Courtney place where I found a nice Irish pub and some friends from the army. Continued drinking and had a very good night. side note, you know you are an alcoholic when you go home from town and keep drinking.
Thursday, Friday and Saturday saw me drinking in Palmy with Simon despite the fact I was going to continue my tour. However this would have been difficult as When I was not drinking I was either sleeping or hungover. Overall had a good time in Palmy. Finally on Sunday I drove home and then got my brother to drop me off at Ohakea for my flight on Monday.
The flight itself was long (6 hours) and relatively uneventful. I spent the flight either sleeping on top of luggage in a raised nook or staring out the window looking for land. Arrived in Honiara to discover that it was unsurprisingly, hot. I have spent the last two days trying to get used to the heat and the routine here. The locals are very friendly and wave all the time, some gave us some watermelon today. Had better wrap this up now as I still have things to do and tomorrow is a busy day. Oh, it is 10pm as I write this and it is still hot.
Tuesday 8 July 2008
You live and learn. At any rate, you live.
About bloody time I wrote on this thing. So PDT is finally over. And what came out of it for me? Two concussions, one case of mild hypothermia, two visits to the hospital, 3 x-rays of a suspected arm fracture (it wasn't), and numerous cuts and bruises all over my body. Still, I managed to survive all that. But lets do this week by week hmm.
Week 1. Range shooting and briefs. I finally got to fire the pistol and of course fire the rifle and gun lots more. I gotta say, as a shooting coach for some of these troops you'd think it was the first time they had held the weapons, loading rounds upside down, screwing up the drills. this was accompanied by numerous briefs on a range of subjects, the majority of which I can't even remember now.
Week 2. Ex raven and riot training. The second week started with basic urban drills including building protection, vehicle checkpoints and the like. this culminated on the wednesday which was the Exercise. A whole day of rotating through Security, patroling and Quick reaction Force. I think this was primarily a means of finding out our starting point. After Raven we started on our one day of riot control training before we were thrown to the wolves that are 1st batallion. The riot action lasted about half an hour. In this time we sustained about 10 casualties and two broken shileds. I guess thats what happens when the enemy have axes and whatnot. This was followed by a weekend of leave which I think we all needed.
Week 3. Live fire in Waiouru. The first day in the field was pissing with rain and cold. We went through basic field shooting and instinctive/ reactive stuff. Luckily on day 2 the weather cleared up and we got into fire and manuvuer starting in pairs and over the week build up to section strength in close country. We also covered vehicle ambush drills and on the saturday we did this moving with live rounds and high Explosive 40mm grenades. Pretty awesome stuff.
Week 4. Wanganui, boating and Ex Solomon Step. The first day in Wanganui was once again shit weather and this was the day we did boating, including man overboard and capsize drills. All I can say it this, the water was cold, damn cold. After a day or two of rehearsing of stuff we got into the Exercise. Similar to Raven but over 4 days, and for some reason it was nearly always 2 section that got called up to action. One stand out action was when we got called out to resond to a brawl. The enemy players got angry and attacked the boss, he shot one of the enemy and from then it go ugly. We walked away from that one with a mud splattered vehicle that had a shattered windscreen and a missing drivers window. This being after we had evacuated two enemy casualties to the hospital.
Week 5. Admin week. This week involved tidying up everything from the past month, loading our gear for the plane and basically getting drunk every night. It culminated with the course function which found me walking back to Ohakea from Palmerston North at 4 in the morning as I didn't want to pay the $70 for a taxi.
I am now on leave for the week and If I get things sorted out will spend the remainder tripping around the North Island before I fly out monday.
Week 1. Range shooting and briefs. I finally got to fire the pistol and of course fire the rifle and gun lots more. I gotta say, as a shooting coach for some of these troops you'd think it was the first time they had held the weapons, loading rounds upside down, screwing up the drills. this was accompanied by numerous briefs on a range of subjects, the majority of which I can't even remember now.
Week 2. Ex raven and riot training. The second week started with basic urban drills including building protection, vehicle checkpoints and the like. this culminated on the wednesday which was the Exercise. A whole day of rotating through Security, patroling and Quick reaction Force. I think this was primarily a means of finding out our starting point. After Raven we started on our one day of riot control training before we were thrown to the wolves that are 1st batallion. The riot action lasted about half an hour. In this time we sustained about 10 casualties and two broken shileds. I guess thats what happens when the enemy have axes and whatnot. This was followed by a weekend of leave which I think we all needed.
Week 3. Live fire in Waiouru. The first day in the field was pissing with rain and cold. We went through basic field shooting and instinctive/ reactive stuff. Luckily on day 2 the weather cleared up and we got into fire and manuvuer starting in pairs and over the week build up to section strength in close country. We also covered vehicle ambush drills and on the saturday we did this moving with live rounds and high Explosive 40mm grenades. Pretty awesome stuff.
Week 4. Wanganui, boating and Ex Solomon Step. The first day in Wanganui was once again shit weather and this was the day we did boating, including man overboard and capsize drills. All I can say it this, the water was cold, damn cold. After a day or two of rehearsing of stuff we got into the Exercise. Similar to Raven but over 4 days, and for some reason it was nearly always 2 section that got called up to action. One stand out action was when we got called out to resond to a brawl. The enemy players got angry and attacked the boss, he shot one of the enemy and from then it go ugly. We walked away from that one with a mud splattered vehicle that had a shattered windscreen and a missing drivers window. This being after we had evacuated two enemy casualties to the hospital.
Week 5. Admin week. This week involved tidying up everything from the past month, loading our gear for the plane and basically getting drunk every night. It culminated with the course function which found me walking back to Ohakea from Palmerston North at 4 in the morning as I didn't want to pay the $70 for a taxi.
I am now on leave for the week and If I get things sorted out will spend the remainder tripping around the North Island before I fly out monday.
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