Battle School Boots
Have you ever read the Sharpe’s series of books by Bernard Cornwell? If you haven’t, I highly recommend you do. They are filled with wonderful adventures, bravery, deceit and have a striking similarity to the problems faced by modern armies in terms of leadership, discipline, and supply.
One of the things though that stood out to me as I read the series, was the barter culture that soldiers of the peninsular war engaged in. Food, weapons clothing, booze, sexual favours and information, were but a few. The reason I found it so entertaining was that it was not dissimilar to the bartering portrayed in movies about World War 2, Vietnam, or my own firsthand experiences in the CAF.
I’ve traded lots of things over the years, badges, coins, patches, cigarettes...you name it. One of the most memorable was my CADPAT KFS (knife, fork, spoon) and plate carrier for a brand-new Gerber from a US Army soldier at FOB RAMROD in Afghanistan. I couldn’t believe it.
But the best thing I ever traded occurred after I released from the military, in fact it was just a few weeks ago.
A friend reached out to me to ask if I knew where a person might find a metal, medical cap badge. Apparently, my friend had a friend who had junior member who had their metal medical cap badge stolen from them. Cap badges for the Royal Canadian Medical Services are primarily cloth and have been for a long time, but I had come across a few in antique and military surplus stores over the years and bought them. They sat in a memento box for years and I had no plan for them, so I said that I’d donate them in exchange for a story. The individual who was looking for them agreed but asked to remain anonymous in order to keep their online/social media presence to a minimum, which of course was no problem, and a deal was struck.
It was a great trade and a win for everyone because someone somewhere is now the proud owner of those cap badges and you and I get to enjoy a new story.
I hope you enjoy it and don’t forget to tell yours when the time is right.
All the best,
John
——————————————————————————————————
First story from Battle School in Wainwright.
Our first inspection - the first morning inspection of battle school, always a great time for the staff (I know that now haha) and always a near pant shitting first exposure for new guys.
We had spent the night before going over everything, or so we thought. The whole platoon was awake doing station jobs, making beds and measuring, prepping kit etc. My buddy and I were polishing or boots in between tasks from the course senior and they looked pretty good. After what seemed like an eternity, we finally went to bed probably around 02 or 03 something foolish like that. We went to sleep with a sense of accomplishment, like we had actually done a good job…we were sorely mistaken.
We were awoken at the normal pt reveille time and went for a smash 5km that seemed an inhuman pace, of course we were encouraged the entire length of the run, very kind motivating statements from the staff…the poor bastards that fell out hahaha.
After PT we made a thorough mess of the station jobs and did our best to look somewhat professional as we stood by our beds awaiting the section inspection. As our section commander strode into the room the guy across from me (buddy I was polishing boots with) called room. The section commander strode in and started going up and down his uniform verbally destroying him and shaking the confidence in the rest of us. I didn’t want to look my buddy directly in the eye as he was getting shredded, so I averted my gaze a little bit, then I saw the disaster waiting to happen…as we had been polishing boots my buddy was so nervous, he had only been grabbing and polishing his right boot, the right boot looked like glass…his left boot looked like absolute crap. All I could do was just brace for the storm that I knew was brewing.
The section commander moved towards the boots, “oh my fuck…wtf is wrong with you troop!” Picking up his boots he walked them in front of my buddy, ”why tf is your right boot polished and your left looks like you dragged ass on it!” Without skipping a beat my buddy blurted out, "because I’m right-handed Sgt!”
After a brief pause, I think his boots cleared my head by about 6 inches as my laughing dumbass was on my face starting my endless “corrective measures”. I still laugh whenever I think of that one.