The Reservist Tales

Reservist never fails to amuse me on the sheer spectrum of people they can consolidate into a platoon. Yes, I hate regimental routines and unsolvable mysteries on why we are always waiting, not to mention the dread of having a haircut, but I find joy in other trivial pleasantries.

Like laughing at other people.

Last year I introduced you what I crowned to be the high point of my reservist stint. His name was Gary, he was our signaler and he was deaf. This brought me endless amusement because if the irony didn’t tickle you, watching him on in action would.

This year, Gary seemed to have had a successful ear drum implant because he was responding a lot better, although sometimes he still had trouble figuring who was calling him. This sucked because I was looking forward to him pissing the commanders off this year again.

Reservist also poses a health hazard to me because I share my bunk with obese men who take multiple meals a day religiously like Sunday communion. The good thing was that they were highly entertaining and they only serve to endorse my medical canon that denial is a symptom of obesity.

Fes – I call him such because not only does he look like Fes from That 70’s show, his disposition and mannerisms bear such an uncanny resemblance -, would deserve a post entirely dedicated to him because he says the funniest shit.

He will regal you in sexual stances and his fetishes for anal sex and butt spanking. He will dry hump the bed when he is bored. And he will light up every time the conversation introduces words like, ‘breast’, ‘bitches’ and ‘chocolates’.

He: “..this MILF is hot. Every day I talk to her I also get turned on.”
Me: “Why?”
He: “Her voice is damn sexy and she always gives me chocolates. Mmm, chocolates..”
Me: “…”
He: “Eh, not one two piece you know. A LOT of chocolates..”
Me: “That’s why you are fat.”
He: “Eh, I don’t have an eating disorder. The only reason I’m fat is because I don’t exercise.”

And they will stand by this, even when they have 2 Big Macs, fries, 20 pieces of nuggets and a large coke for supper. This is enough to feed a platoon of women at an anorexic camp, but apparently this is perfectly normal for other human beings. Or so they think.

The Crier

The only thing that actual beats listening to Whales defend their diet is watching grown men cry in military garb because this just instills confidence that these are men who will defend our country. If I were you, I will seriously start giving Superman an emergency text. Now.

On the day we were supposed to have our range shoot, I got back to the company line to find a man, and I stress a man, because this guy was past his mid thirties and he was crying. There he was, squatting over his gear, and sobbing about a lost bayonet.

Crying over this is perfectly okay when you are 19 years old, living on NS pay and might need to pawn their organs just for entry to a club. When you are in your 30s, you just whip out your cheque book and pay for the losses because crying not only makes you look stupid, it also makes you look poor.

You have no idea how hard it was for me to watch all this while trying not to laugh, because I suppressed it so impeccably that I might have ruptured several internal organs just trying to contain my laughter.

Crying is almost an understatement, because this guy was wailing, his face all cringed up and tears were flowing. If he said he was aging backwards like Benjamin Button, I would have believed him, because no grown man I know cries over a stupid knife. Okay, maybe gay sushi chefs do, I don’t know.

It got even worse when we had our range because he was the direct detail before mine and he was fucking up the shoot so badly, I thought someone was going to be hit by his stray bullet before lunch came.

He was such a jittery mess, even someone going into epileptic seizure had better composure than him. He didn’t know how to clear jammed bullets and he kept pointing the rifle to the side only to have the Safety officer kick his rifle back to the front.

And it wasn’t just once. Each time he did it, they would start yelling at him and that made it worse because he panicked more and it made them panic more. It was a vicious cycle and it came to a point where it made me panic as well, thinking he might misfire a round and I might die from it. So, I did what every thinking soldier would do. I hid behind the nearest pillar.

Being the bitch with the imaginary vagina that I am, I started telling my bunk mates about TheCrier, his debacle and almost inherent massacre at the range. Then one of them said,

He: “Oh, he has some mild mental problems.”

There was silence, largely from me because I was gawking – for a damn long time to be precise. When I finally recovered from the shock, like two eons later, I mustered the one word that I took forever to verbalize but was swarming- in capital letters with exclamations -in my head,

Me: “WHAT?!”

Then nonchalantly he replied.

Him: “Ya, apparently he attempted suicide before and has this history of depression.”
Me: “He has mental issues.. and he is firing a live weapon!?”
Him: “Ya. Haha..”
Me: “What the fuck! Are you people hoping to die? Massacre at shooting range isn’t even a remotely amusing headline.”

Let’s hope next year I will get an amputee as a medic, or a blind rifleman. Now that will definitely top this.