Alexandra Wolfe

One of the highlights of being stationed in Germany, on a front line base, was that during a major exercise we were issued with fake guns. Yes, fake as in wooden, because, if we were really at war certain female members within the operations block would be able to carry a sidearm.

I’m not sure how this came about, but, once the decision was made (and not rescinded by subsequent Group Captains) wooden replicas were issued in our mock invasion exercises. All of which meant one thing. That while we might not be allowed to be issued with the real thing during said exercises, we still had to have training on the actual real weapons. And so, on a given day, I was sent along with a handful of other women to the range up by the armoury for weapons training.

You would think they would start us off with the actual hand guns we were going to use, but no, after going through over an hour of training films and an armoury sergeant showing us the various weapons; pistols, rifles, machine guns, and how to handle each one, we finally got out on the range to shoot.

The first weapon?

A machine gun. Why you may ask? Which is exactly what I did, my mouth working before my brain. The instructor explained he wanted us to understand how dangerous these weapons were, and just the kind of damage they could do. And proceeded to talk us through, step by step, one at a time, to fire one. No, not at a target as you might imagine. We had to take up an awkward stance, gun almost on hip, and spray the contents of the clip, left to right, across a series of sandbags piled about 20 feet high some distance from each of us.

Let me tell you, not one of us knew what the hell we were really in for. Those of us who manage not to fall over and kill everyone assemble, hidden behind a barrier, felt like we’d been hit hard, by a car.

These weapons are extremely heavy, they buck, recoil, and are notoriously difficult to control. A few of us manage a quick squeeze, a few fell backward on our arses. A few even hit a sandbag or two. But none of us really controlled the weapon for longer than a heartbeat. Thankfully, the offending weapon was gently taken from our cold fearful grip and made safe before the next victim stepped up to take her turn.

At the end of that session we were all fully cognisant of what it meant to shoot a weapon. And by the time we were handed a handgun, were respectful, alert and utterly focused on the targets at the far end of the range.

The whole course from beginning to end was over 4 hours, and by the end, I for one had a healthy respect for handling weapons. Oh, we also received a nifty certificate of weapons training that, still to this day, I have stashed safely away in a briefcase somewhere.

Following on from my post about my introduction to shift work, the reason most of us survived and, quite possibly flourished on night shifts, was nothing to do with the copious amounts of thick, treacly black coffee we all consumed, but the fact we all played cards. A game called Bastard Whist, to be precise.

It didn’t take me long to find out where the card games were being played throughout each night shift. All I had to do was stumble into the Comms room and there they all were, staffers from every department; sergeant, corporal and junior airmen alike, rowdily playing this crazy fast game where, I suspect, everyone, including myself (eventually) cheated. As that was all part of the game and what made this mad-cap game so much fun, never mind, an addiction.

Each session could be played with between 3 to 7 players. No less no more. Not 2, not 8. I’m not sure I can explain just what the game involved, you would have to play it. It took me a few hands to understand not only the game play itself, but the strategies involved. It was simple and yet, it was as complex as the people playing it.

Playing this game kept us all sane and, for the most part, I guess, gifted us a sense of camaraderie. It was these people outside of shift who we usually sat with at meals, or at the NAAFI bar of an evening, and celebrated milestone events with, like birthdays, postings, births and weddings.

Even today, I still wonder what happened to some of these people who, over time, became good friends, and those who I stayed in touch with for a long time, over the years. Certainly long after we had all left the military. I still think of them fondly, along with the game. And wonder if service personnel still play Bastard Whist in the wee small hours on night shift, on bases around the world?

In the military there is no such thing as weekends off. As I have said, you are, to put it bluntly, on call 24/7. And in my line of work, trained as an assistant air traffic controller, I was expected to work shifts whether that was in the Controller Tower itself, or in Flight Ops, or the Operations building.

Shifts was not something I was ready for, not on any level. So when I got my first posting to Plymouth, in Devon (UK) I was in for a rude awakening at just how demanding a boring job could be. While my childhood had prepped me for so many aspects of military life, these kinds of working conditions were a whole other ball game, and one I wasn’t prepared for.

A day after I arrived on camp with only hours of orientation and briefing on where I was working I was handed a shift schedule for not the next week or month, but the next 3 months. They were short handed due to early out going postings with new recruits, like myself, still to arrive direct from training and, as such, I was about to find myself working what they called a 3-watch.

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I’m writing this because an online friend asked whether or not, as part of my military training, I had to go through the “gas tent”. The answer is: Yes. This is a process whereby newbies on receipt of fancy new NBC (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) suit had to test it and their skills at putting it all on, in the correct order in under 9 minutes, and walk through a large tent or building filled with CS gas.

A test no one got out of doing.

Funnily enough on the day I had to do my training with a couple of other newbies, we had the newly arrived Group Captain and a couple of high up Senior Officers for training as well. Our little group sat on the same benches with the higher ups listening to the training sergeant drone on, while watching a very graphic video of soldiers and airmen dealing with fake injuries that included, among other things, disembowelment.

It was fun to watch the guys in the tent squirm at the vivid and graphic nature of seeing someone in the NBC gear trying to stuff what were pigs innards back into a writhing screaming airman. All simulated for us to learn what we might have to do in the midst of war. Not that we were there for emergency medical training. Not that that stopped them making us sit through 30 minutes of gore before we even started leaning about what our suits did, and did not do. And more importantly, how to put them on properly, while being timed with a stopwatch, and yelled at to go faster.

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I was never thought of as being a sporty type by build alone and, in fact, was probably in that group picked last for any sporting event based on looks alone. Not tall, or willow, thin or fit looking. But, as it turns out, given ample opportunities to prove everyone wrong. I got to join in on just about ever sporting event going, on the military bases I was stationed at by virtue of the fact they always needed the numbers. They needed warm bodies to make up any kind of team, whether it was netball, field hockey, ping pong or fencing.

I got picked also, because I volunteered. As I said in previous posts, I was young, naive, and eager to be involved and volunteered for everything in the military. As a result, I found out I wasn’t half bad at a lot of sports that would never, under any other circumstance, have been available to me to participate in. Take for instance, the fencing or squash which I won a medal playing.

Stationed in Germany on a huge camp with just a small contingent of women, as was usually the case. A senior officer who was a champion fencer wanted to make up a contingent to go to Berlin to take part in the inter-military championships. So, without any experience whatsoever to my name, and after 8 weeks of intensive training with other warm bodies needed to fill the slots, I found myself, epee in hand, a part of a team that ended up in Berlin for a long week of intense bouts.

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