HELL MONTH: The – C o m m a n d o s – 2008-2009

 

Week Four: ‘The Hell Week’

 

Monday:

Our first activity Monday morning was a ‘search.’ We had to unpack everything we were taking with us. We even had to take our boots off. Apparently in previous years candidates were stripped to their underwear. No one was caught with anything. Fortunately… as each illegal comfort (even bandages) articles found are replaced by a rather large rock. We got into the buses, everybody anxious, as this is the last and hardest week of our Commando formation. We all knew that Friday morning we would be getting our ‘green berets,’ but that we would have to go through hell to get there. The end seemed so near… and yet incredibly far. The bus drove us into the German part of Belgium, about 1.5 hours from the Castle. Five minutes before we arrived to our departure point it rained like I have never seen before in Belgium. (The storm blew hundreds of trees over in just a few hours.) Torrential rainfall with drops the size of golf balls. They forced us out of the bus and in seconds we were completely drenched. They handed us a map and it seemed like we would be marching about 30 kilometers that day and paddling (commando zodiacs) 12 Ks.… again and of course with about 35 kilos weighing each of us down.

We took off in the pouring rain… normally in 3 kilometers we would be getting into our zodiacs and paddling for 3.5 hours. But the lightning changed these plans. The torrential rain wouldn’t stop… we waited for hours before they told us that we would simply have to walk the 12 Ks instead of paddle them. So 30 kilometers suddenly became 42 kilometers. The problem was that we waited so long for the lightning to stop that when we finally took off again it was 18:00 and we had 39 kilometers to walk… fully loaded. We walked all night (reading maps in the forest in the pitch black) and all morning arriving at our destination at 7:00. It rained almost the entire time. We tried to sleep a couple hours before we had to do a “contact Partisan” and a “Dump pickup.” Our Dump pickups were food… but often it was just a can of Sardines for 4 people… for the entire day. Our sleep moments were also disrupted by ‘being on guard’ and being ‘link placements’ that well… basically sleep and food were extremely limited – Exhaustion and hunger accompanied us the entire week like a terminal disease.

 

Tuesday:

We took off again for another supposed 30-kilometer day. They didn’t let us leave until 17:00. And at 16:00 the torrential rain started again. We tried to put up our poncho shelters but in the 3 minutes that it took to do that, everything was soaked… again. After 3 hours of walking we arrived at a reservoir lake. We were told to turn our gear into a “ballot”… we would be swimming across. I was expecting the water to be freezing, so I went with the first group to get it over with. I was almost overcome with tears of joy when I realized that it wasn’t freezing at all, it was simply cold. Cold is nice.

Then took off walking again. In the rain. Until 6:30 AM. We were really tired… and had arrived about 5 kilometers from a contact partisan point – the timing for that was at 8:30 AM.

The platoon decided that we would set up our bivouac here and designate a couple guys to go to the contact point… in the following hour and half. They decided that I was the only one who was competent enough with the map. So it seemed logical to them that I should go. It didn’t seem as logical to me. Punished for being good at something. Since when is that justice? But I didn’t make a fuss. I was too tired. We set up our bivouac – and the platoon kindly suggested that I didn’t have to do the guard… as I would only be resting 1.5 hours. I woke up 1.5 hours later… I popped out of my sleeping bag, looked around and realized that there wasn’t even a guard. They were too tired to do it. (if we would have been caught without a guard, we would have paid heavily). I left the sleeping platoon at 8:00 AM with another unfortunate soul who simply had to follow me. I arrived at the contact partisan at about 9:30 AM. The Chief Sergeant immediately asked me where the rest of the platoon was. There had been a miscommunication… apparently the whole platoon was meant to be there and then. He looked at his watch and told me to get the rest of the platoon (he thought they were nearby) ASAP. I turned around and started to run. 1.5 hours later I got back to the sleeping platoon. They had even eaten a little ration and had forgotten to leave me some. I was truly disgusted. They slept while I ran, they ate while I sweated in their place… not even a thank you. Not even thinking of leaving a tiny bit of food. It’s crazy how egoistical we become when comfort is distant. Anyway – I tried not to think about it. I again returned to the contact point, but this time with the platoon and many hours later. The Sergeant wasn’t very happy. But he gave us live chickens anyway… we had to kill and prepare them.

We took off again around 1800. until we came to a river. We crossed the river holding onto a cable (not swimming this time), and then continued until we reached the next obstacle – a large zip line from a high up cliff across a river down to the riverbank. By the time we got here it was already dark… and really cold. We waited and waited as the zip line had to be adjusted. Finally when we had all crossed we took off again rather quickly as we had a timing and had already been delayed by an hour or so. it was about 1:00 AM at this point. We ran to our next coordinate point making it just on time. It was 3:00 AM and pouring rain again. They put us into the woods and told us that we had to wait for the Flemish platoon. We waited an hour, and it was probably the worst hour of my life. My whole body was convulsing due to being wet and cold with a horrible wind. We clung to each other for body heat… but we were so wet that it didn’t seem to really help.

There was nothing more I wished for than to be running again, despite the exhaustion… it was better than being frozen and wet. Finally after an hour of waiting, they told us the next coordinate point on the map. We walked until the sun came up… and then continued walking. At 8:00 in the morning, I remember looking at my watch and thinking that I had pretty much been walking for 24 hours straight. And still hadn’t arrived. Finally we got to a castle. We had to do some climbing and cable crossing to reach it. It really wasn’t easy in the state that we were in. At 10:00 they said we could set up a bivouac and rest until 11:30. At 11:30 we would be going again. It was Thursday now, the last day!!… And the most difficult.

At 11:30 we left the our bivouac and immediately had to do another zip line across a rather large chasm. On the other side we continued the usual procedure of trying to reach our next point within the given time limit. We were late again and had to jump start right from the beginning. The first dead line was another river crossing with a ‘ballot.’ We wrapped all our gear into a poncho, jumped into the river and swam across… this time it was really cold. But for some reason they gave us chocolate on the other side… and even told us that we were doing a good job. Maybe this was because the Flemish were so far behind… Altogether we walked about 25 kilometers on Thursday. After what seemed like another eternity of walking… about 12 hours, we got to a lake and had to prepare the Zodias for a 30 minute sprint through this reservoir lake. As usual, we had to wait for the Flemish platoon. We waited about 2 hours before they showed up. At 21:45 we all got into the zodiacs and started paddling like mad… we were approaching the end of Hell month. The tension was high. We knew the bus was waiting for us on the other side… we were starved, tired, and had been waiting 8 months for this moment…

At 22:15 we got to the buses on the other side of the lake. We quickly packed and loaded everything up and then lined up in front of the buses. Most of us thought it was over. Some guys were even saying, “that’s it… we are commandos now” We loaded onto the bus, got comfortable and almost immediately fell asleep.

The Worst Begins at the end:

 

An hour later. I felt the bus slowing down. This was not normal. It turned off onto a little road and stopped. I looked around… everyone had the same letter in their minds. “F” It wasn’t over. The lieutenant told us we had 12 seconds to get out and be assembled in a platoon with all our gear. (about 40 kilos/85 pounds). We stumbled out with our exhausted bodies on our aching feet. The kilometers we had walked that week had worn and eventually torn off the sole of my left boot. I had a 3 centimeter limp.

The lieutenant looked at us with a perverted grin… “it is never over” he said sadistically. We had 30 minutes to run 3 kilometers with all our gear through the forest with no lights. I almost giggled out loud. 30 minutes to run 3 kilometers, even with all our gear through the forest, was humorous. Even an American Marine could do this! I thought. Then he said that our time had already begun and that if we didn’t make it in 30 minutes we would immediately start over and do it again and again all through the night – until the ceremony the following day. We took off in a single line down the trail. Everyone stuck together… within 5 minutes we started to pass the Flemish platoon. I would say that every minute someone would trip and fall on the trail and take out the next two guys behind him. No one cared, we were so close to the end. Nothing could stop this train. We went around a corner and the path went right through a river. We hesitated about 3 seconds before jumping in and crossing. While crossing we set off a trip flare. Suddenly a bunch of flares went off and instructors started to come out of everywhere. They yelled that two of us had been killed and we had to carry them in makeshift stretchers.

We quickly got the wood necessary, in a panic… I took off my military vest and passed the wood through my inverted sleeves. The luckiest two humans in our platoon got into the stretchers… but first they removed all their gear. Ideally you want 6-8 guys per stretcher so that they can switch off and rest their shoulder for a bit. The first stretcher took off quickly with an unthoughtout gathering… leaving me and 4 guys to carry the second stretcher. The four guys picked up the stretcher and took off after the first stretcher. I turned around to check that we hadn’t left anything behind. And there she was. The heaviest backpack in the platoon (it had all the extra ropes inside). It had been left behind, i wonder why… With all my strength I swung it over my head so that it was laying on top of the backpack I was already wearing. Now I had a total of 75 kilos on my back (170 pounds). I was a bit behind and started running to catch the second stretcher. When I caught them they were yelling for help. It wasn’t normal that only four guys were around to carry the stretcher… usually every guy is continuously replaced every 2 minutes. They had been going for a good 5 minutes with no one to replace them. I told them I would try to catch the first stretcher and get some guys to help them out. I passed the second stretcher and went as fast as I could to catch the first stretcher, with 170 pounds on my back… I yelled at them to come back and help the second stretcher (two guys ran back)… and then continued running behind the first stretcher.

I was breathing like I had never breathed before… as though I was going to pass out. The sweat on my face was dripping nonstop. We came to an intersection. The guys carrying the first stretcher didn’t know where to turn… so I told them to go straight, as it didn’t seem logical that the road on the right was the correct path. And if we were meant to turn, well… wouldn’t there be an instructor to guide us? It basically went up so steeply that no vehicle could have ever gone up it. So we went straight. After a few hundred meters we could hear an instructor running and yelling at us. We kept going until he caught up to us. He told us we went the wrong way and had to turn around. We didn’t say anything and immediately turned around, there was no time to complain. Now I was in front of the stretcher running with my unusually large load, breathing like a dieing cow. One of the guys on the stretcher somehow got the idea that it was easier to carry the extra 80 pound backpack than take a quarter of the stretcher for 2 minutes cycles. He told me he would take the pack if I took the stretcher, I immediately chucked the pack off my shoulder onto his, smiled and said, “amuse toi.” (enjoy). I went back to the stretcher and took the head side of the ‘dead’ candidate… still breathing like a dying cow. Within 10 seconds we passed the guy with the second backpack. He yelled at one of us to help him. One of the additional guys (who was meant to cycle with the stretcher team went to help him… together they took the pack). When we got to the intersection, we had been passed by both the Flemish stretcher and the second French stretcher. Our only other ‘switcher’ for the stretcher left us at this point to help a candidate who had twisted his ankle. An instructor warned us that our time was tight and that this incline was a beast from hell. I was still at the back of the stretcher where the head of the ‘dead’ guy was.

I quickly realized that most of the weight was on mine and the guy right across from me shoulders. The guys in the front couldn’t carry the stretcher at shoulder’s height anymore due to the extreme incline. And we in the back had to keep it at shoulders height or else our dead guy would fall out. I began to really suffer… There was no one to switch with. No one. We passed the second Flemish stretcher… then the first Flemish stretcher, yelling at them to get out of our way. It was still going straight up… for those from black forest academy, this was big bertha’s mother. It wouldn’t end and wouldn’t stop climbing. We slipped continuously and swore for help… for anyone to switch for even a minute… there was no one. At one point, I couldn’t understand how the guy beside me was holding up. I had always been substantially fitter than him, this didn’t make sense! How was he still going when I was verging on death. Then completely out of breath, I told him we had to switch sides so that our shoulders wouldn’t pass away. while switching I realized he had no gear on him. No gun (4 kilos), no chest webbing (10 kilos), no backpack (20 kilos) (80 pounds!). He had been like this the whole time. Another guy was carrying all his stuff… and therefore not helping on any stretcher. I was disgusted… and plus we were carrying 80% of the stretcher’s weight, due to being in the back with the whole upper body of the candidate on our side. I started to scream just to keep myself going. Then we passed the first French stretcher. Another guy in the front started yelling with me. we were in the front again with no help and didn’t/couldn’t stop.

The candidate on the stretcher was fervently encouraging us to keep going, to not slow down, that we were almost there, that we were the best, the strongest… that we were almost commandos. We could tell that in a couple hundred meters the path’s gradient seemed to decrease. Then we heard the lieutenant yell from the top, that we had three minutes left. We were almost there. In the moment this seemed natural and almost necessary, but retelling the story, you may think that this is a little bit hollywoodized/cheesy. I began to yell with everything I had left, “WHO ARE WE!!?” anyone who could yelled “COMMANDOS!” “WHAT ARE WE!!? “COMMANDOS!” We started to accelerate while screaming louder and louder. The Instructors were moved by our passion, by our motivation… When we got to the top, we dropped our guy, took off our gear and ran back down to help the second stretcher. We replaced all the guys who couldn’t go any faster. And ran up with the second stretcher. Then someone yelled that we should help the Flemish as they would never make it in the time limit. Our second French stretcher just made it within the time limit. Everyone who could (not many), took their gear off and ran down to help the two Flemish stretchers… who were substantially behind. When got to them, several guys were yelling that they couldn’t go anymore. We replaced all of them and started up again… one guy thanked us verging on tears. Then went back again for the last Flemish stretcher. There is no doubt that these two stretcher were way outside the time limit, but the instructors were so impressed and moved that the francophone platoon did what they had done, that they decided the Flemish platoon wouldn’t have to do it over again. They were dead. Just like us.

I hadn’t stopped, I hadn’t ever pushed my body to this limit… I had never yelled like an animal to keep myself going. When we finally lined up in front of the lieutenant, he just looked at us… and then grinned. At this point I realized that my eyes were… watering substantially. The guys on my stretcher… we just looked at each other in incredible satisfaction and with incredible exhaustion. Never have I seen people push themselves to this point in my life. It wasn’t normal to not have replacement on a stretcher. I still don’t know what happened. But many of the guys simply couldn’t help on the stretchers… they were too dead from the week and their heavy gear was enough.

As you can probably sense, I felt incredibly cheated by my own platoon. I felt like I gave so much more… carried so much more. Suffered so much more. But in the end I was satisfied, truly satisfied. I couldn’t have done more for my platoon. I felt like I had to throw-up, but had nothing to throw up… and honestly I couldn’t help the strange tears coming down my dirty face. No one said anything. I think it was clear and understood. A lot of guys rubbed my head like I was a little boy again. ‘You did good’ they said. ‘You too,’ was my honest response… ‘Now, we’re commandos.’

We got onto the bus and headed back to the castle. This time it was truly over. In a few hours we would be getting our green berets and our coveted daggers. It was over. 8 months for this moment. I started with 36 guys in my platoon and ended with 3. Obviously the three of us are quite close now. We went from 4 platoons to one small platoon of 20.

 

That morning while lined up to receive the green beret I saw my mother looking for me amongst all the commando candidates. I grabbed her from behind and lifted her up into the air in the middle of all the guys. I was happy to see my family. I was happy that this phase was over. It wasn’t the physical aspect that was hardest (except at the end), it was the mental… it was the long 8 months of being treated a certain way, dressing a certain way, acting a certain way. Not being civilized anymore… feeling like I had lost my human rights. Feeling like I was just another piece of clothing amongst the dirty laundry. Having to salute and follow orders like an idiot. Being talked down to all the time. Being stripped of everything that gave me status in the world. Even adapting to the French language was difficult… as my mind has been functioning in English for way too long. The tongue is a powerful weapon… losing this strength is an incredible thorn in the side. People don’t believe things because of logic or reasoning… they believe things because of how they are said. Confidence flows out through the tongue… through its ease and eloquence. People fear a skilled tongue more than anything else… it is the tongue that gives you your place in this world. Language is an art… language can turn a yes into a no and a no into a yes. Words, carefully chosen words, create confidence, create trust, create perception itself!… etc… sigh>

 

Now, I am jumping from planes and balloons. It’s different and almost enjoyable. Once we get our wings, we are sent off to the battalion. This should be in 2 weeks from now. Before then we will jump out of C130s at 250 kilometers an hour with a one second gap between each parachuter. We fall at about 6 meters a second and learn to land on all kinds of surfaces, including water. But… we are allowed to eat, sleep and rest again. I gained 5 kilos in 2 weeks! Hopefully this eating is just a phase…

 

H e l l   M o n t h :   Week Three

 

Monday:

We got on the bus Monday morning for what is infamously called Le Raid de Frehier. No one had any idea that in the next three days, 5 commando candidates would quit (two weeks before the end) and one would be sent to the hospital and several would cry tears of pain. We split up into 4 teams and then mixed with the Flemish platoon. I was named the chief of my section and granted the ‘golden’ map. If we got lost, if we took a detour, if we didn’t make it on time – it would be my fault. Everybody else in my section (12 guys) blindly trust… and follow.  We were told that it was a 29 kilometer ‘dropping’ (fully operational) and that we had exactly 8 hours to complete it. I looked at the map and quickly realized how many mountains and valleys we would be descending and ascending. This kills an average speed, especially when you are carrying about 40 kilos on your back (88 pounds). I decided to keep this bit of info to myself… for the time being. We took off – 3 hours later, one guy in my section couldn’t walk anymore – he had twisted his knee and had to be picked up by the ambulance. Seeing his agonized face was hard to bear. It was a mixture of pain and the realization that it was over for him. We left him at the next marker point, as he had already slowed us down enormously. 10 hours after we took off… we arrived at a river – 2 hours late, and were by no means the last team.

We had walked about 32 kilometers and now had to turn our gear into a ‘ballot’ so that we could swim across the river to the other side. When we got to the other side we just had the time to change into something dry before we had to be assembled again. We quickly set up our tents and then 6 candidates from the francophone platoon had to fetch the water. The sergeants asked for volunteers, since no one offered (our feet were killing) he said we had 10 seconds before we would take down the bivouac and set up on the other side of the river. I ran to volunteer. I shouldn’t have. The six of us took off (at a quick pace) with an instructor who hadn’t walk even a kilometer that day. The rest of the platoon could rest once the tents were set up. We were gone for over an hour. We walked about 2 kilometer up a steep path trying to keep up with the sergeant because it was already dark by then. Once we made it to the top of the mountain we had to come down with 20-liter jerry cans. It was so steep, slippery and dark that all of us couldn’t stop bailing out and swearing profusely. We were covered in sweat. When we got back we hardly had the time to drink before the night activity. We assembled in a platoon and headed towards the cliffs in our climbing gear. We climbed commando ladders, crossed ravines on single cables and rappelled into black voids. At 2:15 in the morning we were in our tents. At 4:00 I was awoken to be on guard for 30 minutes. Then at 5:30 we had to get ready to do some more climbing.

 

 

Tuesday:

We assembled in our climbing gear and headed to the same cliffs we hard just been at hours earlier. We climbed, rappelled, crossed gaps, traversed ridges with drops of hundreds of feet on both sides. It was the most fun part of an almost unbearable day. A few hours later we prepared our commando zodiacs and headed down the river. This was not a relaxing little boat ride… we had to paddle hard and fast the entire three hours. At about 13:00, we had paddles about 14 kilometers and got out of the zodiacs. They split the French and the Flemish platoons up. We left together and had 5 hours to arrive at our destination… which seemed about 15 kilometers away. Again I was given the map and instead of being followed by 12 guys, I was followed by an entire platoon. I was nervous at first when they handed me the map with all the coordinates. The responsibility was too big. Everyone was already aching, and if we didn’t make it on time… well, we would see. After about 10 minutes the Flemish platoon went one way, and I decided to go another way. There was a little hesitation from some guys in the platoon… but they followed nonetheless. We were never to see them again. They arrived hours after us… thankfully.

We all quickly realized that making it on time was literally impossible. And that was exactly the point. I had never read a map so well and we still arrived 2.5 hours late. And this was about 25 kilometers later. Every time we rested the first few steps were incredibly discomforting. No one in the platoon could walk without limping. Some had national geographic photo-worthy blisters/feet. One guy cried the last 6 kilometers. Some would mooch from town folk for water and bit of food. When we got to the bus… far before the Flemish, we were yelled at and insulted for being so pathetic. We were so tired, we didn’t even care about what they were saying. They made us think they were driving us back to the Castle. Nine kilometers before the castle at 22:00 they told us all to get out. We would walk the rest of the way.

 

We started walking at about 13:00 that day. We didn’t stop until 2:00 in the morning. 13 hours. We covered about 85 kilometers in two days with over 30 kilos on our backs. At 2:00 they let us sleep till 5:30. At 5:30 we could hardly walk the 20 meters to get to where we assemble.

 

 

Wednesday:

Every step hurt… really hurt. Every toe was blistered all around, every heal was almost raw, every foot bone burned. I lost the sensation in both of my big toes… maybe this was a good thing.

8:00 – first activity: Final Combat Exams. One of the hardest physical exams there is. GoldFinger told us that he knew what we had just done and that he even asked the commanders in the castle to have the combat exams at a different time, BUT there was no excuse. Everything we had left – he wanted to see. After 2 minutes he wasn’t satisfied… the whole platoon had to jump into the freezing river… fully clothed – to ‘wake up.’ We sprinted, pulled, pushed, fought, punched, kicked, wrestled, carried, crawled… one on one fights, teams against teams. Then after 1.5 hours we passed our combat technical exams. This was a bit of down time… as it was more technical than physical. But every little high has an exponential low.

‘Two men go in… one man comes out’:

The next part and last phase of the combat exams was… a fight. One on one… just boxing gloves and tiny padded helmet. Full-out aggression for 3 minutes. My partner was a big guy… the most intimidating face in the platoon. I swear, I will get a photo. No one is allowed to watch except the instructor. A ring is made in the forest with ropes. When they say go… you become an animal and attack. There is no defense… this isn’t technical… there aren’t rules. The most aggressive guy will win. Even if he doesn’t “know” how to box. Blood… most certainly. 2 broken noses, and many many bruised faces. Basically you go out swinging… whoever swings the most and the hardest wins.

My guy’s name was Gatot. We were the 4^th fight. As we were putting on our boxing gloves we saw the guys from the 3^rd fight walk out of the forest… Godzilla’s (the largest man to have ever gone through this formation) face was a mess. Everything below his nose was covered in blood. Gatot and I looked at each other for a moment… then shrugged our shoulders. We entered the forested make-shift ring… he was on one side, I was on the other… we were both trying to hide our apprehension… with the straightest faces we winked at each other. ‘Go!’ The instructor yelled. Right away I felt some serious hits. He was bigger and wanted it more. The more I tried to defend the more I took big shocks to my body/head. He eventually (in 20 seconds) knocked my tiny padded ‘helmet’ off. Instead of handing it back to me, the instructor kicked it out of the ring… told me it would teach me to tie it better to my head… The Fight was on. I tried to focus my vision… we were both already breathing really hard, there is nothing more exhausting in the world… He gave me just enough time to see straight. I went towards him, either I attack, or I lose. He swung first (I had a smaller reach), I moved a little so the impact wasn’t so hard and nailed him in the ribs of the arm he just missed me with. It was well placed and suddenly I was attacking as he was trying to breathe. I raged into him, he opened up his face to try to swing at me but my right arm blew passed the gap between his arms… BANG! Right into the middle of his face. His eyes dazed, he started looking behind/through me, both his arms dropped, he staggered, I was sure he was going to fall over. I backed away… the instructors yelled at me to attack. But I couldn’t – he couldn’t see and both his arms were dangling. I could have finished him off in a few seconds. But because I didn’t and because I waited for him to regain his stability, the instructors extended our fight. I thought I was going to throw-up I was so drained. We started fighting again. Exchanged some serious hits. Just before I was going to pass out, they called the fight over. We barely managed to wink at each other again before getting out of the ring. Talking about male bonding. . . his lip was cut open my nose bled a bit and both our faces had shock leftovers.

… no the day wasn’t over yet. We quickly had lunch and got ready for the 100 minutes Challenge.  This is done in a platoon. We all have to make it in less than 100 minutes… or else we do it over again. Right away. This challenge consists of running through the rough forest terrain and mountain rivers, getting over 20 ft walls with only each other as aid, climbing ladders, unpacking and crossing a pond in a zodiac, packing it up again, and finally carrying a ‘dead’ man on a stretcher down a river and through the forest. The last part was climbing down a waterfall with a knotted rope and then running through a pitch-black tunnel in this river – tripping and falling over rocks constantly. I bailed so badly I though I had broken several fingers… we made it in 98 minutes. Then got yelled at for being so pathetic and so slow. They even told us that we are the worst platoon in the past 3 years. Strangely, because we were getting Thursday and Friday off (right before the Final Raid), we are the only platoon to have done everything we did in three days… in stead of five. And… the Flemish platoon didn’t even make it.

This is a strange dynamic… the Flemish platoon is weaker than the French platoon (this isn’t always the case… obviously). But they are treated far better than we are. It is so obvious that I am convinced it is done on purpose. They get so much more slack than we do. It’s unbelievable and incredibly frustrating. Apparently their instructors are getting laid, and ours aren’t. At least that’s what the Flemish say. Finally after a bunch of chores I got back to Brussels at 21:00.

Now I get four days off to recuperate before the Final Raid. Five days, 120 kilometers, almost no food… it’s like the final cumulative exam with hardly any sleep and half a day’s worth of food for five days. We will do a bunch of climbing activities during the nights, swim across rivers, and go down rivers on zodiacs. When they let us get into our sleeping bags there will immediately be escapes. If we are still alive on Friday… we will receive our green berets and officially become Commandos. My parents are coming to Belgium for the ceremony. They will see my pretty zombie face accompanied hopefully by a smile. 7 months… after the ceremony we still have another month of airborne tactics.

But after this hell-month… everything is club med. We jump out of planes for a month… but only when the weather is pretty. We eat like kings and are finally given back most of the natural human respect that was taken from us when we started. We will be commandos. One of the most elite military units in Europe. The following month, if we don’t break our legs jumping, we become Para-commandos. We get our wings and all the bragging rights that come along with them – as only commandos can get these wings. So… it is coming to a close… but this coming week will be the last and probably the most difficult hurdle of all. So I don’t feel the end yet. I just feel the nerves already kicking in for Monday. As much as I like leading a group… it makes me nervous. I get extra pressure and it is simply expected that I don’t make errors… so when I don’t nothing happens… but when I do, I get a lot of crap thrown at me. Anyway – I will let you know how it goes… if it goes. 

 

Hell Month: Week Two

 

I am writing this a week later… so I have already started to forget the order and the activities of each day for Week Two. But I sure don’t forget the big events. Especially when torture is involved.

Tuesday was Agadir. That evening they told us that we would be doing a reconnaissance of the 35-minute eliminatory parcour exam held on Friday. I thought this was strange as they didn’t even let us eat that evening. They split us up into groups of five. I went in the first group, because I wanted to get it over with as quick as possible. Big mistake. My group of five went up into the forest. We stopped at an Indian cable that went straight to the top of one of the towers of the Castle. Strangely… and curiously there was a 5-minute gap between each guy that disappeared into the top of the tower. The instructor could tell that I sensed something fishy going on. I attached myself and crossed the cables into the top of the tower. When I climbed into the window of the tower there was a black hole I had to rappel down.

I attached myself and headed down into the abyss. I couldn’t see a thing but I could hear strange rustlings below. I couldn’t even tell when I was going to hit the ground below. As I approached the discrete noises I was suddenly choked from behind and brought to the ground grabbing the arms around my neck. I couldn’t breathe for a few moments until they put a bag over my head and locked my arms behind my back. They ran me through a hallway with barking attack dogs all around me… they stood me up, put my arms against the wall and spread my legs rather discomfortably. I tried to find a gap so that I could breathe better in the bag that was placed over my head. Every time I tried to readjust my stance, they would kick my legs further apart. I waited. I could hear more guys being brought in. I waited. It was quite uncomfortable and I was beginning to sweat in the bag. Finally they moved me and put me on my knees on a hard rock floor. They took my arms and held them way above my head. They apparently wanted me to keep them there. I wasn’t sure so I slowly brought them down, that’s when an elbow dropped on my head really hard (I had a climbing helmet) it shook my head hard enough so that I didn’t want it to happen again. I raised my arms and kept trying to find a more comfortable position for my knees. I really began sweating at this point.

My shoulders couldn’t hold my arms up anymore. But I forced myself to try to keep them up… probably the hardest part of this entire formation was this half hour of keeping my arms above my head (try it someday) : ). Eventually the blood left my hands, my wrists, down to my elbows, then down to my shoulders. Both my arms were dead. I could feel nothing from above my shoulders. I prayed for this moment to pass. My face was drenched… drops of sweat were dripping from every partial salient feature on my face. Finally they violently grabbed me, took my arms and placed them on the guy in front of me. Because I couldn’t feel anything, my arms simply fell off of his shoulder (I later learned that I was the only one actually holding my arms up without any support…).

They took my dead arms again, but I had absolutely no sensation. I couldn’t hold on. They hit me a few times, then I think they realized what had happened. So they held my arms against his shoulders until a little bit of blood could return to where it was lacking. Then they marched us up into cages. We were crammed into cages while they made us think that they were taking random candidates and beating the shit out of them. The sounds and crashes were quite convincing. After about an hour of being crammed together into cages, they disoriented us, lined us up one behind the other, heads down, holding onto the shoulder of the guy in front and we walked around and around. They then removed the bags over our heads, put us into buses and we took off to Agadir – a labyrinth of water tunnels – we got 5 minutes to memorize the way out (from a map). Then we entered the 4.5 ft high labyrinth… again, pitch black.

After about 25 minutes of being hunched and holding onto each other’s belts, we climbed out of the labyrinth. Here there was a partisan contact who gave us pieces of a map with holes everywhere. We left at 23:00 and got to our destination at 2:30. The only reason we made it quicker than others is because I found a compass in one of my pockets that they had forgotten to take out. We were quite hungry and surprisingly they had a snack for us when we got back. I didn’t know one could experience such pleasure with simple white bread…

 

The Only other big activity of the week apart from the usual combat and climbing sessions was the 35-minute eliminatory parcour. Oh yes… speaking of combat classes. GoldFinger was particularly fond of using me as the example this week. I don’t know how many times he chocked me to the ground. At one point he asked me to choke him back. I hesitated… obviously… I knew I was about to experience some serious pain. Everybody else grinned at the thought of being a witness to what was about to happen in the next 12 seconds. So I began to choke the most revered hand-to-hand combat instructor in Europe. The one and only GoldFinger… the invincible killing machine who trains several different special forces in the western hemisphere… was being choked by me. Pierre. ‘Fuck me,’ I thought just as I started to tighten my grip. (Excuse my military jargon… but it was a true and real thought at the time). Immediately he hits me in the balls, from under my legs, I didn’t even have time for that part of the pain to reach my brain as I felt his other arm reach around my shoulder, grab my face – mainly my nose and mouth – and turned my head backward violently… his finger was in my mouth ripping my cheek open. I literally flipped backward. When I hit the ground his finger was still in my mouth just about to tear my face open. I tried not to move. Still in this position, he explained to others what he had just done. He finally let me up. I told him I wasn’t trying… no – I didn’t. I would dead.

Anyway, the 35 minute test was a random course we had to complete in under the time limit. You had to climb a cliff (roped up), go over random obstacles, run through the forest, rivers, and tunnels, cross single and double cables, climb ladders, cross a pond in a zodiac, and do a large zip line from 200 ft up in the air to the ground. It was tiring, but it was okay. After this we had to re-run the 8 k speed March through the forest terrain. The one we failed by three minutes the week earlier. We all made this time… except one guy. The guy I dragged almost the entire way the week earlier. I left him alone this time… and pulled another guy who had a knee problem. I was lacking so much energy by this point of the week. I didn’t get the surge of strength I had gotten the week earlier. The only reason I pulled this guy was because he pushed himself to tears trying to make it to the end. For someone like this… it is certainly worth all my effort . . .

 

First week of Hell Month~ May 10, 2009

Monday/tuesday: Orientation of the camp ((which is a beautiful castle along one of Belgium’s major rivers. I must say more than this, as the location and its inconveniences are key factors to our formation. Our tents are placed around the castle right beside a national road, a railway, and a major transport river. By right beside, I mean about 15-20 meters. The trucks rattle our tents… so you can imagine what the tri-hourly trains do. If you even manage to sleep you are woken up by almost every train that passes.)) and an introduction to climbing and repelling (which consisted of a lot of knots and an introduction to basic climbing gear). It was a long and tedious day… until nighttime. They let us go to bed at 22:00 and woke us up violently at 23:30. We knew something was going to happen that night. People had been talking about a “black out,” so most of us weren’t able to close our eyes when we had the chance. We raced to get assembled as quickly as possible, not really knowing what to expect. Which by the way is one of the hardest things about the camp, the schedule is completely unknown to us. We never know what is coming next, when we will be woken, how long we will be marching, how far we will be running…etc. Next thing we knew we were holding onto ropes slipping our way up a steep mountain. We had our full gear and simply had to follow the sergeant, who obviously had no gear. No noise, no lights, pitch black and walking through rough forest terrain. Everyone fell and almost twisted their ankles a dozen times… until 6:00 in the morning. When we got back we had to immediately get cleaned up and prepare for the morning chores. We quickly had breakfast and then ran up the Golgotha to have our hand-to-hand combat class with the infamous Drianne, or Gold-finger as he has become known. He is probably one of the top combat instructors in Europe as well as the most renowned/feared. We rapidly understood that if we didn’t give everything in his two-hour sessions we would pay a heavy price. We learned different falling techniques, the vital organs/areas of the body, and how to displace ourselves while remaining in a combat position.

 

After our hand-to-hand combat we headed down for our first amphibian bout. It was the only relaxing part of the day where we simply saw how to use, navigate, and pack the standard commando Zodiacs. In the afternoon we went out to the cliffs and began to put into practice the knots by climbing and repelling the famous cliffs of March les Dames. I was the first to climb “Tarzan one” and repel down. I was confident initially with the first climb but instantly realized how slippery the rocks were and how useless our ABL-tendonitis inciting-1.5 kilo-boots were. The second time we climbed Tarzan One was with our chest webbings and rifles. I climbed a little more cautiously the second time. No one seemed to have any major problems climbing that day… but things were about to change very shortly. That evening we pulled weeds around the castle for 2.5 hours before being allowed to enter our tents. Before I continue, this entire day I was unable to stand straight without losing my balance. My body wanted to sleep every time my mind dosed off for even a moment. And this was only the second day of hell month. Fortunately they let us get into bed at 21:30 and others in the platoon had assured me of a good nights rest. I fell asleep right away… for 45 minutes. We had 5 minutes to get dressed in our combat and climbing gear. Our sergeants were waiting… impatiently. We headed out right away on something called “The Vertigo Course.” This course was to examine our nighttime performance on high lateral climbs and cable crossings as well as ladders linking rather large chasms. We were out for about 4 hours. When we got back we fell into our camping beds and slept a couple constantly interrupted hours.

 

 

Wednesday:

Waking up Wednesday morning was not easy… to say the least. But we had another hand to hand combat session and knew that any slacking would cost us dearly. The first thing we had to do was grab logs with a partner and begin to run around. Then we got into a running circle and Gold finger would give us assign tasks/exercises to particular numbers. Then he did the same with letters and every time we erred we had to give him 50 pushups. We erred a lot. Finally after being drenched with sweat we began the combat training. Gold fingers principle goal is to teach us ‘real’ combat. He mixes all forms of martial arts and then removes the art. Our sessions are means to simulate reality… so we take and give a lot of hits. If he doesn’t think that we are hitting hard enough, yelling loud enough, or displacing quick enough we jump into a freezing cold river. This is worse than anything… other than ‘duck jumping’, which is the other compensation. At one point we had to find a partner and get back to back with him. I couldn’t find one quick enough so I was put with the largest man who has ever gone through this commando camp – 6 ft 4 inches, and about 225 pounds (100 kilos). Then upon Gold Fingers command we had to turn around and get the other guy to tap out as quick as possible. No rules. (except the jewels). Gold Finger was interested in my combat with Godzilla and watched with a grin. I was quick enough to grab him around the neck in such a way that he couldn’t get me off. We fell to the ground and I remained on top… until Godzilla decided to stand up. I remained attached to his neck. Gold Finger told us to get back on the ground, but Godzilla couldn’t get me back on the ground so GF told us to stop and give him 50. While we were doing this, I heard a crack from one of the dueling pairs a couple meters away. I turned and saw the face of a soldier who had just broken something… the ubiquitous ambulance took him away. Strangely, no one seemed to care that this guy’s dream had just vanished… that his 7 months of training for this camp had suddenly come to an end. Of the thirty candidates who started with me in November… only three us remain. Four broken bones, 3 twisted ankles, 2 torn shoulders, numerous tendonitis cases, and the rest simply couldn’t keep up with the physical and mental battle. After this little wrestling session, GoldFinger called me over to him… THIS is not a good thing. He told me to lie on my back and hold a punching pad over my torso… he then got everyone to get around. GF got on top of me and started laying into me… literally. I tensed up as much as I got to absorb the shock waves traveling through my being. He wanted everyone to get a partner and do the same for 2 minutes each. If he thought that you weren’t hitting with all your might, he would demonstrate on you (as he did with me) what ‘with all your might’ really means… Everyone hit with all their might. This exercise progressed with the guy underneath flipping over the attacker and doing the same to him. GF also taught us the “Jap.” It’s a one hit kill in two different vital organs of the body. We practice this hit on each other (with pads) until he was pleased. After the two hours of combat we ran to the amphibian sector and were told to walk a couple kilometers down the river. Upon arrival we pulled out the Zodiacs, got them ready, and started paddling down the river with all our gear. I was the navigator, due to being from the wildest country in the world… Canada. For those of you who don’t know, Je suis “le Canadien.” And… I don’t mind this somewhat inaccurate appellation. As a navigator you get to command the ship, but you also do the least, which you might think is a positive thing… but this would forgetting that movement warms the body. Alas, in the afternoon we went back onto the cliffs. We learned to repel with 25 kilo backpacks, chest webbings, and our rifles. We also practiced climbing commando rope ladders and securing our fellow candidates while they progressed up the cliffs. At one point I was securing a repelling Albanian candidate from below. I was staring up holding on to the rope I had to pull incase of a fall. I just began to see him coming down. To his right there was a large opening, or crack if you like. He was supposed to go to the left of the crack but lost his balance. I suddenly saw him flip sideways with all his gear and fall into the 15ft crack. I pulled on my rope but it didn’t really matter as he was not really falling down, he was falling sideways… or laterally. I yelled at the instructors who slowly came to see what had happened. They laughed and said that there was always one guy who fell into that crack. I must say that I was a little surprised at their reaction, as the fall was quite painful for the Albanian. It is hard to describe this occurrence with words… I don’t even know if you can picture what I am trying to describe. Anyway, usually securing is never that exciting. That evening we pulled out weeds again until 21:30. Exhausted, we went to bed. And remained in bed until morning. Even though I slept like a rock, I still woke up about twice an hour as cargo trains rattled by.

 

Thursday

Thursday will sound repetitive… so I will quickly summarize it. Hand to hand combat in the morning with GF followed by amphibious tactics. This lesson was different as Zodiacs had nothing to do with the session. They showed how to wrap our gear into a poncho so that we could swim across rivers without getting too much of it wet. They then tested our work by chucking our gear into the river. This technique is called a ‘ballot’ and is often used by commando for crossing. The commando is usually swimming behind his floating backpack with his rifle on top – ready to fire, just incase. Thursday afternoon we went back to the cliffs for some more intense climbing. Tarzan 3 and 4, La Bourgeois, and La Logique. The last two end with a 60 meters repel and begin with a 20 meter rope ladder and a 40 meter rock climb. The difficulty doubled from Tuesday’s climb. About 10 candidates in the platoon could not climb La Logique without assistance or falling. One particular candidates fell about 10 times at the same spot, and was eventually pulled up. Others fell because their forearms simply hurt too much and couldn’t hold on anymore. We all had to secure each other, so when someone fell the guy on top had to catch you. The commandos don’t use all the modern climbing gear (for tactical reasons)… most of the metallic things used by civil climbers, are replaced by ropes and knots. So we have to literally catch the guy with an “American knot.” I didn’t know who I was securing, but when he fell I realized that it couldn’t be an ordinary human hanging from the rope below. Of course I couldn’t see him, but when he popped his sweaty head over the ledge, I found myself scowling at Godzilla. I guess I didn’t expect him to apologize for his corpulence. I repelled down and began the feared Logique, where you are up 150 feet. I must admit that I was a little nervous. There were moments when I really thought I was right on the edge of slipping and falling. The encumbering and slippery boots don’t help the assent at all… they simply make your arms and brain work much harder.

After this we ascended up to about 220 ft where there was an Indian bridge, which is two cables, one for the feet and one for the arms, stretched across two cliff faces about 100 ft apart. We had to go out to the middle of the bridge get attached and repel down to the valley below. As it probably sounds, it was nothing but joyful. But as everything at this camp… joyful things have an incredibly heavy cost. That evening… we pulled out weeds again until 21:30. These mundane and repetitive tasks really get to your head. One of my closer friends, Morea, used to be in the French Foreign Legion and he says that this was one of the main techniques used to filter candidates. He even said that during their formation they cleaned and pulled weeds for three weeks straight. Everyone’s tired red face clearly expresses their feelings during these 3 hours of pulling weeds. That night, I was suspicious of another night activity. But no one wanted to believe it, so we all encouraged each other discussing dozen of reasons why they couldn’t keep us up all night again (while we were pulling weeds). At 21:30 we went to our tents. I tried to fall asleep but felt that something was going to happen. At 23:00 hours… it happened. We had 5 minutes to get ready and be assembled in a platoon. This blackout activity was known as the “Obstacle Vertigo Course.” We crossed every kind of chasm cable crossing imaginable including a zip line (or in French “death ride”) with a large stopping net… which of course we couldn’t see. Most of the parcour was on the edge of large white cliffs so we had to be clipped into cable. The cables were just for security. They told us that if anyone fell, they wouldn’t die, but they would be immediately cancelled from the formation. For the zip line you had to turn your back towards the next at the last moment. Go figure, we couldn’t see the net so most of us nailed the net head on going about 50 kilometers an hour. It caused some pain, but was also a little bit of joyful experience (experience watching the silhouette of others)… despite the exhaustion and aching feet/joints/muscles.

I think God must of intervened as a thunder storm starting to come over us at about 2:00 in the morning. Our instructors got a phone call from the commanders at the Castle telling him to bring us home. We began to run back as it started to pour buckets. We stripped our wet clothing at our tents slipped into our sleeping bags still wet. All we wanted to do was sleep. We ‘slept’ from about 3:30 till 5:30. . .

 

Friday

Aching, drained, blistered, bruised, and exhausted we began the hardest day of the week. Friday. Having hardly slept and walked all night (again) we ran to have our last hand to hand combat session of the week. It agitated Gold Finger that some of us were showing signs of weakness. So for the warm up we began by running around a rectangle, then we accelerated… then we would sprint one section and jog the next. Then we had to pick up a partner like a baby and sprint one section and jog the next. Then piggy-back-ride him sprint one section jog the next, then over the shoulder… then dragging by the feet, then dragging by the legs… but this wasn’t quick enough for GF. So we got into a line and had to race each other. The last guy had to do 100 pushups. Then anyone who wasn’t working hard enough had to stand in the middle of this large rectangle and yell out a story as everyone else ‘duck jumps’ around the rectangle. Duck jumping is squatting completely and then bounces forward while remaining completely squatted. We went around and around until people were falling over. The pain is almost unbearable especially in the condition we were already in. After this we began ‘ramping’ on our backs first and then on or stomachs (ramping is moving as quick as possible in a laying down position) around and around. Then half the platoon took off their shirts and lined up facing the other half. The point of the exercise was the bring/drag/pull the other team to your side. It was violent. Then we got punching pads and learned different kicking and combination techniques. After about half an hour we made a circle, two guys had to jump in and fight until one guy tapped-out (he does 100 pushups), then the next two jump in. After everyone had gone in, GF got all the people with punching pads to make a circle. And one by one we had to enter this circle and ‘fight off’ 10 guys with this pads. The padded candidates could hit us from all sides at will and those inside simply had to take the beating/pushes and hit back as much as they could using the techniques we had been learning. It was incredibly tiring. Then finally there was an exercise where one guy punches a padding non stop for 1 minute as another guy is hitting him from behind and a third guy is behind the pad raising either his left or his right arm. The guy punching has yell out which hand is being raised while attacking the padded guy and being hit from behind. They want to teach to not simply turn off the mind and go in ‘fight’ mode. GF wants us to think while we fight, focus on the combat as well as what is going on around. That’s why often he makes one guy fight again two or three… while protecting a fourth.

Anyway, all this to say that we were even more dead after GoldFinger was through with us. But the day had just begun… especially for me.

They told us to get ready for a mountain terrain “Speed Marche.” We had to wear the Chest Webbing (13 kilos), Rifle (4 kilos), and combat clothing (3 kilo boots). 8 kilometers through muddy trails that never stop going up and down in less than one hour. Please bear in mind the condition we were already in. If we didn’t do it in under an hour, we would do it again. We lined up before departing. They asked us to take out our water bottles. I had just taken a sip of my water before they had asked to take our bottles out. The Sergeant looked into my bottle and said it wasn’t full. By full, he means to the tip of the neck. He pointed towards the river (which was too cold for us to go into earlier for part of the amphibian tactics course… 7 degrees I think). Initially I thought he wanted me to fill my bottle with river water. I thought this was a strange order but I ran to the river anyway. He told me to get into the river. So I jump in. he told me to sit down. So I sat. He told me to lie down. So I laid down, again, with all my gear, including my rifle. Completely submerged I was allowed to climb out of the river. I had just gained about 5 kilos of freezing cold water onto myself. I swore. How joyful I thought to myself. The clock started and we took off as a platoon. It was an individual activity, but the last guy’s time could have an affect. Whatever that means. The first hill was long and wasted a lot of the guys right from the get go. When I got to the top, the Chief sergeant asked for Dehaene. Oh shoot I thought… it’s never a good thing when they ask for you. He didn’t know me by face, but he had heard that I was ‘un fou de cross’ (a crazy cross runner). I said, “present.” He came towards, and asked if I was a good runner. I didn’t respond at first not knowing what the right answer was. He then said, “you are Dehaene” right? Yes sir. I responded. Then he told me to stay in the back. Push the back as much as I could so that they make it within the time limit. I ran to the back and started pushing (literally) the last guys up the hill. This was only the beginning… we hadn’t even finished one kilometer yet. But I got this strange energy… I don’t know if it was because of the freezing shock to my body that resetted my system or because I was suddenly given a much bigger challenge. I started to take the gear off of the last two guys so that at one point I was running with three rifles and two chest webbings… while physically pushing them forward. Eventually there was only one guy I had to take care of… the slowest and eldest of the entire platoon. I would push him until he passed someone, then I would take that person until he passed the first guy again. At first the sergeants didn’t say anything. But after I had dragged this guy for about 4 kilometers they told me to leave him behind. I didn’t. Instead I told him to hold unto my belt and I started given him walking cadence. I pulled him like this for another two kilometers while he emptied my water bottle. When there was one kilometer left the sergeants told me that they knew people like me, too kind and capable who helped others too much and in the end, they didn’t make it and those they helped along the entire did. He told me I had a choice. If I didn’t leave him now, I wouldn’t make the time limit. I began yelling at the guy I was dragging and told him to not let go of me. Another candidate joined me and we pulled him like two horses dragging a chariot. When we saw the end we sprinted leaning forward just to cross the finish.

The platoon was divided by those who made it within the time limit and those who didn’t. The black list. Those who shouldn’t be there. those who are an embarrassment to the commando training center. Those who should really reconsider coming back on Monday… etc. etc. We were three minutes late. We are going to pay the following week. Strangely I felt strong enough to run it again right then just to show them that even the second time I would beat their pathetic time limit. I think my face expressed anger… but I felt so strong. And I don’t know why. The other guys in the platoon vouched for me and sympathized with my feelings. I don’t even know if the instructors were testing me or not. Or if they were really telling me to let this guy (and others) drop. They won’t make it any way, they told me. And they’re right. These guys won’t make it to the end. Why am I wasting my energy for an already failed candidate. I thought these things, but I couldn’t just tell him to let go. He thanked me deeply at the end. But it makes no difference… he didn’t even throw-up! It’s not possible to really push yourself and not vomit. This is one of the body’s first reactions. And this bothered me. It was like a free ride for him. And now I have to pay for being three minutes late. After about an hour later, I felt the surge of energy slowly fade away. They let us go home at about 17:00. but to be dismissed we had to go up Golgotha (a steep long climb) again.

I caught the train and headed back towards Brussels in my military uniform. On the train a few teenagers tapped my shoulders. They asked if I was a ‘para-commando.’ I smiled and replied, “almost.” They gazed at me in a way that encouraged me like not much else could have. They asked questions and wanted to know about the formation and what kinds of things we had to do. As I started telling stories, the rest of the people in the train started to listen in and ask their own questions. It was funny because I was almost drunk with exhaustion. So I think I spoke and slurred like a drunk. Not purposefully I assure you. They offered to drive me home. But I told them that seeing the city was refreshing. As I walked back to the apartment I was attacked by a bunch of little kids. They came around me and asked if I had just gotten back from war. They were so little I couldn’t help but sit down with them and tell them that they should never dream of being a soldier… that it wasn’t good for their minds or their hearts. One kid had tiny military pants on and proudly showed me that he was also almost a soldier already. It was such a strange and long day… Fridays… thank God it’s over.

 

March 13, 2009

We spent a week on the terrain doing tactical and administrative bivouacs. The majority of the time was spent walking, about 8-10 hours a day. We were training for different types of enemy contact and reacting to various alerts during the night. Which means that I slept about 9 hours all week and four of those hours were on Monday night.

It was a seriously wet and dirty week that consisted of 20-23 hour days. Seven candidates in our platoon abandoned this week and about 20 abandoned all together. I thought I was going to be sent home this week due to my tendon being so sore on Monday through Wednesday, but suddenly on Thursday it was as though, contrary to all logical medicine, my tendon began feeling slightly better. I did spend many hours in my MAG hole massaging my foot (to keep it warm) all through the night. Maybe this had an effect, or maybe it was something else. So we threw grenades on Tuesday, which was an interesting experience and went on a night reconnaissance patrol that night. I unfortunately received the minimi machine gun with the Irbis night vision, second canon, and 400 ammunitions. Adding a weight of about 12 kilos to my being which was not added to any body else. It was a curse-ful experience as we were continuously going down on our knees and getting up. I eventually cramped up so badly that I fell over just to be able to extend my leg. The point of this week was to keep us exhausted the entire time. They didn’t want us to sleep much… so they made sure that we didn’t.

At one point on Wednesday night there was a Flemish platoon that found real ammunition where only blancs should have been. In the middle of the night we had to empty all our ammo so that it could be checked. Then instead of going to bed we had to ‘guard’ the camp from potential attacks and alerts. It was a long week. It was an exhausting week. I didn’t think it was possible to fall asleep standing up until this week. 

 

February 28, 2009 ~

We went to the pool last Thursday. After swimming for an hour or so the instructor called everyone to the diving boards. There was a 3-meter (10 feet) and a 5-meter (16 ft). We lined up behind the 5-meter springboard. The first guy went up, not knowing what the orders were going to be. The instructor asked him if he had ever done a back flip before. The candidate on the edge, looking down 20 ft below, replied negatively. The instructor grinned and said that this was his lucky day. The candidate on the edge thought the instructor was kidding at first, then quickly realized that there was no jest in his subliminal order.

We all quickly became nervous… realizing that this was probably going to apply to the rest of us. I could see panic spreading quickly in people’s eyes. The result of mis-landing a back flip (which most of us had never done before… even from 0 ft) from this height is not welcoming to say the least. Especially when you see guys right before you smack the water with their backs or stomachs so hard that they are unable to breathe and have a remarkable redness over a substantially large area of their body’s. the mishaps were plentiful, painful and consequently extremely entertaining… in a wrong kind of way. Fortunately as a child I spent thousands of hours at the Kandern swimming pool. I never thought those thousands of hours would pay off in just 5 seconds…

Their was one guy, he smacked so hard that we thought he had died… and the face we saw come out of the water, was one of extreme distress and lack of oxygen. He momentarily forgot how to swim and was doggy paddling out of the water… the instructor yelled at him to get back on the board right away. Still unable to breathe properly he was back on top… I believed he would land this one better with all my heart. He did not. The smack was just as loud and the face we saw come out of the water was as though he had just been shot through the spleen. The doggy paddle turned into more of a body float. The story more or less ends here. But I wish I could have filmed the 24 guys in my platoon attempt a back flip looking down 20 feet for the first time in their lives.

There were certainly external tears of laughter and internal tears of pain. . . strangely this is still only the beginning… I can’t imagine what they will be asking us to do in 2 or 3 months…

 

 

 

January 30, 2009 ~

So I turned 25 this eventful week. a quarter of a century. The day of my birth felt more surreal than usual this year. It felt like a distant truth lost in the morning fog. I knew it was there, but felt nothing. The platoon even sang ‘appi Bird-day’ to me in English. I asked them if every animal had a special day in Belgium… after which they passionately tried saying the ‘th’ sound… the effort was fascinating.

The rest of the week was more intense than usual. We went on a three-day/two-night bivouac learning how to respond to enemy contact. It was kind of fun as I got to hide like an enemy in the bush and shoot blanks at my colleagues who couldn’t see me. We had supper and then headed out on a 17 kilometer ‘dropping.’ This involved being given coordinates on a map and continuously finding the next location until we are led back to our tents; in groups of two (there are still 32 of us left). All of last week I prayed to not be with this one particular guy (he is not very useless… to say the least). I pleaded with fate… I even put out candles the night before. But alas, I am thoroughly convinced that God intervened – The Sergeant coupled us. I think I even swore out loud as he put us together… after which this particular individual came up to me with a big smile. I had several people offer their condolences.

18 kilometers later, 5 hours into the night (2:30 AM), we returned to the bivouac and had to clean ourselves. 5:30 AM we were woken up, packed our tents, had breakfast and headed to the firing range for the rest of the day. That night we returned to the same bivouac area. It was colder this evening. We were told to get into an ‘Indian line’ and walk in a circle in the woods until the sergeant told us to stop. This actually took much than you would expect, as some candidates were unsure of what a circle looked like. This is when we realized that we would be doing a ‘clandestine bivouac’ – where we unpack nothing but our sleeping bags, lay then on the frozen solid ground, and ‘sleep.’ Technically the entire platoon should be able to re-locate within 3 minutes of wake-up time. Which means that we sleep in all our clothes including our shoes with our rifles inside the sleeping bag. It was cold and not comfortable at all as you had to remain in the spot where the sergeant had yelled halt. I got lucky again, and ended up half on a root with my lower body and in a delightful ditch with my upper body. The wake-up was at 4:00 AM. Hardly slept 10 minutes that night. Which summed up three days with 3 hours and 10 minutes of rest. That day we had physical exams (TMAP). I did my pushups and situps and then went outside to run the 2,400-meter race as quick as I desired. On the second lap something felt really wrong in the arch/heal area of my right foot. I thought of pulling out, but decided that 5 laps more wouldn’t hurt/cause pain. I have never been so wrong before. I finished first with 8 minutes 30 seconds (not especially fast), walked back to the changing rooms, took a shower, went to have supper… when I got up from supper I knew something was really wrong with my foot. I could barely walk. I took off my sock and immediately noticed a large swelling where my arch was supposed to be. I tried icing it that night. The next morning I couldn’t put any weight on that foot so I went to the sports doctor (VM). He put me on crutches and told me to come back at 11:00 AM for an injection. When I told the sergeant major about my foot he seemed pleased about my misfortune and started telling me that if I wasn’t fit for next week I was out… with a warped grin of course. I went back at 10:15 (as I was intelligently ordered to) and waited until 11:00 AM, there was no line-up.

11:12 AM January 30, 2009 was the most painful minute of my life. My foot had become rather tender – as one might imagine – so the doctor grabbed it and poked until I jerked. I jerked. Then to make sure it was a real jerk, he poked even harder in the same super-swollen-tendon (SST) he had just poked seconds earlier… where I had already jerked. Surprisingly, I jerked even harder which caused me to wish misfortune on anybody he had ever loved… or even liked for that matter. Then it turned 11:12 AM. I was laying on my stomach with his thumb on my soft and sensitive swollen arch (S&SSA). I wasn’t looking but I felt a needle penetrate into my SST. It hurt at first, then he pushed further… it started to really hurt, then he began moving the needle around (I don’t know why) but sweat immediately covered my entire body. After about 42 seconds he pulled this needle out and then decided to inject me again! in the same spot with a ‘pain-killer.’ The irony of this shot will haunt me the rest of my existence. I almost passed out with the pain of this… pain-killer. My SST couldn’t have been more sensitive at this point, it was throbbing with every beat of my heart… then he kindly inserted a second needle…

Right before ‘treating’ me, He said, “It might hurt a bit.” The rest of the day it hurt… a bit. I couldn’t touch my foot to the ground without incredible pain… My comrades were very quick to help me and show me that they cared, which was nice. I was treated like royalty, at one point in the train, three candidates helped me take the bag off my back. It wasn’t even a heavy bag. I was almost embarrassed at the attention, but again, it was very kind of them. Now I sit in my room in Brussels, handicapped. Wondering if I should tell my family about my injury. I hate being handicapped. I hate being incapable. At this point, I can’t walk and have 4 days to heal completely. After my injections, the doctor told me that they don’t do shots like these anymore… (I can’t imagine why) but because I have to be ready for the Special Forces barracks in a week, he had no choice. Which is the case, I finish the military crash course in a week (after 2 months) and begin the Special Forces formation next Monday. The physical side of this formation is one of the hardest in the world… and I can’t walk one week before it all begins. What a Bird-day week… I couldn’t have wished for a more unfortunate one. but alas… i think it will be okay…

 

January 16, 2009 ~

“ALERT ALERT ALERT!” I had just dosed off in my tent, it was 3:30 in the morning and freezing cold, we had been learning different tactical night maneuvers till 2:00 A.M. After which we had to clean ourselves – which involved undressing and rubbing with almost frozen water in freezing weather – then set up our tents so that we could get out with everything we needed (bullet proof vest, Kevlar helmet, Rifle, boots… clothes are an accessory) in about 30 seconds. We weren’t allowed to sleep dressed, just thermal underwear.

As the alert sounded, I looked at my watch first, swore several times, then slid out of my sleeping bag while grabbing my stuff – and burst out of the tent dropping into my sniper/lookout hole. Still dazed I waited… I was laying in snow… almost completely undressed… convulsing with cold. I could hear my neighbor convulsing as well… which was comforting for some perverted reason. We waited and waited… nothing happened. Usually the instructors sneak by and we shoot at them with blanks. Nothing. After way too long someone passed on an “end of alert” signal. I went back into the tent… but not for long as my one-hour sentinel was about to begin in 30 minutes. At least I had time to dress. That morning we learned that someone… not an instructor, THOUGHT they had heard something and sounded the alert. This particular candidate instantly began experiencing serious verbal abuse, but the instructors thought it was hilarious. Usually they would have sounded the alert but thought they had pushed us enough that night and knew that the next day was going to be hell…

We took off early exhausted in two military trucks (2 rows of benches back to back with a canvas top) filled with 30 candidates… and Crashed. Both trucks spun off the road. Barely missing each other, nailing the ditch and sending candidates flying. I was second to the end and thought it was strange as suddenly everything began to spin… then we swiftly dropped down after having completed more than a full turn and BANG!… all the guys on the other side of the bench flew forward and the guys on my bench smacked into the wooden backboard. Even before we actually realized we were in an accident, we were commanded to get out with all our equipment… as we were getting out a third truck started coming down the same road with it’s brakes fully engaged but slid as though it were accelerating… it started spinning as well and spun just between both our trucks missing by inches and finally hitting the ditch hard… the road was like an ice rink.  

In hindsight this accident could have had several fatalities… we were incredibly lucky to say the least. I still don’t understand how all the trucks managed to miss each other. If our truck would have gone even a few feet further we would have fallen into a ravine and rolled.

But nonetheless, we were off within moments, as though nothing had happened… fully loaded on foot – 18 kilometers later we arrived back at the barracks… It was strange because no one really talked about the accident that night… it was as though we had forgotten about it. When someone brought it up it felt like a distant memory. Then slowly it all began sinking in…