Abandon Ship

This week of downtime following my return from the mountains has been terribly quiet. Too quiet. Dead, even. So dead, in fact, that I feel like some torn and tattered feather floating on a sticky, incontinent breeze. Through a working week of purgatorial penance, dwelling and mulling over the awaiting bus, blowing me a hair's width from the simmering asphalt through towns filled with joy and laughter, far beyond and all the way to the gates of Hell. For Castelnaudary must surely be considered in such hyperbolic terms. Anything less by way of fear-inducing imagery just wouldn't do. Eight torturing weeks of near-intolerable nonsense awaits; daily two-hour runs, innumerable push-ups, countless uniform inspections, hours spent parading around while churning out a plethora of legion songs, sleep deprivation, shitty food,  the list goes on. Anyone who followed my driving exploits a short while ago can appreciate just how "upped" the ante shall be from a two-week licence to a two-month rank-increasing gauntlet. One would almost be tempted to desert……… but not quite. It'd take something far more daunting (God forbid such a thing exists in the Legion!) than the aul' Stage Caporal to have me skidaddling with my tail between my legs.

Regrettably, not all Legionnaires maintain such a resistance.

In the week-and-a-half that I was sweating buckets and dermatologically destroying my tootsies up in the Alps, a whopping tally of twenty two (yep, that's 22!) Legionnaires deserted from my regiment. Twenty-fucking-two. You don't need me to tell you that such an enormous figure over such a diminutive timeline is verging on the unprecedented. Desertions were always expected over the Summer period, three-to-four weeks of holidays with family and friends providing more than a few painfully weighted journeys back to base on that final Sunday night. My own plummet from anglophone liberty was someway buffered by a long-weekend in Paris, my friends in that fine city acting as a fireman's sheet, catching me as I leaped from the ledge of happiness and down to the unforgiving, hierarchal concrete slab below. But for others, the sheet decided to split, or ripped, or disintegrated completely as they splatted like a bottle of ketchup under the tracks of a tank. I guess my more apathetically voyeuristic side enjoys the announcement of desertions. Who was he? Did I know him? Oh, that guy? Oh well. Forget him. Move on. It really is that simple.

Almost.

The Bulgarian APC driver, the guy with whom I spent six months in Afghanistan, toiling over broken gearboxes and burst tyres, listening to dance music on his iPhone with the volume turned down so as not to drown out the radio when stationed on some random hill in the Tagab Valley for hours on end, my "friend" with whom I shared a bunk-bed, a cramped cabin in that tedious succession of armored personnel carriers throughout our own anti-climactic war-on-terror has deserted. He was a corporal, sporty, never in trouble, well-liked by our superiors, and yet it all became too much for him. Not a word uttered, not a discreet beer shared before the departure. He was there in the evening. In the morning, he was not. He reached his final straw, his own personal breaking point. And so have I.

Fear not, however, as I have absolutely no plans on skipping out before the credits roll. Rather I've reached the end of my tether regarding that perplexingly preposterous paradox that is "friendship" in the Legion. A 24-carat paradox because we endure the harshest of climes and conditions, the most bizarre and challenging situations, all together, all as one. Yet apart from those resident on my Facebook page's "Friends" list, I know not their real names. I have no inkling of their families on the outside, what they've done, what they've tried to do, what they hope to do once back again on the other side of those gates. And YET, I allow myself be tricked in to believing that we share some sort of profound bond as brothers-in-arms. One can't deny that there is undoubtedly a connection between us. We live side-by-side, party side-by-side, train and fight side-by-side. Some men consider that enough. Proximity alone breeds feelings of togetherness, fraternity, family. I guess that, for some, that suffices. But not me.

I'm like that annoying twat who exits a screening of "The A-Team", belittling its plausibility and demanding recognition of the glaring holes in the plot and so-called stunts. Others might look on, somewhat bemused at my failure to simply switch my brain off at the door and enjoy it for what it is. But what exactly is it? A charade? A smoke-and-mirrors parade of superficial handshakes and back slaps? A magic elixir traveling from town to dusty town, conning simple folk in to believing that one sip can right their wrongs, win them the friends and family that civilian life failed to deliver. The same friends and family that then desert with clinical silence and swollen bank accounts after six months spent side-by-side in the most dangerous country on earth. Side-by-side, like two strangers on the metro, two drunken idiots queuing one behind the other for drinks in a tacky, garish nightclub. Aye, side-by-side. Nothing more.

Fool me once, and all that jazz.

It seems that the Legion has become an institution of extremes. It's ranks are filled with either those who realise all too quickly that it's not what they had expected and the only option is a sharp u-turn through the gates that welcomed them not so long ago, or alternatively those who are here for the long haul, a career (if you could call it that), a life of unwavering servitude for a wage triple that available at home and for a pitiful excuse of a day's work. My kind are a dying kind. Here for the five, boss. Here for the five. Criminalised from the outset at refusing to sign on beyond the five years, that judge-and-jury hierarchy seems to have overlooked the fact that just staying the five years in itself is becoming an increasingly rarer phenomenon. Guys in their final eighteen months resemble men who've worked their entire lives in the same job. Sixty four and crossing off the days on a calendar with a big red pen, the coal mines left behind but always with the soot trapped under the fingernails, for the rest of their days. Personally, I've given up scrubbing. Here for the five, boss, and not a single day more.

But never a single day less.

The Hills Are Alive

The only thing you can be sure of in the Legion is that you can be sure of nothing. Arriving back from a four-week break last Sunday evening saw me mentally prepared for three weeks spent at regiment, calmly and methodically maintaining and gradually improving my physical condition before a two-month promotion course back at the infamous Castel. Cue Monday morning and the sobering news bulletin that I was in fact being sent off up the Alps for a week-and-a-half for the company's annual mountaineering course. Oh joy! 

The Brevet D'Alpiniste Militaire (or the "BAM" to those in the know, ya know?) is a three-week mountaineering course undertaken in the Summer months along France's Alpine borders. Comprising of a host of mountain disciplines such as rock-climbing, abseiling, glacier navigation, etc, it is the sister course to the French Army's winter counterpart - the Brevet De Skieur Militaire (BSM).

Not that the course isn't one of the more interesting, challenging and (at the very minimum) physically rewarding on offer within the Legion itself. Rather my surprise and unease at being included on its roll-call stemmed from its chronological proximity to the afore-mentioned Corporal course. Let's not forget that this time last year I was also scheduled to kick off my two-month promotion course, before a terrifically disgusting ankle injury put paid to thoughts of climbing up the ranks. I had received assurances from my lieutenant that the mountaineering course would have to do without my grace of presence this time round, thus avoiding a large threat to my physical well-being so close to the trip to Castel.

But with said lieutenant now (rather timely) departed, I find myself high up in France's (rather spectacular) Savoie region, gulping down lungfuls of fresh alpine air as the skin covering my heels and toes slowly disappears into an obscure and murky maroon swamp of congealed cotton deep inside my steaming boots. Vive la Legion indeed.

But it's not all doom and gloom. Indisputably, this past week of intensive marching, hiking, rock climbing and mountain trail-running has proved just the tonic after a month-long hedonistic binge back home. The thigh, calf and ass muscles may be burning excruciatingly but the cause is just and that self-servingly utopian feeling of getting in to proper shape is slowly flooding over all us Legionnaires. The unavoidable crash courses in blister-treatment also serve as a bonus pre-cursor to the two months of punishment awaiting me in Castel two weeks from now. Fitness incentives aside though, the Legion's chalet here in Valloire is one of the few genuinely enjoyable refuges from regimental life. While most off-base locations encompass sub-standard plumbing, dodgy beds and timetables horribly incompatible with human sleep patterns, here at Valloire we can rely on shiny new installations with ample food and even sleep.

The reason?

As the old saying goes "The mountains don't joke around". If expected to scramble up to summits ranging from 2,500m to 3,750m, even our occasionally sadistic superiors recognise the need for decent grub and a good night's kip. Combine said altitudes and gradients (a standard climb would see us cover between 900m to 1,750m in under three hours) with a backpack stuffed with the essentials such as helmets, rope, ice axes, crampons, carabiners, helmets, several litres of water, the whole kit 'n caboodle basically, and you've an idea of just how much of a sweat can be worked up on a daily basis up here. In fact, the ascent is undoubtedly the "easy" part. Sure, the thighs are ready to explode and the back burns white-hot by the time we reach the top, but that's nothing compared to the descent. Knee shocks, ankle jerks, uneven surfaces and dislodged rocks during the return down to base camp (undertaken at a frightening speed decided by some rookie lieutenant out to prove something, although only God knows what) leave leg nerves shattered with some twitches continuing well in to the night.

Fortunately I'm only here for a half of the three-week duration, being allowed a week or so to recuperate before embarking on the next major milestone in my Legion career - Stage Caporal! The horror stories emanating from Castel surpass legendary at this point, but alas it is an obstacle that must be conquered in order to continue on my (sometimes rocky) road towards that day in August 2013, that mythical fin de contrat. I should be able to publish at least one more blog post before I dive in to the dauntingly deep blue. But first, I have to make it back to my regiment in one piece.

What? There's a storm brewing? Maybe we should stay inside today Sarge? What? No? Oh, okay……….

Bollocks!

In My Place

It's taken me a while. A while to duck, weave, bob and slide through four weeks away from France, Paris and the Legion. A while to gather my thoughts and prepare for the next significant chapter in my life as a Legionnaire. The horizons from here on in are far more hospitable. No sooner shall one peak be climbed than the winding trail towards the summit of the next one will reveal itself. Bite-size. Short-term goals, a continued sense of progress, whether or not it's all merely an illusionary tactic inflicting absolutely zero damage on the all powerful and immovable Master Time doesn't bother me. Keeping busy, that's the name of the game. Time flies when you think of all the fun you'll be having soon, or something to that effect.

In any case, approaching the end of my gluttonous month on the sidelines, I feel recharged, reinvigorated and just about able to stomach a return to the regimental lifestyle. Keeping busy certainly seemed my principal mantra during the holidays. The first meaningful break post-Afghanistan afforded a deceptively profound opportunity to reflect on all that I did (and didn't do) during that six month tour of duty. Familiar faces from the past, newly-made acquaintances and unknown voices, fingers on keys, all afforded an unexpected epiphany concerning the significance of that half-year spent toiling in Taliban-riddled valleys over six thousand kilometers away from the cosy pubs and unreliable public transport of my dear old Dublin town. People who claim it's a small world have a thing or two to learn about context.

My first encounter involved an e-mail from a relatively new acquaintance of mine currently living in New Zealand. Establishing a connection between me and another of her friends, she asked me to perhaps offer some inside info on current conditions in Afghanistan. The idea was to strengthen this girl's knowledge of what to expect, etc before she possibly shipped out on a humanitarian-type mission to set up a physiotherapy clinic aimed at helping rehabilitate and offer support to injured civilians, most often amputees from land mines. It took me almost a month to reply. Not that I hadn't checked my e-mails, nor read the initial e-mail from my friend a million times. I simply had no idea what to say, what to write, what to offer at all by way of advice. But more alarmingly, my role as a soldier suddenly seemed frighteningly inadequate alongside someone willing to go over to a country like Afghanistan unarmed and with the sole desire to offer DIRECT aid and assistance to handicapped civilians. I eventually replied. I hope it was helpful to her. It certainly was to me. I think.

My next epiphanic encounter came from a rather unlikely source. Growing up as a child, both my parents worked full-time. 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. Distinctly middle-class, my sister and I never wanted for anything (except those things which my parents wisely determined us to not really need). Having two professional parents did however require a child-minder to take the reigns during weekdays until the halogen office lights flickered off and the car keys crashed magnificently into the metallic tray on the hall table announcing the return of mum and dad, dragging early hints of a tumbling dusk through the front door each evening. 

My child-minder's name was Rosie. 

I remember not fully understanding what she had actually done in life before deciding to mind children on a full-time basis. I knew she had been a nun or missionary, and that she had spent time in Calcutta many years ago, but not much else by way of detail. A fantastically strong-spirited and frank, sensible woman, I owe an inexpressible amount to her for how she helped raise me and mould me in to the human being I am today. Years had passed since I had last spoken with her, so this time around I decided to pick up the phone and arrange to drop up to her house. Upon seeing her again, it quickly descended into that old familiarity that only certain relationships are privileged to encounter. The tea flowed, the scone-crumbed saucers piled up and the conversation pumped out rhythmically and without showing the faintest sign on relent throughout the afternoon. I had brought along a little gift for her from Afghanistan, quipping how now she could say that she has souvenirs from Kabul as well as Calcutta.

"Oh I've been to Kabul!" she said with astounding alacrity.

"Really?" I half spluttered, feeling my highly-regarded accomplishments take a stinging hit.

And indeed, she went on to describe in truly fascinating detail a school she helped run in none other than Swat Valley more than forty years previously. Swat Valley is a valley straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and arguably one of the most dangerous places on earth for a Westerner. She proceeded to recount captivatingly vivid tales of the students in their day-to-day lives, disputes with parents over the wearing of veils and adherence to the annual feast of Ramadan. Suddenly, six relatively uneventful months under the protective umbrella of NATO seemed rather pale by comparison.

Of course I say "uneventful" when we still lost men over there during my tour. However, nothing compares to the level of activity and hostility facing French troops and Legionnaires in Afghanistan at present. First was the suicide attack killing five French soldiers in the locality of Joybar in the Tagab Vally. Engaged in what had been considered a routine mission during our subdued Winter shift - providing a security perimeter for a meeting between local village elders and French NATO commanders - they found themselves on the wrong end of a devastating assault. I remember reading the reports containing names of places we had passed hundreds of times without incident. The Summer period really is all the more hotter. Then, distressingly, came the news that two legionnaires had fallen in combat. Now the specific circumstances of their demise aside, it was a winding blow to the entire legion family, but especially to the green berets with glistening golden flame insignias serving in that God-awful, daresay unsalvageable land. Indeed my best friend from basic training took a hit of shrapnel in the same attack. Currently Facebooking from a hospital bed in Kabul while awaiting redeployment to his company out in the field, he downplayed his wounds with characteristic modesty and humility, interspersed with some high-class low-brow humour of course. Shards of jagged metal embedded in his arm and neck or not, I'd still demand a clinically outstanding sense of wit at all times.

Therefore I'd like to take this opportunity to dedicate this particular blog to my good mate Gus whose failed attempts at chatting up the female medical staff can be positively tempered by the knowledge that he's undeniably one of the smartest, bravest and professional legionnaires fighting the good fight out in the big bad world today. Let there be many more following in your footsteps buddy. Those reunion beers are long overdue.

Finally, taking the above in to account, let it never be forgotten that there are men and women out there achieving the unimaginable by helping the most helpless and vulnerable people in the world today. Their efforts are more courageous than those of some of the most muscle-bound combat-clad troops you may encounter in your lifetime. They truly are the unsung heros.

Of course, not all of them were clever enough to start a blog!