Backstory
My name is Chris, im typing this from a desk in a tattoo shop in Siem reap,Cambodia. We'll get into that later as the title implies, Im 24 years old and from the heart of the north of England, Manchester. I grew up on its grey rain soaked streets and its accent still lies heavy on my tounge, from a working class family who worked for every penny they earned and hammered the same values into me. I went to school, then college, neither of which I did especially well in, I worked at a butchers, then Mcdonalds (the pay was better), then at an office doing mind numbing data entry, it was in the first month of this job, having no real money and no qualifications and thus no real prospects I decided to join the army.
My Dad had served a full 22 years, my mum had spent time in the Airforce, as had various other family memebers reaching back to my great grandad who had been on of the first commandos in the second world war, so as you can imagine this felt like a pretty logical choice. So anyway with all the support of my family I got in, as a Soldier in the Royal Engineers.
I got through basic training, which involved a large amount of ironing getting up early, running around, getting cold wet and dirty then getting smashed for being cold wet and dirty, looking back on it, it was fucking hilarious, at one point they test you ability to change a gas canister on a gas mask, this is all done in a chamber filled with CS gas (tear gas) and just for laughs you will be made to breathe it in and shout out your name rank and number, followed by a series of banal and pointless questions, which you cannot answer due to the fact that hideos fluids are pouring out of your every facial oriphice and your coughing your lungs up and breathing fire. Hilarious.
So that finishes and it wheels around to the final pass off parade, I would insert a picture here of me looking very smart in uniform with some proud looking family but I cant find one. moving swiftly onto phase two, which for me was B3 engineer training, this comprised of 9 weeks of learning how to sandbag, build bridges, blow bridges up, concrete, dig trenches, and operate a cluster of poorly maintained and ill mannered machines such as generators, pumps , rock breakers and other similar bits of kit.
This culminates in a 4 day sleep deprivation exercise, where you have to complete tasks like building bridges and such only you dont get to sleep, over the whole 4 days I think i got maybe 4-5 hours of sleep, for those of you who dont know sleep deprivation causes halucinations, that resulted in some pretty funny stories from the lads. The lack of sleep also made doing anything fucking awful, whilst putting up a huge reel of razor wire, a friend of mine, Earl, fell asleep stood up and luckly woke up as he was falling face first towards this agonising fate, he then managed to leap over it like a salmon, and fall back asleep face down in the dirt on the other side. We all took a nice standard photo at the end of this too but again I cant find the cunt.
After that was trade training, I am/was a fitter equipment, which is essentially a mechanic, boats, cars, bikes, you name it I can open it up and say "yeh thats fucking fucked that is"
Here is a picture of me and my mate ste first learning how to deconstuct and engine. (Im the one on the left)
The training for this took a couple of months and was mostly pretty interesting, when we werent being bored to death by powerpoint presentations. The post has been a little text heavy so here are some pictures to spice it up.
We had a CSE (Combined forces entertainment) show which was fancy dress.
I of course felt it was nessary to try and balance the ratio of males to females
A friend of mine, Luke, broke his nose playing rugby then found a barrel in fort Ammerst to hide in.
Anyway moving on, I left Chatham and was posted to 32 Engineer Regiment in Hohne, Germany. The camp there is build out of the remains of a German prisoner of war camp. MB 76, the accomodation block I lived in was once home to Polish and Russian POW's. I was placed in 39 Armoured engineer squadron, one of the better squadrons at 32 and home to some very good lads and some of whom are very good friends. My first PT (physical training) session was a 7 mile run around the training area, which was essentially a huge forest, about a mile into this I sprain my ankle ( and im pretty sure severed a tendon) and had to keep running because it was my first pt session, you cannot biff out of your first PT session under any circustance, it was on these that you can either define yourself or embarrass yourself in the eyes of your peers and your superiors. Despite finishing the run I had still seriously injured myself and then couldnt walk for almost a month. Fan-fucking-tastic, this was not how I wanted to start my army career.
I did some fun stuff whilst posted there went to Kenya which was fun, went to Afghanistan
Heres me and then 2section of 26 squadron doing some work on Bastion
A while after that I decided I was going to leave the army, Back in Germany I developed a bit of an alcohol problem and didnt feel I was going anywhere with what I was doing so I needed to change it. At the time it was nessary to spend an additional year in the Army after signing off, 9 months of this I spent in the Falklands, do not go to the Falklands, dear god do not go to the motherfucking Falklands, its a motherfucking shit hole, the weather varies from obnoxios to fucking biblical, the residents are a mix of Chillian and Phillipino immigrants and locals the people of the Falklands define a small town attitude, the largest settlement is a town called Stanley, that has a total of 3 pubs and very little else. Let me reitererate. Never go to the fucking Falklands.
After that ordeal, I finally left the Army and decided I was going to go travelling.
I will end this here but in my next post I will tell you the story of my travels through Thailand, laos, vietnam and finally Cambodia.
This blog is going to move further into a tattooing and possibly fitness so keep tuned or subscribed or what you do on here and I look forward to becoming part of the community.
Chris.