You're My Best Mate Ever

Everyday my 5 year old son comes home from school he talks about his new best friend. Friendships in the army often carry on in a similiar vein.

Born out of shared hardships, shared laughter and often shared living space friendships can become almost intense very quickly.

If you are single and living in the block you will often spend almost every waking moment with the same small group of people - eating together, working together and socializing together. On exercise and operations the situation is exaggerated still further and even if someone does seek solitude it is almost impossible to find. It's not hard to see how these friendships build up.

What is perhaps surprising, but then again maybe not, is how easily they can disperse. A soldier moves platoon or company and all of a sudden he has another ready made group of friends - the old friends don't entirely fall by the wayside but he has new 'best mates'.

So there you go we're a bunch of 5 year olds really.

P.S For a description of how all this can go over the top the ARRSEPedia has a very good entry on the time honoured tradition of 'bezzering'.