My Rifle, My Admin, Myself

The night had passed without incident. Me and the boss had split the radio stag so we each got a decent amount of sleep. As daylight approached the platoon stood-to - a time honoured tradition of making sure the 'enemy' doesn't conduct a sneaky attack at sunrise or sunset.

After the traditional 30 minutes or so was up we moved into morning routine. One of the things about being on exercise or operations is that so much becomes timetabled - there is very little time to yourself. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

My morning routine went something like this:

Strip rifle, clean rifle, oil rifle, put rifle back together again.

Wash (baby wipes in all the right places is about as elegant as it gets), shave (a few drops of lukewarm water in the bottom of a mess-tin), powder feet and change socks (you can't believe how good a fresh pair of socks with some talc in them feels).

Then I covered the radio while the boss peformed the same routine as me.

Finally it was scoff time. Bacon and beans was on the menu - never could stand that so it was chocolate porridge for me. Bliss.

My weapon, my admin, myself - it might sound harsh but it makes the "myself" part so much better.