National service

[flyer]

Or on second thought maybe It the time my horse had just kicked me in the head

[Texas]

Flying back to the UK from Egypt, two hours at the airport was all the experience of Malta I had too. Dont remember a parrot though fleetwood.

It was early morning when we landed for some gas, and it was very cold I remember. That and the surrounding country looked brown. Remember the 'plane, a York, bit of a junkheap, they had a toilet in the back and the pan was coming unbolted from the floor, you could see daylight. We landed at Stanstead, only two or three buildings back then.

The Customs confiscated my camera, never saw it again, a Baldinette 35mm, and me serving my country.

[flyer]

Did you ever get the free cigs what ever 5 packs came out of the bag were yours no change, we got some very strange brands all had been confiscated by customs

[Texas]

I'm sure we all were good soldiers, more or less, but did anyone ever get 'Jankers'? Speaking for myself I guess I was lucky, on orders once or twice, but never anything as severe as the dreaded 'Jankers'. I don't think I would've been able to get the full FSMO together anyhow.

And what about guard duties? In Fayid at 3GHQ we got guard duty about once every eight weeks, so it wasn't that bad. Every troop got their turn. What was it they called the actual two hours on, a 'stag' or something?

It used to be two hours on and four off, thro' the night. I always tried to get on the last stag if I could. I mean it was interrupted sleep anyhow so it didn't matter which stag you were on. I liked the last one because you got to see the sunrise over the Bitter Lake, beautiful. The majority of the time you were just bored out of your skull.

I remember one kid, 'Woody', he got so bored he shot the moon. No kidding, he started fooling around with his rifle and started drawing a bead on the moon and got carried away.

When he went on orders he told the CO that he thought he'd seen an intruder trying to get under the wire. He told everybody else he'd taken the bolt out and looked up the barrel onto the moon and saw a spider coming down, so he rammed the bolt back in, round up the spout, and shot it. Well, if that wasn't enough, weeks later I asked him what had really happened. So he told me, because he knew I wouldn't laugh, he said he'd shot the moon.

Man, did he get jankers.

[flyer]

only got jankers twice the 1st time due to some lying get of a R.P it ruined my entire outlook on the army for ever,very glad to report he finaly got his just reward he use to go down to the railway to get the soldiers on the 4 o'clock milk train mon morning putting on their hats &ties aways good for a few charges he picked on a bunch of D.Rs going to Ripon bad call they kicked him to hell & left him lying in the middle of the tracks not to many bones left unbroken,2nd time well that was my fault

[fleetwood]

I've got to admit that I never was smart enough to get out of anything, take guard duty for instance, in an ideal situation it should have come around at the worst once a month, hopefully you might say every six weeks or so. There were that many 'skivers' that had this medical condition or that problem, they had medical 'chits' for everything under the Sun, the standing joke was, they had a 'chit' to say they don't have to carry all the other 'chits'. Then it was decided if you work in the Troop office you were absolved of all other duties, i'm sure they wrote that one for themselves. Multiply this with all camp administration personnel i.e. Orderly office for some reason on the same Bandwagon, I swear 'perimeter bashing' was coming every week. There were guys that knew all the angles and could get out of anything. This one fella, he might have been a corporal, lived the whole time in this covered trailer, he was in charge of items such as i.e. tinned fruit, toiletries and other more luxury things which you had to pay for. As I recall this trailer got towed everywhere the camp went. It was'nt equipped for living in but the guy had it set up pretty nice. Now how do you get a job like that because thats all he did the whole time. Now it would'nt be a big jump to think ' I bet he was making a nice piece of change on the side also'.

[flyer]

The big Irish scare was on ,&doing guard at Colchester my mate(Northern Irish) when given the password fm guard house to armory came back with "and sure alls right up here at the armory" and befor he could laugh it off the guard had slam down the phone and all rushed up with loaded rifles ,I think he got about 14 days for that lark,me I thought it was normal to give out a stripe for keeping the guard on their toes.

Now in Libya the first line of guard (when in camp) was Arab Gaffiers they would brew up this very thick tea mixed with sugar and lots of mint served in a sm shot glass, one ship of that and you snapped awake in a hurry

[Kidorry]

The big Irish scare was on ,&doing guard at Colchester my mate(Northern Irish) when given the password fm guard house to armory came back with "and sure alls right up here at the armory" and befor he could laugh it off the guard had slam down the phone and all rushed up with loaded rifles ,I think he got about 14 days for that lark,me I thought it was normal to give out a stripe for keeping the guard on their toes.

Now in Libya the first line of guard (when in camp) was Arab Gaffiers they would brew up this very thick tea mixed with sugar and lots of mint served in a sm shot glass, one ship of that and you snapped awake in a hurry

 

Their ink black coffee made with condensed milk was great also.

[Texas]

Talking about guard duties. In Fayid at the Reciever's site they had Mauritians guarding the compound. Talk about keen,they looked like small bags of sh** tied in the middle, made Morse-Woolford look like a prince. All seemed to be about 5', and their uniforms made for somebody 6'. 'Quick on the trigger', should've been their motto because that was exactly what they were. I hadn't been in Egypt very long and I made my only trip to Reciever's in the back of a 3 Tonner with a few more bods. I mean an Army 3 Tonner with all the insignia is pretty obvious, but the Mauritian guard insisted on the correct procedure, made everybody get out the back, wanted proper identification etc; etc; and when the driver got lippy, he shoved a round in the breech. Everybody started to disapear up their own backsides- and- if it hadn't been for good old reliable Cpl Chambers I don't know what'd have happened. It seemed he could speak some sort of Mauritian dialect and, with the attitude he'd got, it was sorted pretty quickly.

Quite a character was Cpl Chambers. Stories abounded of his origin. Born in India, father a high ranking Officer, boy soldier, failed at Officer training, failed at this, failed at that. But there was no doubt he was a well educated cat. There seemed no end to the languages he knew.

His demeanour was icy to say the least, the most sarcastic ******* I ever met, seemingly no friends at all. Last time I saw him he'd been busted to Lance Jack and he'd been a Sergeant at one time. People like this color your life.

[flyer]

only been in Libya a matter of weeks our camp was at Beniena Airport guarding the old hanger/M.T compound, half asleep in our tent we heard a"halt who gos halt halt "followed by 6quick shots rushed out to find a dozy who should never have been in the army with a loaded rifle had let go at old Suzana the camp donkey missing at 6feet with all shots ,that was the last time we were allowed ammo':hihi: