You probably have known from previous posts that I, Mr Blacks, had been busy on course since June. Today, 10th Aug, 05, its finally over. No more burnt weekends mugging literature articulating warfare, tactics, doctrines, training safety, and weapon capabilities. No more fretting over tests...
Looking back, I must say there are many first for me during the course... For one, I, Mr Blacks, have never been evacuated from a training ground to the medical centre. In my line of job, I need to conduct many training and exercise, and part of the training brief would entail to conducting a safety evacuation brief (basically a evacuation route and evacuation procedure)from the training area to the nearest medical facilities. But I have never "tested" the medical evacuation procedure before. That said, you probably can guess what had happened to me. During one of the training exercise, I was the "aggressor" defending a Built Up Area (BUA) and my role was to detect "Enemy" recce teams coming to my location. As all the troops were my peers, I put in extra effort in doing my job, just so that I can have bragging rights, should I capture one of my course mates...
we were tasked in to 3 main groups, 2 teams of 2 men covering the 2 different approaches while the rest of the aggressors will defend the BUA. I was tasked as one of the teams to cover the southern and most likely enemy approach. As the enemy I am expecting are the recce elements of the main force, and that them being recce elements, a high degree of security & surveillence enroute to the objective, stopping frequently, surveying the scene, before creping in slowly can, and must, be expected. What good will it be if my "aggressor" friend and me are brazenly walking on the track? Hence we decided that rather that patrolling the likely enemy route, we will wait in the bushes for the "enemy" to come to us... After a good hour, there they were, to the left of us, running across the track... i signalled to my friend and we creeped towards them, sometimes crawling ,most times crouching. we wanted to catch em from their rear thereby trapping them... Suddenly we hear gun shots. DAMMMIT!!! The other team has spotted them and fired at them. A brief firefight ensues while we try to exert our presence by closing in on them. The recce elements ran away, and the entire contact lasted no more than 2 minutes. As we cursed, we decided to RV back in the BUA asnd get an update on what happened.
We wadded thru the wet vegetation (from the morning dew) towards the track, I felt a sudden prick on my right calf. Gotta be a thorny bush, i thought to myself. I pulled my right calf away and i felt the prick again. What bloody bush is it man, so many thorns??? I peer back and look down on my calf and I spotted a few nasty looking bees/wasp like insect hovering around my calf. It was black, about 1~1.5cm, witha red band around its tail, I look back and I saw my friend started running towards me and instinctively we shouted "HORNET!!!"
We ran. We ran like hell. It was hard running thru the thick undergrowth under our feet. I had a smoke grenande, i remembered. I felt around my gear, felt something round, took it out, strobe light! I searched again, this time I felt another cylindrical object. I took it out. F*%K! TORCH LIGHT!!! where is my bloody smoke!?!! we managed to reach the track before I finally found my smoke grenade and I popped it and we ran towards the BUA and shoutting "hornets" like possessed men. When we reached the BUA, the nasty little bastards finally stopped going after us. . We comms back to HQ and a land rover with a medic was sent to our direction. I had majority of my stings at my right calf, back and I got one on my left ribs. The medic came, and immeidately sent us to the medical centre.
I was out of action, without firing a single round, without capturing anyone...
DAMMIT!!!
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