Major Pain, Major Trouble & Major Klutz

2041hrs: It's been an end to one helluva a week. Spent the whole of last week being depressed about being permanently posted to camp hell. Just the thought of having to wake up at 0500hrs for the next 19 months really puts me off. After that I got in trouble with Major Bananaman. Rumour has it that the Major got his namesake one day when he attended an IPPT run dressed totally in yellow. And though I find this hard to believe, during the run he was apparently chased by the resident primates(thinking that he was a big mobile banana). And thus now he's known to his men as Banana Man, Monkey God, Gorilla or other much more creative names. As you probably would've figured out, this Major isn't very popular with his men thus the names. And we(the new guys) were told to stay out of his way. Which I abided to but I had a horrible run in with the Major last Friday. Being so tired and stressed up for the whole of last week, I decided to see the doctor for my diarrhoea(HA! I can spell it!). So I called the base clerk at 0730hrs and let him know I was going to the clinic near my home. Thinking everything was settled I went back to bed cause the clinic doesn't open till 0830hrs. But at 0820hrs the clerk called and told me I couldn't go to the private clinic and that I was required to see the Army's Medical Officer instead. And I was required to reach there by 0930hrs. Here's the thing, I wasn't freaking ready to leave my house and by the time I left, it was 0900hrs. I couldn't get a freaking cab down cause cabs seem to disappear at my place in the mornings. When I did finally get a cab, it was already 0943hrs and it took me another 30mins before I reached the damned base. It usually takes me more than an hour to get to the base by bus. So I was late by 40mins. Saw the MO, got the medicine which never works and got an excuse for light duties. I suspect the MOs are instructed not to give out Medical Leave unless the patient has fever or is unconscious on the floor. Other than that he's fit for duty. So I got back to base around noon. Got interrogated by the NCO and he didn't believe I was sick. Referred the case to the Major and everything went crazy from there. The damned Major interrogated me and before I knew it, he was shouting "CHARGE, CHARGE, CHARGE HIM FOR AWOL". Whoopeedooo....barely 2 days in the new base and I'm getting charged with AWOL. Apparently I was considered missing between 0800hrs to 0900hrs. And that's enough for AWOL. So there I was getting freaked out about my predicament thinking about the worst case scenario. Which was the brig(as you Americans call it) or Detention Barracks. Which is equivalent to a civillian prison only much harsher. But the true meaning of Absent Without Official Leave means being totally uncontactable during working hours. So it doesn't apply to me since I did contact the base about going to the doctor. So I spent the whole Friday petrified about what's gonna happen and the NCO helped make it worse by giving me lots of time to think while guarding the Major's empty office. So I was sitting in front of the vacant office doing nothing for one whole day 'guarding' the Major's Office from any would be intruders on BASE. Since I couldn't do anything to that's even remotely intellectually stimulating, I just sat on the chair and watched the world go by. And before I knew it, I was being called the Major's Guard Dog....with people asking where's my dog handler...blah blah blah. So that was how I spent my Friday.

When I got back to camp yesterday, my friends were telling me why I was getting so much flak from the NCO & the Major. The only reason why they were so hard on me was because they just didn't like new guys to be on Medical Leave. And they were trying to scare me by 'charging' me. When in reality there was no court marshal being processed at all. Everyone was busy with base operations. And anyways the Major and the NCO ignored me yesterday and today. The NCO even smiled at me today. So I guess it's safe to say that everything's alright now.

Something good happened today....