My Story 16.1

It had finally become quiet in the room full of now sleeping soldiers. The only noise came from those who snore, and the odd sound trickled in through the open windows. Did you ever notice that there is always a dog barking somewhere when you are trying to sleep. Closing the windows was not an option, and you will understand why, given that some forty odd guys were producing a collective body odour that got so thick in the morning you could, as we said, "Lean against it".

Suddenly the sergeants bursted into the room making loud noises, and waking everybody up. Oh, we knew what this meant. A night exercise!! We were to grab some necessary items and RUN to the trucks. In a few minutes we were out of the gate and on to the dark roads leading to some unknown country destination.

This time we drove without headlights, following the tiny light the one in front of you had on his rear axle. Dangerous stuff! After and hour or so we met up with the artillery troops for a joint exercise. We stopped briefly along the highway, the sergeant shouting the Dutch word "afblazen!!" It simply meant "discharge your bladder", everybody! Thus properly synchronized we were ready for the next stretch. The rest of the trip we were pulling artillery equipment including canons and such.

It turned out our destination was a military airfield in the south of Holland. It was now light outside. I was ordered to unhook my load, a canon, at the end of a runway. I wondered if this was the right place for a canon, but orders are orders. Military jets were constantly screaming overhead. Then, there was more screaming...but this time by some air force commanders, who had come racing toward our position. Two were yelling at me in the most unfriendly way: "Get away from this runway! You are not allowed here!". I saluted and said: "Do you mind telling this to our captain, I take my orders from him."

There was a lot of intense discussion among the various commanders. We humble soldiers concluded that the army forgot to ask the air force for permission to even be on the airfield. As for me and some of my army buddies, we were just following orders, "learning to defend" our precious Holland, sometimes even risking our lives while caught up in the stupidity of others..