Saturday, June 17, 2017

CFLRS Notes (13): Mama I'm Coming Home(!)

I haven't written here for a long time because I was sent back to a platoon a month ago but now I feel like I should go home. My performance was not bad at the beginning. I finished 5 Km and 8 Km Rucksack marches without a difficulty. I passed all of the theory tests with scores of above 85% (although it's not something significant! to be proud of!) but then my decline started and it was sharp!
I had a little problem with some of the platoon members which was mainly based on misunderstanding and cultural differences, I would say, but the staff don't give a rat's ass what that is about. They just yell at you and add a note to your file. Then I failed a stupid, easy test and then the damn Weapon Handling Test! The later was horrible because I even failed the retest! It was simply due to  forgetting the steps but that was a big problem. I finally was able to pass it in the last time. The instructor who was a nice French (from Quebec of course, like the majority of the instructors of CFLRS) Sergeant explained everything in detail to me and then added a note to my paper indicating that I should be supervised (probably closely) when I'm at the field. I didn't get upset or anything because he was right. I lacked confidence during parts of the test. It's over now because I'm not going to the field.   
My next and more serious problem was with damn marching. I was not able to react to the words of command promptly most of the time, especially when I was too tired as a result of lack of sleep or when I was on my feet for a long time. This was seen especially in the final test. I was on my feet for probably 20 min. before the damn test and I almost was not able to feel them! I failed the test miserably! This failure, combined with the Commandant's Inspection as well as a theory test and the failure of Weapon Handling for the first time, will kick me out of the platoon. 
The most ridiculous class we had, and I'm happy that I don't have to go through that was CBRN which stands for chemical, biological, radioactivity and nuclear attacks! A formality class which just pays a number of so-called instructors and fills out the school schedule! I will write about that in a separate post. The fact is I'm too old to successfully go through BMOQ without much problems and lack of sleep has a major role in my failures. As well I hate doing things such as cleaning (on my feet!), sewing, shoe polishing and other silly stuff like that, no matter how many times they say attention to detail! That's why I'm out!
(Photo: One of a few normal faces of Ozzy Osbourne, the singer of Mama I'm coming home. I thought that would be the best photo to be used for this post as this, hopefully, does not violate any of the CFLRS security policies)

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