A happier time...

Well there goes that reminiscing again...,

I was on msn with a fine young lad from merry ole England this evening. Well the chat brought back some memories of a happier time. Somehow we managed to get onto talking about cadets, seems we both served in the same type of cadet corps. Well just chatting with him, I started to recall all the things I got up to. I started to climb the rank ladder fairly quickly, and the higher you went, the cooler the stuff you got to do was.

For those of you who don't know what cadets is, I shall give a brief description. Cadets is kinda like Scouts, but with a military bent. In effect it is the military for the underage crowd. You can join when your 13, and go through to 18. At 18 you either apply for a commission, or you leave. You meet usually once a week, and have sessions of military drill, classroom tutorials, weapons training, etc. You can chose from the three services, Army, Navy, or Air Force. I went into the Air Training Corps, the Air Force variant. In my squadron, we also had three main "Exercises" and two minor "Exercises" a year. Plus trips for special training with actual units.

You remember C, from a couple of post back, well he was there as well. We joined at the same time, and got our first promotions at the same time. While we were sergeants, we were in charge of separate flights, and yes there was a little bit of rivalry there, hehe. So I will tell you of one "Exercise" that C and I were on...

It was the "Rabbit" exercise, the rabbit was pretty simple, a sub flight of ten cadets, usually led by a sergeant,  went into the exercise area with a day's head start. The rest of the squadron would then go out and hunt them down. For realism we used paintball guns. The exercise lasted five days, as it was a main one. Anyways so the leader of the rabbits that year was C, he was wily and we only just captured him, before the deadline, if the rabbits lasted longer than the deadline they won the exercise. Only one rabbit team ever won while I was there, mine!

So anyways on the second day the rest of the squadron left in flight formation (a flight is two sub-flights of ten cadets led by corporals, commanded overall by a sergeant, the lead flight is commanded by a flight sergeant), and began the hunt. We had a total of three flights available (out of the four full flights in the squadron), for the exercise. Over the next two days, between the flights, we had managed to pick off most of the rabbits, who if captured were taken back to the main camp for "Interrogation". Which meant they got to put their feet up in front of the telly for a few days! If they were "killed"..., well they got the same treatment really.

In that time the rabbits had accounted for quite a few of the hunters, which were now down to two workable flights. Things were getting pretty hazardous out there! So late on the fourth day, my flight picked up the trail of the last few rabbits. I radioed in my findings, but was told to return to camp due to it getting dark (for safety reasons, we didn't operate at night very much). I knew that the trail would be dead if we tried to pick it back up again in the morning, so taking a "Circuitous" route back to camp, we kept up the hunt. Almost an hour later, we came under fire from a superbly set rolling ambush, I lost ten cadets in the opening exchange, including both sub-flight leaders. Hairy!! I took what remained, and chased down the rabbits, catching up with them we dispatched them very quickly, capturing the last two living ones. Yay us, for the winning team!!

I look back upon these years with great fondness. Sometimes I wish that I could go back and be a kid again, just to relive those simpler moments. The closest I get to it now is playing airsoft. Not quite as fun, but still pretty damn good.