Soldiers Journal Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Soldiers Journal - Essay Example In the absence of training, the soldier is just like any other person. Based on this, training continued to be part of our integral camping at the Shai-Hills Military Center when we were on peace keeping mission to Afghanistan. Thursday, 3rd March 2010, was to be a specialized training regime for the infantry in which I belonged. I term the training specialized because we were to receive dedicated training on self protection against enemies who may use indigenous forms of weapons. It would be noted that the part of the world where we went for the military camping is not as advanced as other parts of the world where sophisticated modern weapons of mass destruction are used. These are people who normally use medieval weapons. But it would be foolish on the part of any commander to underestimate the power of medieval weapons. For this reason, our commander arranged us for a special training on how to defend ourselves against the use of medieval weapons. The training program was with a r esourced person who was a military personnel and an anthropologist. He took us through the basic defense technique regarding the use of medieval weapons and how to protect ourselves against sudden attacks. It was indeed a very useful day as it was a giant step against getting any of us get attacked defenselessly. Saturday, 19th March 2010 Social Outing All work and no play, they say makes jack a doll boy. This means that it is always good to wine off after some hard season of tough brainy drills. Who says we do not have funny at the military camp? Without these fun-filled moments, we would have each burst out with stress. On 12th March 2010, there was a special social outing section arranged for the soldiers in my infantry. There was one peculiar thing that made this day very special to me. This was because the day presented those of us at the lower rank to easily mingle with our superior officers. In this military service, such form of socialization does not happen easily because o f bureaucratic discipline and respect for authority (DeVries, 2012). Personally, it was an opportunity for me to learn more about our commander in terms of how he started off as a young soldier and how he had risen through the ranks to the level he currently found himself. Opportunity for the interaction came when the junior officers engaged the commanders in several social activities including sports and games. Some of the activities included the playing of chess, soccer, basketball, hide and seek, and table tennis. After the major activities, where was an open forum where we freely asked our officers about their social life. Monday, 20th March 2010 War Field ‘Wahala’ In military terms, ‘walaha’ means trouble. I have therefore tagged the heading as war field ‘walaha’ to stand for a very serious encounter I had with an enemy on 20th March 2010. Before I even proceed, I must say that I thank God for keeping my life up till now because it was a v ery dangerous encounter with the enemy. Simply put, it was an unannounced attack on us at our camp. As soldiers on peace keeping, we try as much as possible not to be combative against the civilian or rebel soldiers. All that it is for us to do is to ensure peace between the two sides in the war (Gravett, 2003). But it was like a group of civilians did not appreciate this effort and wanted to take the law into their own hands. Their complain was that we were being too lenient with the rebels and so they came to attack as unawares and this started a battle between they and us. As predicted by our officers, these people came with medieval weapons such as bow, arrows, spears and even slings. There is no denying the fact that they showed mastery over these medieval weapons and could have been very deadly