Field Camp

Is inhuman. I cant remember how many times me and my buddy would look at each other with a blank stare in our eyes and say, "This is inhuman, buddy."

And it really is. Away from all your creature comforts, you are stripped to the very person that you are. Theres no pretending to be someone else, because youre trying so hard to stay alive, why bother to care what others think of you?

Its raining now. Oh God, the rain. It rained every single fucking day that we were in that godforsaken jungle. Sometimes it even rained 3 times a day. Then they make you stand in the rain till youre soaked to the bone, and when the rain stops, they make you lie down on the mud to soak up the shit with your underwear.

Have you ever done sit ups on a gravel paved road after the rain?

How about without your shirt on?

Now with all that filth clinging on to you like pestilential glue, you go to sleep. You throw a mat over the forest floor and sleep on top of the mud, together with ants, grasshoppers and the rest of the myriad of flora and fauna of the jungle.

The mat doesnt make much of a difference though, since the mud somehow leaks onto the sheet anyway. And as the night grows more and more frigid, you place your face on your muddy sleeve, the cleanest pillow you have. You fall asleep, but the bliss doesnt last long. The glacial temperatures wake you up in the middle of the night, and you peer into an abyss of darkness, feeling all alone. Then after an eternity shivering, you realise that, it is because you ARE alone.

Your futile attempts to ignore your piss smelling uniform and the cold finally bear fruit when you fall asleep, only to be awoken one hour later to go through the same vicious cycle of agony. When dawn finally breaks, theres still no sun to brighten up the place. Your every move brings you to new heights of pain as your skin makes contact with your icy clothes, like its stabbing you.

This is the longest night in your life.

And Ive had five of those nights.

Heh.