River Swale crossings at 0430.
4 minutes for lunch.
Pokey Drill.
Keeping an eye out for the nurses minibus.
Sharing Xmas dinner with uncaring hungry Muslim children.
Army roast spuds basted with marmite.
Early breakfasts at the 'Wessex Restaurant'.
Leaving march out prep until the day before.
Eurocheques.
Being allowed to use electric floor buffers after 4 weeks of Basic training
.
The sheer pride at wearing my Reggie slides for the first time.
And OGs.
Falling naked into nettles at a leaving do.
Having my fingers mashed in the breach block of an M60 by the Flt 'enforcers' because I f#cked up once too often
.
Thinking an SAC who was 27 was really old.
The wonderful smell of WRAF Blocks (well, compared to the Rock Block anyway).
Wet sleeping bags.
Lying in a shell scrape or in a bivvy, or in the OHP part of a fighting trench at night, and hearing someone looking for his relief and hoping to god it wasn't me and pretending to be asleep (frequently).
Throwing away the NBC filter packs of the CVR(T) and smuggling back bottles of spirits from RAFG (allegadly).
The face of the junior Royal Marine officer who dropped his 9mm into an African river from the helicopter just after saying the Regt was gash.
Trying edible candles.
Being sick.
Butts successfully shagging a tin of compo sausages with the middle ones removed.
Replacing the middle sausages.
Passing the tin over to the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers at hand over 2 hours later, who never got compo sausages.
(Ordinarily) Compo sausages
.
Hearing the C5s and Blackhawks land at Akr and thinking 'What
have the Americans been doing now?'.
African sunrises.
Happy African children.
Rigid raider patrols in the Med at night.
Wessex roping drills
.
The stripper at Swinderby.
Doing bunny hops around the airfield at Catterick, in my No1s and with my bed pack on the shoulder.
Leaving a unit for the very last time.
Attesting in Swansea with my best mate.
Meeting up with my best mate at the Railway Station as we both travelled to Swinderby together from Port Talbot.
Remembering that excitement and nervousness I felt, when I woke up on the morning I left the RAF.
Despite the bullsh#t, wishing I could do it all again.