Catharsis - effect.

It was a fucking beautiful day today.

It was warm , the sun was shining along with a really comfortable breeze of wind.

This was the third day we were conducting a little training exercise of our own in a large wooden area located in.. Well , let's just say "in a suitable place for us". As we started in the early hours of the day , we hiked near a small crossroads through open fields and small blotches of forest. I had my backpack with me , since I had figured that we would probably need stuff like entrenching tools and extra canteens with us. this time.

The LT wanted us to dig an OP near a road to a forest. To , you know , observe the road and keep it under our control in case unfriendlies came through it. I had felt bad all morning , but decided not to show it to these guys. These guys I played with.. They were just people. Nothing special at all.

I took my backpack and placed it under a tree along with my G3 rifle. I took the entrenching tool out of the backpack and folded it into it's correct form. Now , that shovel was indeed crap. It never folded quite the correct way , but right now it was the only thing I had with me and we still had that OP to dig. A shorter guy was left with me to carry out the task. The LT posted another guy with a sniper rifle to our left about a click away to watch for the road while we dug. The short guy had absolutely no idea how to dig an OP , and I had never actually done one of those myself either.

The planning was left for me , since the short guy was alot younger than me and he was just there to "have fun" by the looks of it. Since we only had crappy foldable entrenching tools , I decided to improvise slightly and I picked a small , but nevertheless "big enough" of a hole for a man to crawl inside as our target. I told the short guy , that I would dig all the remaining snow out of the hole , and also try to deepen it slightly so that the next inhabitants of the hole could stay there better concealed. I ordered him to start searching and picking up large stones and various tree-branches. Lucky for him , large stones suitable for our plans were found very near the hole that was our work-in-progress. He did everything I ordered him to.

So anyway , I cleared all of the snow out of the hole and deepened it slightly so that a guy laying there in prone position would have the maximum amount of concealment. Then , as I saw that the short guy had gathered enough stones and branches in front of me , we started to conceal the position. First , I placed the stones around the side that faced to the road. I kept asking the little guy to bring me more stones so that the side facing the road would be layered with stones. He just kept on running back and forth for more stones.. After about 27 additional stones that I counted myself , we placed all them to the side of the hole that faced the road. Then , we placed branches all over the stones , thus creating a concealed "barrier" to the side of the hole that faced the road. Now , behind the barrier a guy could just lay for hours and observe the road.

I was interested on building a "roof" of some sort to this little pit that we had constructed , but I quickly abandoned the idea when I just couldn't come up with a plan on how to construct a roof that could hold to it. So , when push came to shove , I just decided to reinforce the side we had already concealed with some more branches. To me , it looked "good enough" for the possible enemies NOT to detect when they marched along the road. More or less , to me it looked like a large "stack" of tree branches from afar.

Hopefully , the enemy wouldn't have noticed that there was actually a hiding pit behind this fake "stack of branches". I was pretty content with my work , and I asked the little man to come and observe our "work" from afar.

We stood there , and I waved to the sniper that was farther behind us now. He was laying in a bush , but I could see him pretty well. He waved back. For some odd reason , I decided to tell the little kid that we had done a good job. He nodded his head in excitement and said: "Hey , I bet a sniper could fit in there too , right !?"

I looked at him , and told him with a really calm voice that snipers couldn't fit in there cause' it was a hole for the spotters. I told him that it was OP and snipers would never go there.

Looking back to the situation , I guess I was just angry and pretty tired. The man was clearly enthusiastic when someone older than him had congratulated him of a job well done. Well , afterwards we ran back to the OP we had constructed and I noticed that LT along with the rest of the team had came back. The LT pointed out , that the "opposing force" had been spotted a couple of times. Then he posted one of his guys inside the OP we had constructed and I told him , that I was going to take a break.

I had felt really fucking bad/awful the whole day. And , I must admit that at that time I really wondered why the hell had I even came to this miserable game today. I could've just layed in bed today , and slept this all-demoralizing depression out of my system. To tell you the truth , I hadn't received that much sleep last night since I had been "outside" taking pictures of our lovely municipality and it had really taken time. I slept a few hours before I had to get back on the road again.

Some people say , that sometimes I'm completely "out of touch" with myself. This was definetely one of those moments. I would've just liked to brush all of the other bastards away from my sights , but unluckily I was there and making a bigger deal out of it would've just made me look alot more worse.

Actually , I would've liked to fight with someone. You know , real hand-to-hand. Make blood come out..

The LT walked next to me , and he informed that I was up for the next patrol. I slowly stood up and nodded to him. He didn't say a word of the OP we had constructed , and one of his "guys" was already laying inside it. The younger , and shorter guy was left with the dudes that had gone patrolling before us. The LT , me , the sniper that was now running closer to our position and another guy was the new patrol. To tell you the truth , I really hated going on patrol this time.

This time , we were all pretty quiet. Normally , at least a pair of the guys on patrol talk about various stuff in their lives , but this time we were all pretty quiet.. I just walked on the road , spitting at the ground at regular intervals and just pondering things in my own little world.. At that time , a funny little verse popped into my mind. You know , that thing which goes like this;

"We drop alot of bombs and walk through the landscape like ghosts".

It was so fitting once again.. The same fucking woods , the same brush and the air..