drudgery

Girls can sit out this post, it's another NS angst rant. 

I resent the fact that I'm going back to trainee life for another 7 days. True it's not very long, and yes my life is otherwise pretty decent, but no, I don't want to go to my grimy dusty shithole of a bunk and sleep on lizard poo (no one's figured out who's responsible for changing bedsheets; no one stays in; no one cares. Duh.) and wake up at 5:15 (or earlier) cold and irritated and sickened at the thought of another day of drudgery. Fixing up bridge parts is an exercise in futility. 

Yes, I'm going back to build bridges. No, it's not CIP, it's not some lovey-dovey giving food to the elderly or befriending orphans kind of thing, for fuckssake get real. Bridges not as in bridge over troubled waters bridges. As in London Bridge, but not as posh. Think a dismantlable version of Cavenagh Bridge that can actually take vehicles over 3 hundredweight, and cattle and horses. (And the irony is that I'm technically a field engineer, but nevermind.)

What's the point? I'm not getting extra pay. It's just one more exquisite variety of timewasting. If a real war ever comes, we'd all have forgotten how to dig holes, shoot people - enemy combatants, not people; dehumanise them, all the easier to kill them without thinking - lay mines and detonate explosives anyway. When shit hits the fan and there're bullets zinging just inches overhead everyone'll be scared ball-less. Except emotional eunuchs, or people with a death wish.

When push comes to shove I don't know how anyone would ever convince me to take up arms for my country. But maybe I'm cynical.