We left off last time with me having got settled into life at Catterick and slowly starting to get used to the way the Army does things.
Our first four weeks were mostly taken up with drill, and learning how to do some things that the Army deems essential.
We didn’t get to wear our Berets until we’d learned how to salute an officer, and more importantly, learning WHEN to salute them!
In the Army we’re taught that you bring the arm (the right arm) ‘longest way up, shortest way down’ and you hold the salute until the officer either returns the salute or tells you to stand at ease, and you NEVER salute without your beret on. If you’re not wearing the beret, then you simply stand to attention.
After the first couple of weeks, you start to get down to the serious stuff.
Weapons training, physical exercise, and the GAS CHAMBER and I’ve got news for you, from now on, the Gas Chamber is going to play an important role. And it’s not for the faint-hearted!
Back in the late seventies the Cold War was in full swing, and that meant as new recruits we had to be ready for anything.
It might be hard to imagine, but back then most of NATO was deployed in West Germany, and on frontline troops we were outnumbered four to one by the Warsaw Pact troops. Yes, I know the arguments that they weren’t all that good, but that was just if they launched a surprise attack with no warning. If we got the warning and both sides got to build up troops then yes, we’d double in size, but the Soviets would quadruple in size and we’d be facing odds of seven to one, oh and the Soviets had huge stockpiles of lots of nasty gasses!
We also knew that the dipshit politicians had left even the most prepared military in Europe lagging so far behind the Soviets that within about ten days we’d run out of ammunition.
Later on, when I got to my unit I found out that my branch of the Army (Army Air Corps) would be right at the front, but with none of the nice armoured vehicles that protect the infantry and Tank units, we’d expect to take ninety-five percent killed in the first week, and the only way to try to avoid that was to bloody well pay attention to what you were doing!
We took it seriously!
Not so fun fact
Nazi Germany developed the first Nerve agent back in the 1930s
They were working on an insecticide at the time and only discovered how lethal Sarin was due to a tragic accident. A tech dropped a vial of the stuff containing about a teaspoon full and half the staff in the lab died within minutes.
Ever seen the James Bond Movie ‘Moonraker’? In it Bond’s in a lab when someone does that and he manages to get out and seal the lab but the techs die horribly. That’s accurate to what happened.
“If he had it, why didn’t he use it?”
Hitler remembered what it was like being gassed in the First World War, and he never wanted anything like that ever again! Besides, he thought that Britain had huge stockpiles of Mustard Gas, but we didn’t. We had something that when we tested it we found out it was much worse. ANTHRAX
Sarin might be deadly, but it dissipates in the air and only lasts about two days. Anthrax (we discovered when we tested it on a remote Scottish Island) stays in the soil and forty years later is still deadly.
That Island wasn’t cleaned up until the 1980s
NBC warfare (Stands for Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical) was pretty serious, but it had its funny side as well.
Part of our test at the end was we had to go into the Gas chamber, peel off our respirators, and recite our name, rank, and serial number to the instructor who was standing there with his respirator on. We used CS Gas for this (TEAR GAS) and some people are actually immune to it.
The instructor was giving the usual BS about how you can use the gas to control a crowd, “especially those big soft Micks” (Meaning the Irish) when my mate Tommy stepped up, took the respirator off, coughed once, and gave his name, rank and serial number then just stands there, no tears, no coughing or anything.
The instructor tried everything to get Tom to start coughing, but no dice, Tommy was immune. the fun part came when the instructor asked Tom where he was from. Tommy was from Manchester like me, but he just had to wind the instructor up.
“Dublin sir” he shouted looking the instructor in the eye.
Let’s just say that the reply isn’t printable!
Lawrence's letters 