Loved it !!!! 

Such an awesome video. Loved especially the ledge grinds! Congrats to you BabyNo for nailing the one at the airport, I tried that for weeks back in the days. Flawless execution.

Keep rockin guys

 

Loved it!

November 30th I got home from the final 12 day camp of ours. Came back with plenty of great memories and experiences, not only because it was such a unique environment to battle but also because it was both revealing and wistful knowing that it would be the last time camping with all the good friends.

We left to Niinisalo Monday the 18th and went there by bus. The leader of platoon Bravo, who was in charge for the transportation, didn't get any specific orders besides getting there by certain time so he decided to keep a break at a gas station halfway there. It was kinda cool to "take over" the place with our company and to get a cup of coffee in a military suit. I don't know how permitted that was though, our guns were of course in the trunk of the bus but the MT-LB tank guys, who only carry a pistol instead of an assault rifle, had their FN's in the chest pocket throughout the visit. 

The actual camping area at Niinisalo turned out to be a lot more comfortable than expected. Instead of outhouses we got actual toilets with plenty of plugs to charge your phone in. I was prepared with a 2700 mAh power bank in case of no electrics but it was a cool addition not having to worry about running out of battery. Also there was a cafeteria which we could use at evenings to have some coffee and watch TV with fellow soldiers.

Monday and Tuesday we did nothing but got used to the area and wondered around a bit. Monday was great when it came to the weather but the whole Tuesday rained and was a bit cold. The environment, which was basically a huge 2x20 kilometer desert, surprised everyone. We all had heard how it looks like from older friends who had already gone through the army but it's something you can't really explain to someone who is used to a Finnish view full of trees and woods. All of a sudden everything was brownish instead of green and looked a lot more like Iraq than Finland which added a feeling of it's own to the mix.

Wednesday to Friday! Time for some actual war with simulation stuff against the unknown people. Actually against us were 25-30 year old guys who were at refreshing training which is basically an order from the state to go remind you of the stuff you learned and make sure you can still act as a soldier. They had CV's, Leopard 2's and Pasi's against our MT-LB's. Make sure to check the links I underlined. Everything went pretty much as expected: they beat the shit out of us when it came to fighting with tanks. It was quite a challenge to our anti-tank weapon guys since they were the decisive part of how quickly they destroyed us and whether we were even able to set foot outside from the tank or not. Inside the tank you have no idea what's going on outside, a few times we got the "destroyed" sound to our helmets without even knowing anything about why and how.

When it came to fighting on foot the whole thing turned upside down. Once our platoon Alpha was fighting against a whole company and two platoons and we beat them in an hour. It happened a lot that we didn't have any clue where the others were and had to fight on our own but did well in the end. What I loved about fighting "freely" in a big ass area was that the staff and trainers didn't give our leaders any orders about where to go to. Earlier, in the smaller and shorter camps in a limited area they had to kinda get us and the enemy to actually face each other and keep it in control since the area was that limited. This time we could just wonder around like in an actual war and then set foot outside after facing the enemy. Everything was a lot less controlled and since the bullshit was dropped we could fight a lot more freely and kinda live by the situation like in the real thing. Loved every fight!

Saturday was just resting and we got a change to go to a sauna and change some clothes at a nearby garrison. Sunday we actually moved to the northern part of the area, also got to throw some handmade 60 gram TNT-explosions and see a set of 200 and 1000 gram ones that easily destroyed a tree or even a rock when planted inside.

The reason for moving was the hard bullet shooting that took place from Monday to Friday, Friday being the final day of the camp. To keep this thing reasonable and so that it wouldn't take me more than these four weeks to get this thing written, I'll skip to the good parts. Monday, November 25th, take two of the day, night: Fucking awesome. The most memorable part of this 12 day beast and probably the most beautiful sight I've ever witnessed. Open area plus tracer ammo's on every assault rifle and machine gun made it an experience I won't forget for a while! A laser show like no other.

Friday, November 29th: The last take. I'll put up a video of the very final company tank charge. It's a pretty long video but it'll give a pretty good sight of the environment out there, how spacious and desertish it is. You can see a long line of tanks, see how they move and shoot their machine guns and so on. Hope you enjoy, I think it's the coolest piece of material I've shown you guys. 

That's it guys, there's a finish to everything in life and this was my thing for six months. I still remember going through the gates for the first time on July 8th, the depression of the first few weeks, the first time I shot a bullet and set up the tent... All of that might have sucked big time back then but now it's just a bunch of great memories and the most unique six months of my life so far. What I love about closing a circle as big and challenging as this is that you can now just wrap all those memories together, grab a beer and reminisce knowing that there's no army stress ahead anymore. It's a bit sad knowing I'll probably never meet the good friends anymore but that's just life I guess!

Hope you guys enjoyed reading these posts, I apologize and thank you for being able to use the Ask WH thread as a diary. It's been a joy writing this stuff! Keep challenging yourself even more in 2014, whether it's landing stunts, lifting weights or larping in the woods acting a soldier! Try new stuff and meet new friends, don't be afraid to socialize and have a good time. It's not always pleasant and it's not supposed to be, I just spent half a year doing everything but pleasant things and now I'm finishing 2013 with a cold beer in hand and fuckloads of so great memories richer. Happy New Year everyone and take care, love you all! 

4 days left in the service. Going to get out this Thursday!  My post about the final war at Niinisalo is unfinished but I'll post if afterwards! In two hours I'm going back to the barracks for the last time with my civilian clothes in the back bag for Thursday which is when we return the rest of the equipment including the government clothes I'll put on today.  Already returned the gun and the fighting shit earlier this week. Felt great!

Shitload of pictures coming later this month. Take care love you guys! 

Hello guys, how are you doing? Time for another update from my military service, this time I have some pretty badass pictures to show off. 

(most of this was written last Saturday and now that the week changed it might sound a bit messy but I'll be talking about the last two weeks, not including the one that started today)

This and the last week were camping. Last week, week 43 was a hard-bullet shooting camp from Monday to Friday. This time I got into the MT-LB march which was a literal butthurt experience. We left the barracks Monday morning and the shift from barracks to the destination (around 20 kilometers) took an hour, perhaps an hour and a half. The benches got pretty hard during that time and didn't feel too good in the back but at least we got to sleep for a while.

We got to use the bigger tents this time and there was no ongoing war practice so we only had to wear the combat equipment when actually needed. They're trying to make us feel as comfortable as possible there and ensure we get to sleep at least for six hours as we're messing with real bullets during these shooting camps... When it comes to camps where the war is going on around the clock and we're using training bullets (for example this week) they don't give a shit but I guess that's pretty practical since I don't think you would feel good or get to sleep much in a real war either.

During the last week long shooting camp the takes were within a squad range (Alpha 2, ten of us) and it was mostly about the basic move & fire stuff. This time we practiced within a company scale (Kilo, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta and the mortar guys) meaning that it was either cool as fuck or boring as hell. There were times we, Alpha, were the attacking platoon and that's always pleasant but at times we were backing up and supporting other attacking platoons which is basically sitting tight. Obviously there are no enemies during a hard bullet shooting, except for the rising targets but only when you're attacking. Although it was kinda blunt, it gave us an opportunity to shoot a few pictures with my machine gun team's partner's iPhone. I'll include pictures of us, some real bullets of my assault rifle RK-62 and his PKM. You'll also get to see the paper boxes that the bullets are in when they're given to us and how the magazine's bullet space looks like. Also I took a picture of the PKM belt and it's box. The blurred guy is my partner and I'm the one without a helmet. You don't take it off during a battle but we were 15 meters away from others in a wood meaning we were pretty much out of sight and we sat there for 45 minutes so... What can I say, taking off the helmet and the earmuffs feels pretty good after keeping them on for hours.

Last week's Tuesday, day 2 of the shooting camp, was as awesome as a camp day can be. The morning was cold as fuck but a bit later we got to shoot Kalashnikov's from the back of the MT-LB's. Our RK-62 assault rifle is actually an improved version of AK-47 and they fit the same magazine so first we put in 45 rounds into 2 magazines and then formed a double line and every time two of us got to the back of the vehicle and shot a target on a sustained fire as the tank moved in reverse for like 10 meters and then drove back. Shooting from a moving tank was a lot harder than you would think! I still got my target a few times but the cool thing was handling a gun that you've seen so many times in games and the news and such... Cool shit!

Later that day we had a presentation of different kinds of explosives used to kill shitloads of people, enemy tanks or clear a path from mines. The staff was actually behind me during the presentation but I raised my phone in the air to shoot a video likeaboss so I'll include a video of an anti-tank mine that would probably for example turn our MT-LB into a pile of dust and then a Bangalore torpedo that is basically a long stick that explodes and explodes all the mines with it therefore making a few feet wide pathway for us to go through the minefield.

Nothing out of ordinary happened during that camp after Tuesday so I'll just skip straight to this week as I'm in a bit of a hurry. The war camp was from Tuesday to Thursday, and Monday we had a brigade scale practice of what would happen if our country was attacked or under a threat. I can't be arsed to look for the right word but basically we packed our back bags like we were ready to move, put in the fighting gear (yes at the barracks, in our rooms) and got our guns so theoretically we were ready to move and go to war when commanded so. Practically we got to sleep for a few hours holding a gun and wearing the fighting gear as obviously the command to move to an attack never came.

Tuesday we left to the camp. The war camps suck ass big time as you sleep in that knee high tent, have all kind of guard shifts throughout the night and get to sleep three to five hours a night. Fighting gear is on all the time except when you're sleeping. Some people keep it on even then since we're woken up with a command to take the tent apart and move on (therefore it's faster since you don't have to but the vests on) but I'm not one of those who can sleep on their back so I always take it off. The simulation vests are even more annoying than the usual battle vests.

A moment I'll probably won't forget in a while that I want to share with you guys from that camp. Because of the simulation stuff and training bullets it's actually pretty cool once the enemy is in sight and in a random take the leader of our squad commanded us into a space that was right in front of the enemy and was pretty open and we were like what the fuck is going on. Rest of our squad did as commanded but me and my machine gun partner left like 50 meters away from our squad (sometimes the younger soldier, me, is allowed to look for a good PKM foxhole and luckily I found one and used my right to move us there) into a better spot where we could get low in order not to get shot but also had a good sight of the enemy. Rest of our squad got killed (meaning that the transmitter of your gun won't allow you to shoot anymore and you'll take your helmet off as a sign of being dead) except for us and one man who was lucky not to get shot. Me and my partner were alone there with 100 loaded machine gun rounds and a box of fifty in my pocket when we were suddenly confronted by a BMP-2 tank. We didn't know if it had the simulation stuff attached to the barrel and didn't want to find out either so that's when we really had to stay low as fuck. We really had to put all the teachings and guidelines into use in that foxhole in order to survive, for example one really had to stay low while the other goes up for a few seconds to shoot a few rounds at the enemy and then change the guy shooting (usually all this stuff is pretty half-assed since there is no enemy in most cases so most people don't bother being too careful in the practices). After running out of PKM rounds I had to load my 50 rounds in that foxhole into the secondary belt that I carry so we could continue for a bit longer. That's when it got interesting since we had thought that all of our squad had died in the beginning. The field-medic (assault rifle guy) of our squad came into our foxhole with a light anti-tank weapon he had taken from our bazooka guys once they died and we managed to destroy the BMP-2 and felt like winners for a while, the war-feeling was so there which doesn't happen that much in the army. Even though each had only like 20 centimeters of space to move in that foxhole, it was filled with laughter and high fives. We thought we could proceed from there on our own which would have been fucking awesome but another Alpha squad found us a bit later so we had to join them since they had the squad leader alive. But a great and thrilling series of events anyway!

Mythic: My condolences dude, seems like you're still having a blast though

Thanks man! Means a world to me. Yeah you could say so. 

I'm in army aswell what are you doing exactly Mythic  ?

I'm an armour jaeger (don't know if there's a better translation) that is basically a soldier whose main purpose is to arrive to the front line inside a tank, get out of it and then fight the enemy within a pretty close range, somewhere between ten to thousand meters. The main difference between an ordinary jaeger (infantry soldier) and an armour jaeger is that while the jaeger walks for ten kilometers to go battle, we move nine and half kilometers with a tank and then set foot outside and fight with the tank assisting us.

Inside an armour jaeger squad I'm the younger soldier of the machine gun fireteam. The older one carries the PKM (PK machine gun) and fires it while I seek for good positions or perhaps foxholes for us to go into. I also carry the 100 round belt in a metal box. There's also a 200 round box which I usually don't have to carry when training but if it was a real war I'd be glad to have as many of them as possible with me.

Earlier I wrote more about the structure of a squad and what's there besides the machine gun team, feel free to check it out from my signature.

Army is assum! 

BTW, I'm lance sergeant.

I'll probably agree once it's over!  Good to know that man, how long did you serve for? Think about it for a while that if it was 70 years ago or if World War III took place I'd be out there in the field against you... Glad we're not! Take care man