Guard Duty

I googled guard duty today to find a suitable picture for my blog. Shit, they do try to make guard duty look like a noble duty don’t they?

Remember we were in the middle of a war. Expected insurgents in red t-shirts were going to overrun every base every night so everyone had to be paraat! (I’m not sure if there’s a suitable English word for paraat). To make sure that that guard duty is done right, procedures were instigated, and troepe were trained for all possible incidents.

Danie may be able to help me (he still has all his notes from basics), but here are the procedures to be followed when you’re on guard duty and you see someone infiltrate the base;
1. Shout. Loudly. “Who goes there?”
2. If no response, shout “Halt, or I will shoot!”
3. If still no response, take rifle magazine from pouch.
4. Tell insurgent. Loudly. “Please wait a bit!”
5. Find in one of your 20 pockets the three (yes, three!) rounds issued to you.
6. With teeth, try and tear off shrink wrapped plastic.
7. Put rifle down carefully, load three rounds into magazine.
8. Pick up rifle.
9. Put magazine into rifle.
10.Shout. Loudly “Thank you for waiting! Halt, or I’ll shoot”
11.Load round into chamber. Shout. Loudly. “Halt, or I’ll shoot”
12.In the likely event that the insurgent has pissed off by this stage, prepare for a bollocking by the sergeant on duty for tearing the plastic covering on your three rounds.