Thorns In My Boot - S01 E07

Story 2 years ago

Thorns In My Boot - S01 E07

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 7

I travelled back to base and resumed duty on a

Monday; it was a week to Christmas. The daily

routines were waking up in the morning and do

my morning pushups and sit ups as I get set for

work. I report for work at 7.30am and by 8.00am

it is time for morning parade. Here we are

addressed by the Commanding Officer (C.O) the

Administrative Officer (A.O) or the Regimental

sergeant Major (R.S.M) we are briefed of any

development and any information necessary is

announced to us. Issues are also treated on the

Parade ground.

Issues could be anything ranging from refusal to

give your Wife adequate monthly allowance, Wife

battering, drunkenness, Igbo smoking, sleeping

with the daughter of a fellow Soldier (Children

above 18 are not supposed to live in the

Barracks) Fighting, the list is endless. Our

dresses are also inspected and our breath

smelled to find out those that wash their eyes

with hot drinks before coming to work daily.

Our Office is inside the barracks community and

I trek 30 minutes to the Office from my House,

some Soldiers come to work with Motor Cycles

while others trek, Soldiers that were fortunate to

have gone for one or two internationally peace

keeping mission drive Cars to the Office. They

could afford Cars as a result of accumulated

salaries while away on the peace keeping

mission; they are paid allowances while on

mission so they could save their salaries.

For those that are married, they sign up some

cheque leafs for their Wives for monthly family

upkeep and Children School fees, the unmarried

ones save more except for those that have

serious relationships or live-in lovers before

departure for the operation. There are several

cases of Men that returned from two years

peace keeping mission only to discover that all

the monies saved up or sent home have been

squandered by their Wives, such cases results

into family break ups as such Wives are termed

“Witches” they never expected their husbands to

return alive. For Soldiers that do not return home

alive, all his savings and benefits goes to his

next of Kin.

At 2.30pm it is close of work officially but

sometimes one has to hang around until the

senior officers have left the Office before you

can leave because of any ad-hoc assignment

that could come up.

I was a signaler, attached to the radio room and

my job was to receive and transmit information

within all military formations, some information

are coded and has to be decoded for further

transmission. Some volatile and high profiled

messaged are transmitted “encoded” for security

reasons. Only the recipients can decode such

messages. Our office also tracks messages

within the national telecommunication networks

to surf out potential dangerous information of

national interest.

Whenever I am on night duty, I take the next day

off, sometimes I am attached to the house of a

senior officer as night guard, or I am assigned to

guard a sensitive post. The job routine was fixed

and I have my weekends to myself except if I am

on weekend duty. I have planned to enroll in

either of the Enugu state university or the

institute of management and technology for a

part time degree program once I am fully settled,

say next year.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

We did not receive any salaries in December and

January; HQ admin was yet to be done with our

documentation into the NA database so I

survived on borrowing and charity. We were very

credit worthy for older Soldiers readily lend us

monies because they all knew we were

expecting something big when our bulk money is

paid up, and once this is paid, everyone will

know. The barracks is a small community where

nothing goes unnoticed.

I stopped smoking marijuana because I was

broke and managing the meager resources with

me as I wait patiently for my pay, Secondly Igbo

smoking was not encouraged in the Army

contrary to my expectation, in fact it was a

punishable offence to be caught smoking Indian

hemp, however, fifty percent of the Soldiers still

smoke it. I had brought a lot of food stuff from

the Village but after three months of non receipt

of salary my Ban became empty.

By April in 1991, we were preparing for the

annual G.O.C (General Officer Commanding) Cup

inter unit football tournament. I was among the

Players of the Signals Corp, I played centre

forward and we go to the Field every evening

after office hours for training and practice. It

was during one of those sessions that I met Mr.

Chike or Oga Chike as he was popularly called.

Oga Chike was a Civilian business man that

deals on Machines and automobile Spare parts at

a market called “Coal camp” in Enugu. He

supplies the Army spare parts from time to time

and he is well known in the barracks, he is about

the only Civilian that would drive into the

barracks without being interrogated at the main

gate. He approached me after a training session

and shook hands with me, he said he liked the

way I play football, he encouraged me to keep it

up and strive to be enlisted into the revered

“Green Beret” Army Team. Players in the Green

Beret are favoured with speedy promotions and a

lot of leisure. I thanked him and together we

strolled to the Corporal below mess (CBM) we

joined others to watch an ongoing football match

while he ordered for drinks. I had no Television

set in my house so I normally come to the mess

to get entertained.

It was during my discussion with Chike that I

indicated interest in buying a cheap car when I

receive my money, I told him I would love to

drive the Car to my Village to pick my Mother

and bring her to Enugu with me. He promised to

help me get one when I am ready. He said he

had some cars handy for sale but are far beyond

my reach based on my budget.

The Football competition started in earnest and I

made more friends, my skill at playing local

football in the Village and chasing games in the

Forest paid off as I was easily spotted as a Star

on the field, I scored in every match that we

played, I scored two goals when we played

against the military Police, I scored a goal when

we played against the medical corps and two

goals against Engineers, we drew two goals apart

with Workshop and BAD (Base ammunition

depot) My unit was top on the league.