21. Chapter – Where the hell am I

I remember very well. I just turned on the corner of the corridor at 6.57PM. Not a second later. I was even congratulating myself for the hilarious idea, that I left 3 minutes until the assembly. These were my thoughts when I arrived to my new room and I already saw my comrades doing jumping jacks. 

The corporal was giving his first lesson to the new ones

When he turned his back, I tried discreetly glide between the others, without success. He didn’t have to be a nuclear searcher to realize the fact, that a few moments ago he only had 4 legionnaires doing push-ups just next to him and seconds later there were already 5 of them.

He was screaming on me why I was late. I should not even had to try to explain him that I arrived before 7PM. He (re)fixed the first rule. A legionnaire has to be there at least 5 minutes before the assembly, if not he’s late.

Back those days, I didn’t feel it correct. I wanted to tell him that we are not in Castel anymore, but I kept my mouth and didn’t say a word. Fortunately.

The next 30 minutes we were doing the “chameleon”

It means that we had to change our clothes each time he said to do so. From sport clothes to combat uniform from combat to parade, from parade to course obstacle clothes etc. He never gave us enough time to change, someone was always late and the others were doing push-ups.

Once he got bored and the moment when we were in our course obstacle gear, he sent us outside to do different physical exercises. Jumping jacks, burpees, push-ups, we were scrolling on the ground just to make us as dirty as possible.

I don’t remember how much time we passed outside in the melting snow. It was definetely enough to make me hate that guy and the night was just starting. In that period, we still wore the old black leather boots, which had to be boxed 2-3 times a day to keep them clean.

Once we arrived back to the corridor,

he ordered us to box the shoes and in the same time we could prepare our cleaning gear. We had a “top secret” mission.

In the context of “Operation Loo”, we had to clean the toilets and the shower, which wasn’t an easy thing with the freshly boxed boots. The day ended at midnight.