# My Brothers in Arms (Adult Content/Language)



## CyberWar (Aug 12, 2014)

Military service invariably brings you in contact with a lot of diverse people, about whom you inevitably form opinions. Some of them you grow to like, others not so much - it's no different than in any other work collective.

I have the honour and privilege of serving in the Escort/Patrol Company of my battalion. Considering how my battalion specializes in logistics, it's understandable why they need a whole company just for running escorts.

It wasn't always so. I'm a transfer from a different battalion, where I served for almost two years. I enlisted straight into the junior instructor course through a special program offered by the National Guard to university students. Unfortunately, as the economic recess of 2009 struck my homeland particularly hard, military budget was axed and non-priority programs like this one were the first to be closed down, which is the reason I never made it to Corporal. Consequently, I transferred to my current place of service.

Although we bear the pompous name of a Company, and even our very own insignia proudly displayed on our uniforms along with that of our battalion, the sad fact is that in practice it's more of a platoon, and even that would be stretching it. The National Guard isn't like the Army - exercises are periodic, and most members have civilian jobs or studies to take into consideration. Since the government hasn't deemed it necessary to provide employers with any incentive to give their NG employees days off to attend exercises (or even any incentive for people to start up a business in general, for that matter) as is the practice in other countries like Sweden or Switzerland, many simply have to choose between the Guard and feeding their families, which is a pretty obvious choice. The demographic and economic situation in Latvia is also disastrous, most able-bodied people of military age either having left for greener pastures abroad or simply choosing a better-paying civilian occupation. Thankfully, the recent events in Ukraine have partly helped to remedy this trend.

In other words, the staple core of our severely-understaffed company are folks like myself - enthusiasts and semi-professionals already employed by the military in some capacity.

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As soldiers often do, we tend to go by nicknames when conversing with each other. Being a small and tight-knit community, our battalion has quite a lot of room for informality, proper military forms of address by rank, last name and "Sir" or "Ma'am" being reserved for formal occasions where protocol has to be observed. For the rest of the time, we use first names and nicknames. I don't really have one myself, none that would stick for long, at least - most people call me either by last or first name, since both are common, catchy and easy to remember. Of the nicknames that have stuck, I've been alternatively called Schnappi, Psycho and Fascist. Personally I prefer Fascist, since it makes no allusion to craziness or lame German children's songs in a pun on my last name.

For reasons of discretion and also security, I will not mention any of my comrades or superiors by their real names, using initials or nicknames instead. My descriptions of their personalities, however, will be true to their actual character and I hope none of them will take offense at my statements should they ever read this, if only because I will not have said anything they themselves wouldn't know to be true already. 

The first and foremost person in the battalion is obviously the battalion commander, Major A. V.  A short, stocky man in his mid-forties with kindly blue eyes, good sense of humor and friendly demeanor, he's one of those fine officers who are good at their job and popular with the troops. Major V. doesn't like formalities, and even though we grunts know to pay him the due respect, he much rather prefers being informal with us. He will fight tooth-and-claw for the interests of his battalion, and that has earned him our respect and the nickname of Batya - "old man", "father" in Russian. 

Interestingly, even though most of us are Latvians whose view on Russians averages somewhere between "unpleasant intruders" and "worse than plague", the lot of us still casually use the many Russian loanwoards, including nicknames, and especially profanities. As the saying goes, "a Latvian respects his native tongue too much to swear in it - that's what Russian is for".

That's, of course, a bit exaggerated. The ethnic composition of our battalion is actually quite diverse, there being quite a few Russians, Ukrainians and whatnot in our ranks. These folks have integrated fully and consider Latvia their homeland, so the fact that they speak a different language at home isn't an issue even with the most devout nationalists among us.

Anyway, let's cut from this perhaps unnecessary explanation as to why a Latvian officer would be given a Russian nickname by his men, and get back to my other fellow servicemen.

The next most prominent character, as far as I am concerned, is our captain Blondie. She is notable for being one of the few female company commanders in the entire armed forces, even though quite a lot of women have attained the rank of Captain. A short, slender lass with blue eyes and long, blonde hair, she looks more like a model or singer than a military officer in civil clothes, only her rough hands with short-trimmed nails betraying her occupation as involving a lot of manual labour. Blondie is always bustling with energy, always jolly and optimistic and is, perhaps, the most informal of all officers in our battalion, insisting that we call her by first name at all times beyond the most formal of occasions. Discipline doesn't seem to suffer for this lack of formality though - we have yet to fail an assignment given by her, and no self-respecting man would want to fail in the eyes of an attractive woman.

Blondie has reached that thirty-something age when women are said to be the most attractive, that certain age when a woman is no longer a "girl", but not quite a "MILF" yet either. Blondie is one of those rare women whose looks give a hard-on to just about anyone, including queers, Catholic priests, Buddhist monks and five-year-old boys, and it ain't even because she embodies some general beauty ideal - she just takes good care of herself and knows how to look good. Simply put, Blondie is the living embodiment of the word "fuckable" in every sense.

Even though I am fully aware I'm not supposed to have such unprofessional feelings for my captain, I'd make a shameless lie to others and to myself if I claimed to have absolutely no manly interest in her - if only because any healthy guy of my age who could claim so is either a queer or just a goddamn liar (and a piss-poor one too). Still, even if professionalism wasn't an obstacle, I'm fully aware that a lad like myself has nothing to offer to such a woman, that she's way above my league, in other words.

Still, me and Blondie have managed to forge a friendly relationship beyond purely professional, and it is based in our shared interest in heavy metal music. I make sure to let her know whenever there's a gig of potential interest coming, and she makes sure to attend it with me when possible. Granted, she has to pass quite often - being a company commander is a job without holidays, and given her inclination to fill all of her free time with some form of activity, it's not often that she has enough time or energy left to attend a gig. Nonetheless, it makes our shared gigs all the more enjoyable.

The next person after Blondie in my company is 2nd Lieutenant D., a man in his early 50's who is the exact likeness of a stereotypical aging military man in Hollywood films - wiry, tough, stern-faced, his grey hair cut in a neat flattop. Despite his looks, he's actually a decent guy, even though my brightest memory about him is rather unpleasant - during an exercise at the peak of a midsummer heat wave, I was unlucky enough to get a heatstroke just as we were packing up after endex.  D. noted me standing there with my eyes crossed doing nothing and assumed I was simply slacking off, so promptly tried to remedy my laziness by making me do push-ups. To his credit, after I passed out on the count of 15, he was the first to understand what was wrong and promptly called for a bucket of cold water. Other than this small incident, we get along well.

Master Sergeant P., also known as Waldja, is the most senior instructor in our company. Waldja is an imposing man, his stature, short temper, foul mouth and thunderous voice being just the qualities for a drill instructor. Whenever he's around, you better do things quickly and precisely, unless you want to stand there tiny and insignificant as he towers above you, bellowing colourful comments about your personal qualities, appearance, family, ethnicity, religious conviction and sexual orientation. I remember myself and Katz, a comrade and friend I have yet to describe, having to carry him on a stretcher in an exercise where he played a wounded enemy. As I already mentioned, Waldja is an man of imposing stature and bulk, so our spines were nearly liquefied by the time we got him to the field hospital, while he was bellowing threats to rip off our legs, snap our necks and rape our corpses if we dropped him along the way. Anyway, Waldja is a guy you both fear and like at the same time. Stories have that he used to be a pretty crazy lad in his youth, but has calmed down with age, and knowing him, I'm inclined to believe every one of them.

Corporal B., going by the nickname of Kraut, is one of the several corporals in the company. He's a rather unassuming, some would even say slightly nerdy man in his late 30's with glasses - one could probably assume he's an accountant or some other desk clerk when seeing him in plain clothes. His nickname is derived from the authentic WWII German stahlhelm that he proudly wears on field exercises even though we have modern Norwegian-made kevlar helmets as our standard gear. This helmet of his traces back to the early days of the National Guard, when proper standard-issue equipment was still scarce and the early guardsmen had to make do with whatever they could afford to buy. On a recent joint exercise with Americans, Kraut caught the eye of an American military journalist specifically because of his helmet. The Yank spent good 15 minutes talking to him and taking pictures of him and his helmet.

Corporal J., aka Slim, is a tall, slender lad who always sticks with his buddy Corporal D. Where D. is somewhat quiet and reserved, Slim is very opinionate and outspoken, passionately arguing for his opinion even on occasions where he's wrong. On one such occasion, we almost came to blows, arguing over why the Level 8 Waffentrager tank destroyer featured in World of Tanks didn't mount a recoilless rifle. My superior knowledge in military tech eventually won the argument, but not before we had called each other a stubborn idiot and a few other names. As a matter of fact, Slim and D. are both avid players of WoT, and I too am no stranger to the game, though I don't quite share their devotion. Slim comes from an illustrious military family, his grandfather having been a general in the Soviet Army and instrumental in re-establishing Latvia's national armed forces after regaining independence, so his pride is perhaps understandable.

I previously mentioned Katz. He's a handsome lad with bright blue eyes and makes the ladies swoon when we go out for a drink together. Not that it does them much good, since Katz is married. He doesn't speak much, a lot like myself, and shares my enthusiasm in military simulation games - perhaps that's why we get along so well. The one thing we do not agree on is musical taste - he's a fan of rap and hip-hop, whereas I generally don't consider anything lighter than Korn music at all. Since much of our operations involve vehicles and Katz has the right qualification, he's usually the one doing the driving. A memorable occasion with him was after the 20th Anniversary of our battalion, when we, already well-drunk, decided to go out to the city for more boozing, and went to a bar called Safari, mainly because he knew all the staff there. The institution was, at least to my tastes, a hellhole - my first impression of the place was some unfortunate lad flying out of the door and landing hard on the cobblestone pavement before another guy who had flung him out descended upon and proceeded to beat and kick the living shit out the poor bastard. This negative impression was mitigated by the fact that Katz managed to talk every of his bartender acquaintances to give me a drink on the house, so I ended up drunk as shit while having spent barely five bucks during our stay. How I got home, I really don't remember. Our last two-day drinking binge at his place with a few other folks and lasses from the battalion are also worth a story of it's own.

A few other chaps worth mentioning are Z., Roma, Hog, Gypsy and Dumbo.

Dumbo and I are a machinegun crew, him being my loader/spotter. Most of the time, we each carry our own machineguns, since our usual vehicles don't have a ring turret for heavier guns, and we don't usually sit around in static positions where two-man MGs would be practical. Light vehicles call for light weapons, and the Russian-made RPK is just such a gun - not much larger or heavier than an AKM, it can conveniently be fired from shoulder like an ordinary assault rifle, it's only real difference from an AK-47 or AKM being a longer barrel with a bipod and an extended magazine, easily operated by one man on ground and in a moving vehicle alike. Dumbo is a quiet Russian lad, having earned his nickname by the virtue of his big ears. In my early days in the battalion, I really lost my temper on him on one occasion. We had spent an entire day digging trenches, preparing positions for an attack in the early morning, and had made ourselves an impressive MG emplacement by nightfall, complete with camouflage and a mortar-resistant roof of logs and sandbags. We were manning a single Ksp58 MG, and both of us had M/45 SMGs issued as backup weapons. In the morning, Kraut came and informed us that the attack would come from a different direction and we'd be much more useful in a different position. As the shooting started, I tossed my reserve ammo for the M/45 to Dumbo and told him to carry it for me, since my hands were busy hauling the MG. As I went to the new position, which turned out to be all but useless, and then charged off to the front lines where all the action was, the blanks that my MG was loaded with turned out to be all but useless, being too weak to cycle the action properly and jamming the gun after the first burst. I shouted to Dumbo to toss me some ammo only to discover that he was nowhere to be found. Having my primary piece jammed and no ammo to shoot from the other, I resorted to bombarding the enemy with obscenities of the worst kind in frustration, which, as others later reported, could be heard even over all the shooting. Poor Dumbo got to hear the worst when I found him sitting in our trench, having misunderstood my instruction as watching rather than carrying my ammo for me. I later apologized and took this incident for a lesson to always carry the backup ammo myself.

Gypsy is called so because of his swarthy complexion and prominent nose, even though he is born and bred Latvian. He has a reputation of being very demanding of the rookies, but if they demonstrate competence and discipline, Gypsy leaves them be. One memorable occasion with him was during urban warfare exercise, where we practiced the basics of clearing buildings with paintball guns. The Red team who were playing the enemies holed up inside a building consisted of Blondie, Waldja, 1st Lieutenant J. from the Recon company, and two other veteran guardsmen from the Infantry company. The Blue team, i.e., us, were several squads from various companies. Escort/Patrol company lads composed a squad of two elements led by 2nd Lieutenant D. and Kraut. The Reds had positioned themselves well inside the house, covering all the entrances, and would unleash a storm of paintballs upon first sign of movement near either. The ones brave enough to try storming the place would pop back out like bats out of hell after receiving these rather painful barrages. Lieutenant D. attempted to enter by a combat roll and literally jumped out of the place seconds later, all covered in paint. We tried numerous other approaches, such as closing the door and sealing the enemies inside in darkness, only to open them up suddenly minutes later in hopes to temporarily dazzle them, but since our own eyes were equally unadapted to the dark inside and they had every entrance zeroed in already, this trick failed miserably. The fact that condensate clouded the face mask visors of many didn't help either. I myself certainly couldn't see shit. So there I was, standing behind the corner, Gypsy behind the other, about to attempt another entry on the count of three, unable to see a damn thing. We had figured one of the enemies, apparently Waldja, was hiding in a small room just to the right of the door, and another guy was covering the entrance deeper inside to the left, and expected to take them out simultaneously. Predictably, the plan failed miserably, Waldja nailing me straight on the left hand from inches away, giving me a black thumb for the next two weeks, and we were again forced into cover, shooting in the general direction of the enemy. Since I couldn't see anything but condensate by then, it wasn't until Gypsy started screaming and shouting expletives at me that I realized I was popping paintballs in his arm. We'd taunt each other over this incident for a long while afterwards. As for the house, we eventually took it by cheating, using boards of plywood as improvised shields.

Z. has been around in the company for quite some time, and the reason I find him noteworthy is his well-preserved looks - I wouldn't give him more than 27 or so, when in fact he's about to hit 40. Roma and a few other guys I haven't yet made acquaintances of are in turn recent transfers from the Infantry company. I don't know much about him yet, he and his companions are sort of the FNGs for now, but he seems to be alright.

Hog is a special story of his own. Being the living embodiment of "big and dumb", he comes from Latgale, the most undeveloped rural region of Latvia, the natives of which are the butt of many jokes, the Latvian equivalent of hillbillies. He's had a pretty rough past, growing up in a family of alcoholics and having to make a living of his own for most of his early life, so I respect him for not having fallen to the same path as his parents like so many do, but his occasional simplistic expressions and funny accent does get the better of me. Still, people usually don't ridicule Hog to his face, if only because of the size of his fists - having spent much of his life working on farms, Hog has both the muscle and the attitude to take no shit from anybody.

And then there's me - the machinegunner who always wears a headscarf rather than a field cap, doesn't talk much, and writes things about his life in the National Guard on internet as if they could really interest anybody.

There are other folks from other companies worth mentioning as well, but perhaps they best be mentioned on a different time. The ones spoken of here are certainly those I have most interaction with, those I can truly call my brothers-in-arms.


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## Pandora (Aug 19, 2014)

Hi CyberWar I enjoyed reading the descriptions of your fellow brothers-in-arms. There were some surprises, most pleasant. As I read I thought of my father in law a POW shot down in WWII. He has passed now but would fill hours telling me similar descriptions and tales. I miss him and that, though often the stories were sad. Comradery  is a wonderful thing to feel, something that comes through in your work as well.

I wonder if any of these will turn up as characters in future works. You describe very well. I goggled Lativia and enjoyed the pictures and learning more about your country, too. I missed a more in depth description of yourself, I do love bonding that way.

I have to say though but maybe I shouldn't, I take offense to calling a gay men a queer. Just goes back to the 60's and 70's when that could be hurtful. I worked with many gay men in the floral industry, love them, dear friends and memories. I can almost see them wince when I read the word here. That is going to keep me from clicking the like button but I do otherwise like your write and the humor that ran through it as well. I hope you understand, I'm sorry. Well written_ My Brothers in Arms._


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## Plasticweld (Aug 20, 2014)

Thanks for a great read and some insight into the National Guard in Latvia.  My best friend is a Captain in the National Guard here, I have heard scores of stories over the years about the Guard here, I am amazed at how similar they are in some respects. 

Thanks for a peek into your world and surroundings...Bob


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## CyberWar (Aug 27, 2014)

Glad you enjoyed the read.

As for the queer part, please understand that I and the people described herein are mostly testosterone-laden young men of strongly-nationalist persuasion coming from a rather conservative society where traditional gender roles and emphasis on masculinity in men are still strong, so our attitudes towards homosexuality are somewhat less approving than what you may be accustomed to. I strive to be impartial when it comes to non-fiction like these real-life stories, accurately reflecting the culture, language and social attitudes of the people described.

Anyway, I'm working on another of my National Guard stories which will feature more about myself, so I'll appreciate future input from you.


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## Pandora (Aug 27, 2014)

CyberWar said:


> Glad you enjoyed the read.
> 
> As for the queer part, please understand that I and the people described herein are mostly testosterone-laden young men of strongly-nationalist persuasion coming from a rather conservative society where traditional gender roles and emphasis on masculinity in men are still strong, so our attitudes towards homosexuality are somewhat less approving than what you may be accustomed to. I strive to be impartial when it comes to non-fiction like these real-life stories, accurately reflecting the culture, language and social attitudes of the people described.
> 
> Anyway, I'm working on another of my National Guard stories which will feature more about myself, so I'll appreciate future input from you.


I understand CyberWar very realistic and true, it is my problem, totally lies within me. I think of other's hearts when I read and am afraid that feelings are offended. I've hated that word since a small child then my path took me close to working with gay men in my early 20's. I loved them, reinforcing what I knew all my life, they are beautiful kind individuals. The way I feel is thank God if we can let go of mean words. Once we love it changes everything. 

I look forward to learning much more about you. I am interested in your National Guard stories, I love heroes of every kind. Thank you for understanding.


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