My Rifle - My Wife

The day came during basic training where I was introduced to my wife R4 an exact copy of the Israeli Galil which in itself is family of the AK47 her accessories was a magazine that held 5.56mm nato rounds that travelled at 980 meters / second. Lesson one was that she NEVER left your side. You carried her everywhere, you slept with her in your sleeping bag, you carried her to breakfast, you had her next to you when you did your washing or when you took a shit. And when you really had to put her somewhere, the moving parts were locked in your trommel, and the big bits were locked in your “kas” (metal locker). And beware the poor sod who forgot to lock it all away. He’d shit bricks for a day or two with a op-vok to remember…

We carried this piece of shit around for more than a month before we actually took it to the shooting range at 22 Field. On the other side of this coin I can tell you the novelty wore off pretty quick as she was introduced into Rifle PT. They made us crawl through mud, just so that we could clean her for them again, we had to take her apart on demand, just so that someone could smack you on the top of your head and make you run for the tree, the pipe or the perimeter fence again and again when the bloody mouse wouldn’t fit in quickly enough… and it never does when you’re in a hurry.

Finally the big day came and we tumbled out of the Samils at the shooting range. And then lying down at the 100 metre mark, switch it S for single shot (R for Afrikaans / full auto results in unpleasant behavior by the instructors), aiming for the target. Squeeze the trigger slowly, like you’ve been taught… and BANG! Fuck me, the fucking thing actually worked!!!! From this day on I loved my wife and also hated her so a typical marriage then.....

Guard Duty and challenging intuders.....

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 rifle.
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! Now Halt, or I’ll fucking shoot”
11.Load round into chamber.
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.

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