Many of you are aware that one of the most stressful things you
can do in life is to move house, another is to change working environments. So as you can imagine, moving to a new
station was quite stressful. Of course
being as highly trained as I was, I didn’t find the move in any way
stressful. I had a bed, in a twelve man room, still temporary
accommodation or as it was called, transit accommodation. It was quite a simple journey to walk from
the mess to work. In fact for me the
most stressful thing was getting used to the new local beer and I wasn’t going
to let it beat me, I was determined to master it.
Despite the fact that most of military life is based around
beer consumption the two don’t mix. Beer causes you to sleep longer than
necessary and this means that you would be late for work. With my fondness for beer I was late for work
quite often. The military have a sliding
scale of punishments to combat most incorrect behaviours. The first time I was late for work I was introduced
to the process of being charged.
Nobody ran at me, nor did I have to face a raging bull at
close quarters, although I have to admit to a fondness for Hemmingway. A charge, or being put on a fizzer, was the military
formality to award punishment. It was
all quite new to me and quite embarrassing in a strange way. Not that I was ashamed or embarrassed about
being late for work, it was the absolute pantomime that surrounded the whole
affair.
First of all I was given an escort. Not a car but two fellows, one either
side. I was told that should I lunge at,
or try to attack, the presiding officer these two were under orders to restrain
me. Within three seconds I could see a
number of ways I could effectively disable the two fellows, but thought I
should wait to see what coming next before taking such drastic action. A sergeant inspected us and then brought all
three to attention. I always found
people shouting orders to be most ridiculous but when they do it inside a
building it was so annoying. We were in
the corridor outside the Satco’s office.
We had a distance of ten to twelve feet to cover, yet the sergeant
insisted on shouting left, right, left, right, left, right, halt!
The sergeant then turns all three of us to face the
Sacto. And of course I don’t mean he
physically turned us to face the Satco, he screamed something military at us, like,
about turn or turn to the right, right turn!
The Satco was looking very official.
The barrack room lawyers tell you to listen very carefully because if
there’s a mistake in the preamble that he reads out, the whole shebang has to
be thrown out. He got my name right, my
service number right he even got the date and time I was late for work correct,
so I guess I was going to have to go through with it.
In fact it didn’t take long at all. You were late for work last Tuesday. Correct.
That is basically what was said, but try to imagine that this was the
military, so it was expanded to pretend that there was some legality behind
what was going on. I was fined five
pounds and the sergeant marched us out.
I was then taken into the admin office and it was explained to me that this
charge would remain on my file for ever and would follow me around where ever I
went in the air force.
I didn’t really think about it. I was already being followed around by other people
and I don’t mean the double top secret cabal who were organising my training to
become the leading Master Candle Maker in the world. I was being followed around by people who
wanted a fight. I know that this was the
military and we were being trained basically to kill people, but to arrive at a
new unit and have someone creep up to you, out of the shadows, and ask you for a
fight seemed strange to say the least.
It seems that the fellow at Locking who taught us Taekwondo
was some sort of Olympic champion and he kept a check on all his students,
linking them to other instructors throughout the air force. So people were not actually wanting to fight
me, well; they were, but they were really asking me to continue training with
them. I unfortunately, for the fellow at
Locking at least, wasn’t a purest and was more interested in the advice Bruce Lee
gave where he advocated a mix of skills rather than follow one pure path. Bruce thought that you should be able to
choose the most appropriate set of skills for the situation you faced.
Anyone looking at my discipline file now might think that I enjoyed
being put on a fizzer. I didn’t really,
I couldn’t care less about them actually, which may have been a contributing
factor to getting charged a second time.
The Corporal in charge of the shift was a fellow Irishman and was told
to place me on a charge, which he did. We
went through the same rigmarole again but this time I was fined ten
pounds. I could see the air force’s
reasoning.
Paddy was very apologetic and insisted that I go to his house
that evening where he would entertain me as a sort of apology for having to charge
me. He said that he didn’t like having
to charge a fellow Irishman. It was a
very friendly gesture which I naturally accepted. Paddy’s wife was a fantastic cook and it was
such a pleasure to sit down and eat a home cooked meal. Added to this was the fact that Paddy himself
was a keen home brewer and had produced quite a stunning beer.
On top of that Paddy had two beautiful daughters who insisted
that I should accompany them to the hot spots of Holyhead, which we did, with Paddy’s
blessing I may add. I had a fantastic night
so unfortunately was late for work the following morning and this time Paddy seemed
quite happy to charge me as he wanted to make sure there was no further
developments in the relationship between me and either of his two daughters.
For those of you out there with a fully functioning brain you
will have worked out that for this charge I was fined fifteen pounds. I was able to calculate how many charges I could
handle at this rate of inflation before I would run out of money. But this was the military. The next time I was late for work I was stood
standing there, expecting to be fined twenty British English pounds sterling,
and I’m sure many of you would expect the same fine too, but we would all have
been wrong.
I was given Jankers!
Now, Jankers is a form of punishment meant to embarrass and humiliate the
offender. I was already embarrassed and humiliated
at having to work in air traffic control, but this was a new form of
punishment. Not only was I to be
embarrassed and humiliated but I was also to become a visual deterrent for everyone
else in the camp. And how would they do that
you ask, well quite simple really.
They gave me a toothbrush.
Not very embarrassing or humiliating, that is until you are taken
outside the guardroom to the main gate of the camp. This happens at shift change over so the
maximum amount of people, going in and out of the camp, are exposed to the punishment. I was then encouraged to get on my hands and
knees and begin cleaning the white lines on the road with the toothbrush. While performing this task I was encouraged, and
by encouraged I mean a huge disciplinary Sergeant stood over me screaming
insults at me.
Most people going in and out of work would initially see the Janker
Wallagh and smile, for this was an age old form of punishment in the air force,
their next thought would be to remind themselves not to do anything wrong, or
at least get caught doing something wrong, for they could end up cleaning white
lines too. Of course as a Janker Wallagh
you just didn’t scrub the white lines with a tooth brush. One evening I was encouraged to paint the
coal, in the coal bunker behind the guardroom, one lump at a time.
Did it work, was it effective, I hear you ask? What do you think? This is me we are talking
about, the leading Master Candle Maker in the world, the High Chief of the Clan
O Neill and the true King of Ireland. Of
course it didn’t work.
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