Hjemmeværnet: First visit

Thursday

1:49 am

A month has passed since my last blog. During this time however, an exciting part of my journey had taken place. It seems everything is starting to fall into place. First, by being accepted into the Danish National Guard (Hjemmeværnet) and school!

It was a rainy tuesday evening and I came early. I emailed the national guard on how to apply, and managed to speak with someone within the barracks. I was excited about meeting a soldier and discussing recruitment. But I was early, and from the looks of it, there were a few other soldiers standing around the barracks' center court. I parked my bike on the bike stands on the opposite side of the small, cobble stoned road, and decided to wait in the nearby park, listening to music on my ipod. "What a weird start" I thought. And to make it worse, I had to go. You know, go! My bladder decided to fill up at that moment and I was too shy to even go around the barracks, asking soldiers where the toilet is. Thankfully, I was in a park. A park that had small routes that seemed deserted with large, thick bushes. So, in a heartbeat, I stood close to the edge next to the bush, whipped out my junior and went as fast as I could by urinating on such a high pressure, it could probably look like a decent sprinkler if pointed upwards (ok maybe not). While going about my "business", I kept looking left and right in paranoia, thinking that a random passer-by would spot me. But I was lucky and was relieved. The time went near to 19:00 hours (7 pm), the time that I was supposed to meet ------ ----- (probably for security purposes, I'm not going to mention name and rank). Let's just call him, Billy Bob! I tried finding Billy Bob and actually went into the depot room (where we get our equipment and uniform), so I gathered enough nerves to ask the soldier standing next to me. He told me to go inside this building and up the stairs. I saw a guy standing at the top of the stairs and asked the same question to him. "I am Billy Bob!" he said. I was relieved and shook his hand firmly. Anyhow, He told me to stay put in a social room for the soldiers and to fill out my application form while he had to attend a short meeting. While waiting, I filled out the form and was offered a soda. Billy Bob later came back and told me to follow him outside the courtyard where a whole company (I think) were having announcements being made and other stuff. I stood beside another recruit who was also instructed to meet Billy Bob. His name was Mickey. So Mickey and I just watched what the company was doing, listening in on what they were talking about, had small-talk with him, and waiting. When the soldiers were done doing what they were doing, Billy Bob had told my platoon leader about me, and I was offered to come along on a little 5 km run. I said "sure" and he went to ask if that was ok, but it wasn't. So Mickey and I followed Billy Bob into that social room where I had been previously in. There, Mickey partially filled out his form when we were called by Billy Bob into a conference room. There he discussed, briefly, what the National guard is, what it does, and etc, etc. We both shook his hand and went off. 2 and a half months passed, and my security background check passed, and I was going to be a soldier.