“This thing,” Sergeant Campbell says while holding a rifle up. “This will be your best friend whenever you’re on exercise, or on an operation.”

They’ve currently got us all sat on the floor in this tiny room, with what seems to be new SA80s in front of all of us. A3, I think. Is the A3 even in service yet? They gave us about a 10 minute lecture on safety rules, while threatening us with violence if we broke them. Obviously, we were given stern instructions to not touch the rifle yet, or they’d “perform an unload on our hearts from our bodies.”

Fucking hell.

“When you first pick up a rifle, what do you do?” Sgt. Campbell says.

God knows, man. Hold it? What do you expect a bunch of random teenagers to know?

After a couple seconds of him looking at blank faces, he finally decides to speak again.

“NSP. Normal safety precautions,” he says, in a tone like it’s completely common for someone to know that. “Watch here while I do it.

First, pull back the bolt, or the working parts, and lock them to the rear with the switch. Check in the bolt with a 3 point check, twice. Chamber, magazine housing, face of the bolt. Release the bolt catch with the bolt catch on the other side. Then forward assist, which is just hitting the bolt forward just in case it didn’t close properly, then safety off, fire the rifle in a safe direction, safety back on and close the dust cover. Got it?”

No? What the fuck? Genuinely just looked like he molested the rifle.

“Yes? Good, now try it.”

I hesitantly pick up the rifle, its weight both exerting and reassuring. Holding it feels good.

I try my best to remember what the sergeant said. Bolt to the rear, lock it back, look inside, bolt forward, fire, dust cover. I think.

The bolt is fucking heavy, but I do manage to lock it back. Am I that weak? I need to start lifting weights, or something. Look inside, there's nothing. Releasing the bolt catch (or whatever it was called) almost makes me drop the rifle with how much force it carries. How do the people in the movies do it so smoothly? Anyways, I fire the rifle in what seems like a safe direction (basically away from everyone else), and close the dust cover. And safety catch. They were fucking drilling it into us that we need to make sure the weapon is on safe at all times unless we’re firing it.

“Good, Hussain.” exclaims Lieutenant Hood, somehow appearing behind me. Was he watching me the whole time?

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“T- Thanks?” I’ll take praise any chance I get. I think it’s a praise complex, or whatever.

“We all done? Good.” Sergeant Hood finally decides to speak up after helping Emma with her bolt. She’s not going to enjoy using these weapons if she struggles to pull back a bolt.

Ignore the fact I struggled too.

“When you hand over a weapon to someone, do the same thing, but show them the inside of the weapon too, to show it’s clear. Let me see…” He picks up a binder, and flicks through some of the pages inside. “Only have about 14 pages of material left.”

This is going to be long.

After what seems like an eternity of instructions, and poorly performed actions, I think we’ve reached the end. My fingers still hurt from stripping the rifle…

“That’s it. One final thing, name your rifles. Get attached to your rifle, it’ll be your lifeline.”

Name it? Seem’s a bit schizo, but sure! Unfortunately, though, whenever I need a name, I can never think of one.

Kanade? From that game on my phone? Doesn't feel good enough. I’m not gonna pick some cheesy, generic name like “Oblivion” or whatever, either.

Hmm.

Airi? Also from that game on my phone, but also kinda the opposite of what the rifle is. Might be a stretch, but like, air is light, but the rifle is heavy, so calling it airy (Airi) would be something.

I sound pretty insane right now.

“Once you’re done, head to the room opposite, and wear a vest. The vest will be heavy. Get used to it. Keep your rifle on you, but take the sling off when putting on the vest, please. God knows I’ve seen enough soldiers tangled up in their sling because they put it on before their vest.”

Great, now they want to give me back pain too.

We do as told though, and head into the room opposite. There’s vests lined up neatly on the floor, and Lieutenant Hood standing over them.

“Take a vest. Each vest already has soft armour, and 3 magazines with them. Lose the magazines, and you’ll be losing your life if you don’t find them.” He says sternly. I feel like killing a teenager is a bit of an overreaction to losing some metal.

As I slip the vest on (yes i took my sling off first), I can see why. These vests are new. The armour is (obviously) new. The magazines are also new, I think. They have no marks of wear, or any scrapes or anything. Are we really that cool? I’m not complaining.

“You keep your vests. You return your magazines with your rifles to the armoury when told.” Lieutenant Hood says again. No shit. “Now, head outside.

You’ll know what hell is in fieldcraft.”