Army memories enough to leave me shellshocked

IT’S funny how stuff comes back to you as a Facebook message from an old army mucker took me right back to the summer of 1986.

The memory of the Army careers office still sticks with me. I listened in as the lump in front of me was asked by a recruiting sergeant: “Do you think you could kill somebody?”

The knacker in question frowned thoughtfully, then replied – but with a few questions of his own.

“Aye but you’d have to give me their address first, and I cannot do Tuesday mornings because I sign on,” he said. “But once I’ve done that, am I in? And will it mean the coppers cannot do anything either?”

The next time I saw him he was in the military and toting enough firepower for a Rambo sequel.

My trip to Aldershot was surreal. On arriving, gangs of hard skinheads suddenly filled the platform and it looked like the Leazes End on derby day. Gradually, it dawned on me these were my new work colleagues.

My first impressions of Aldershot were that it was a grey desolate town that screamed ‘Army.’ Just about every other car seemed to be a Land Rover and every other bloke was either a squaddie.

They were easy to spot, as the 1980s squaddie look of bleached 501s, Unit sweatshirt, cropped hair and desert boots was incongruously camp and looked more Bronski Beat than Band of Brothers.

What had I done? At 22, I had been to university like the officers but was from the same background as the 18-year-old squaddies I was joining.

Here I was, wearing my Marks and Sparks suit and polyester university tie as reminders of my previous incarnations. I realised I looked an utter pillock and suspected this might get me in bother.

I reported to the guardroom at Depot RCT, the home of the Royal Corps of Transport (or, as the rest of the army called us, Radio Cabs and Taxis or just ‘the Troggs’). We were on the opposite side of the road to Browning Barracks, where the far more glamorous and famous paratroopers had their depot.

While recent events have shown our sort are crucial for any army, we were unsung and anonymous. Logistics – the military equivalents of ground staff, kit-men and blokes who gave out the oranges and deep heat at half-time.

As I feared, my own time started badly. On reporting to the corporal on duty at the gate, he slowly looked at my suit, and sneered in disgust.

“F*** me , it’s Reggie Perrin!” and when he heard my accent, he screamed, “I f **** ing hate Geordies.”

So my first hour in the Army was spent doubling around a drill square, dressed in an M&S suit with my BHS fake-leather suitcase over my head as a psychotic cage-fighter screamed “Run Reggie, you Geordie **** ” every time I passed his window.

It didn’t bode well pets but it was certainly memorable.