Debriefing

The training took a gentle start: a quick visit to the depot, where we signed out a bag of basic kit (excluding weapons) was followed by whole day’s worth of lessons. The lectures were on dealing with psychic crises and post-traumatic stress disorder, and on defusing and debriefing stressful situations. (The word ‘debriefing’ always brings a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip to my mind. There Calvin, aka Spaceman Spiff, has been captured by space monsters and is being taken to an interrogation room to be debriefed, when Spiff thinks: “Little do they realize that our hero doesn’t wear briefs!”) Anyway, the lessons were on an important topic, and informative enough.

More importantly, I am slowly getting to know my future comrades in Afghanistan. As usual between Finnish servicemen, an informal, yet military esprit de corps is quickly formed. My CO seems to have a really good sense of humour, and that’s always good news. After the day’s lessons, I went for a swim in the Brigade’s indoor pool, had dinner and organised the kit in my locker.

I already miss A, R and V.