Back in trainee days the people around me were, sadly but frankly, all hi-bye friends. We spent a few weeks together going through training, then thats it, they go east, I go west.

In unit its totally different. We stay in our respective units permanently till we ORD, we hold permanent positions, so basically I eat, sleep, shit, bathe, suffer, with the same bunch of people for at least a year. Should some happens, they are the ones I work alongside with.

Perhaps because of that the unit realises the importance of us knowing each other well, and it goes to great lengths to achieve it. Last month I had platoon cohesion, where my platoon booked out early on a Friday morning to have lunch together. Today was company cohesion, where the entire company booked out yesterday night (except for poor me and my friend who had guard duty), gathered at The Chevrons today and had a little inter-platoon bowling competition.

My platoon narrowly lost to another platoon, so there goes a half day off tomorrow for us.

I do wonder if cohesion really serves its purpose. Last month when we helped the other platoons packed their crates under the bloody hot sun the bosses encouraged us on with "Company effort! Company effort!". Then now when its my platoon's turn I don't see any company effort anywhere.

Nevertheless I still enjoyed myself. At least its something different from the routine PT and regimentation everyday. Nothing beats sleeping at home too.

Kitbag has finally been inspected and sealed. Now we are all just waiting for the big day to come.