Never Broken Read Online Free Page B

seventeen, I applied for all three Services. The first thing you have to do is a BARB Test, which is a psychometric test, but it also looks at your academic ability. This determines if you can join and what job you can do within the Army, RAF or Royal Navy. I passed the test for all three.
    What swung it in the end were two booming, gruff corporalsat the Army Careers Office in Barrow-in-Furness. They made the Army sound amazing, just like my childhood camping and orienteering weekends with the Scouts. So just like that I giddily signed on – clueless as to the realities of Army life. The Careers Office held a weekly running club, which I joined to prepare myself for one of the key elements of fitness: running a mile and a half in under thirteen minutes. They’d shout gentle encouragement at us when we were running, and I thought: ‘This is OK, I can handle this.’ How different can Army life be? Little did I know! At the age of seventeen I swore my Oath of Allegiance at Barrow-in-Furness Army Careers Office. I read the words from a piece of paper with a small group of others who were also signing up. Serving my country wasn’t on my mind until that moment, but when I stated the words, ‘I will serve Queen and country’ and it resonated with me deeply. I felt a real pride as I took the first major step into my new life.
    Straight away I was technically in the Army, but I had a month to wait for my Basic Training to start so during that time I carried on with the running club. Now it was a different ball game completely as I was technically a new recruit; they started ordering me about a lot more and beasting me to make the timings on the runs. ‘Oh, this is harsh!’ I thought. Later, I realised they were getting me ready for what was coming next but the truth is, nothing prepares you for what you walk into when you start Basic Training in Winchester. Within minutes of being dropped off by my slightly tearful, yet proud parents, the other raw recruits and me were being yelled and shouted at like we’d never been before. I joined a group of terrified teenagers huddling together, scruffy as hell in our civvies and plastered with make-up. Straight away, we were thrown full-throttle into military training, aimed atmaking us physically and mentally tough. The privileges we had once enjoyed as a ‘civvie’ didn’t apply anymore as we’d signed on the dotted line.
    First, you are issued with your brand-new kit of everything you’ll need during your Army career: three sets of uniform; a nuclear, biological, chemical suit; a helmet; two pair of boots; your sports kit, consisting of two pairs of shorts and two T-shirts; trainers; socks; a hold-all for carrying it in; a roll mat and sleeping bag; your rifle and webbing, which you carry your magazines in. It’s all brand, spanking new and in packaging. Then you cart it through camp, which is like a Walk of Shame. Everyone knows you are the lowest of the low as the new recruits and all the while you are shouted at and firmly put in your place. The other soldiers make no bones about the fact they are in charge and you aren’t fit to lick their boots. You aren’t allowed to wear civvies. Instead, you either have to wear your Army camouflage gear or, if you aren’t in uniform, the only thing you are permitted to put on is an unflattering tracksuit you are issued with: Ron Hill leggings and a green sweatshirt. A cardinal rule is that you’re not allowed to wear your beret either, as you have to earn that; make-up is also banned. For the first week you are left reeling in shock.
    I was in a mixed platoon, where boys slept on one floor and girls on another in rooms of six. Inevitably, where there’s a bunch of teenagers there is flirting, but it was always very childlike, just like at school. Interpersonal relationships within the platoon were completely forbidden and during Basic Training nothing ever happened as we were all too scared, and to be honest, you were kept so busy