Entry #2My first days at ARSTM: military training

Hello everyone,

I hope you're all doing well.😊😊😊

In my previous post, I told you about my journey up to my admission to the Académie Régionale des Sciences et Techniques de la Mer (ARSTM).

Today, I'll tell you how my first days at ARSTM went.

#ARSTM_Portail Annexe

I laugh when I think back on those moments…

If someone had told me back then, “you'll laugh about this one day”, I would have answered “Never!!! NEVER EVER!!!”

As far as I can remember, it was Thursday, 3 December 2020, when I entered the academy to start the 2020-2021 academic year. I was a little late. Move-in to the campus residence had started on 30 November…

We had been given to understand that, by tradition, all newcomers went through an initiation into maritime military discipline: military training (FM).

I had prepared for it as best I could (psychologically and physically)…

I kept telling myself… I spent some time in the Scouts… I should be able to make it through.

The day before, shaved, head buzzed to zero at the barber's not far from my aunt's place in Blockhaus (Abidjan, Cocody), I was shocked when Chief Petty Officer BG told my aunt there was still too much hair on my head. “Afro” was the word he used for my haircut. He then told her I had to shave my head again, but with a razor blade this time...

That was the beginning of the adventure...

Right from our arrival, the supervisors made it clear to us that FM was supposed to last 2 weeks, after three months of induction... They then told us we were lucky to join ARSTM at such a time. The Covid-19 pandemic had shaken up the schedule somewhat... So FM started on 30/11/2020 and ended on 2 January 2021...

We were all very happy to hear that. The induction had already begun. What was meant to warm us up for FM was so gruelling that we couldn't stop imagining what we would go through during those two weeks...

Those who arrived later jumped on the moving train. What am I saying!.!.! They boarded the moving ship. Some struggled more than others, but on the whole, "we were managing".

Between the "early in the morning" wake-ups, the assemblies, the exhausting physical training (pasgyms: "runs done by soldiers, moving forward while singing cheerfully, in cadenced, rhythmic, synchronised steps"; push-ups; sit-ups;...), the State pool, the gutters, the parade ground, the Vie-École area, the hot-tarmac/palms-and-knees contact, parade-ground/palms-and-knees, the instructors' mood swings, the drill (OS) lessons, the discipline lessons and the chores until all hours, the "Stand-Sit-Lie-down" drills, the sleepless nights (surprise ones as well as planned ones), better yet the standing watch through sleepless nights, the "Sanoumayés", the freezing weather,..., we lost all sense of time and reality.

Good times and bad times...

Those moments when we asked ourselves:

Why is time moving so slowly?

Why do our instructors act as if they weren't dealing with human beings...?

Isn't this a bit too high a price for a place in the sun...?

When will this ordeal end?

......?

The more days went by, the more we adapted... The more we adapted, the more we felt at home, chez nous. We started to enjoy those moments, to go from torture to play, to live them with a certain ease... I call it “find comfort in pain”. We had reached that level... I have to say the group effect helped a lot...

Honestly, knowing that other people besides me were going through the same thing motivated me, and so did the idea that some were physically weaker than me...

I very often told myself: there are people less tough than me, I must not be the first to fall... no, out of the question... Also, moving forward with the people from your class is something that motivates you like nothing else... Those people who help you get back up when you fall or when you're too exhausted to go on..., who carry you when it's needed, who cover for you when you've messed up... At that stage, we're no longer talking about a group, we're talking about a FAMILY... The 34th Class

There was this guy, our pistard.

As a rule, the pistard is the oldest member of the class, considered the wisest (from what we learned when we arrived at the academy)… There were people older than him, yet he managed to keep everyone together… Lt YACOUBA YOUNOUSA.

We also learned quite a lot. Not only close-order drill (OS) movements or values such as discipline, rigour and respect… That's the foundation. I more or less expected it.

What struck me most deeply were the ones I hadn't thought of. Among them: solidarity (the 1+1=1 mindset), team spirit, and better still, the spirit of Family.

The 34th Class of ARSTM.

It wasn't all that easy, but we made it through… FM pushed us far beyond our physical and mental limits.

GOD was there, present at every moment, giving me, every single time, the strength I needed to overcome whatever obstacles came my way.

When people ask me, what was it like!?.

I answer: there are things you can't explain, things you have to live to understand. It wasn't the end of the world, nor an impossible mountain to climb, but it was no walk in the park either. It was just FM.

Our seniors had painted it for us as worse than hell as we imagined it… It was nothing of the sort. Well, it was quite far from the picture they had given us. They said they had seen and endured worse... that we had been a bit too pampered by our instructors…

#Our seniors from the 33rd

We also told our juniors about it, trying to present it the way we lived it, with, of course, just a little exaggeration around the edges.

Maybe it was to look the part, maybe to tell the story by the book, or so they would feel the way we did when our predecessors talked to us about FM...

Who knows...!?

We noticed they were really coddled compared to us… we did exactly what our seniors did… and it was the same with the class that came after…

My word, every class had its share of suffering and lessons, within the limits of what it could bear during FM. Times change, things evolve. But FM remains tough and full of lessons for every class that goes through it, always adapting to the realities on the ground (members' abilities, circumstances, eras,...). The feeling that the instructors went too easy on the newbies is something you can't explain. It's just how it is. It always has been, and it's not about to stop. Just like realising that the elders exaggerated a little when they described FM to us.

At the risk of repeating myself, there are things you can't explain, estimate, measure or express with perfect accuracy to make others understand. Things you have to live to understand. Things like FM.

Feel free to react and comment.

Exchange is the key!

See you next time 👋👋👋

#MrDNEJ