Arrival to an emotional point..

As life passed me by and I was eventually too old to actually rejoin the Army the realisation I had missed out hit me. I had passed up on a life time goal the one thing I have ever truly wanted to achieve. That was always in the back of my mind year upon year but through being busy all the time that’s were it stayed firmly in the back of my mind. I’m naturally a busy person always squeezing as much as I humanly can into my life. My main focus for years has been DJing on the Hard House circuit with my DJ partner Cheadle, performing together as “Cheadle and Hubby”. As with every thing I do I’ve always been passionate about DJing and always tried to carry that in the sets and performance delivered, just like my attempt at the Army we’ve been tantalisingly close several times, different opportunities and breaks have presented themselves but something’s always happened to change the situation. More recently over the last 3 years I’ve been promoting a club night called Invasion with some friends and started a small web design business so I have been busy. Remembering all that is in my spare time as I have a full time office job working for BT. Eventually after being close a couple of times I made the choice to join the TA which looking back was definitely the right thing to do in fact I wish I had done it sooner. On joining the TA I didn’t realise how much they were actually used on operations, I thought it would be good fun something different to do at the weekend, keep me fit and maybe it would fill that empty void I had in my life after my failed attempt at the regulars. However through time, talking to the guys there and taking it all in I realised I had made one of the best decisions of my life, it seemed that after all I will be getting my chance, the opportunity to live out my dreams and aspirations. Whilst going through training the buzz word was Iraq every one going through the training new from there own company that our regiment was the next to go the following year. Every one was desperate to get through the training and into the main stream so they would have the opportunity to go. Our training was quite intense trying to fit it all into a few weekends a ten day camp and then a 2 week camp at the British Army’s main infantry training centre, ITC Caterick. I joined the TA with Warner a good friend and soon to be I’m sure a friend on a different level as we’re both going to Iraq. I’m glad Warners coming as well, we’ve been friends for a long time and we share the same friends so it doesn’t seem like I’m leaving everything behind as there’s going to be a permanent reminder over there with me, if that makes any sense. Also I couldn’t really think of any one better to share this adventure with. Fear, that’s one word I haven’t really thought about but if I said I hadn’t thought about it at all that would be a lie. I suppose what I mean is in the same breath I have felt afraid in a different way than excepted. The obvious fear is the fear of death but that’s not something I’ve thought about as I can’t see myself allowing my brain to think about that. In my life I have become well rehearsed in hiding emotions, dealing with great emotional situations and burying them quickly, controlling emotions and subsequently I suppose hiding them. So I’m confident that sort of fear is not something that will trouble me. The emotions I have been feeling when I actually do take a moment to think are a mix I suppose you could amount to fear but a different fear to the obvious. If I wasn’t writing this and I read this as it was being written by one of the lads I would probably be thinking “Christ this is a bit deep! We’re only going over to Iraq for 6 months” but in the immortal words of Morphius from the film the matrix “I’ll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes?” The whole situation has the potential to become very surreal as from this side it’s a job and we’re going away working for 6 months the risks involved are part of the job like the sales targets you work to in your daily job or the possibility of a customer complaining or the printer running out of paper. That is why it seems so unrealistic to think about fear as it’s so easy to pass all this off as something allot easier to handle. The only time the emotions kick or the brain starts ticking is when I really take a moment to think mainly when I’m with Beth my girlfriend or with friends...