And It All Comes Back in the End

For reasons not worthy of mention (really!), the army uniform was recovered from that old, steely stash of manhood-ness.
I visited an old barracks (not my camp, though I spent a week there before), smelled that familiar armour metal smell and spent a quarter of a day with a number of new boys, for a start.
I was and still am pretty surprised. That, surprisingly, it turned out to be easy. A bunch of smelly boys getting together, joking/poking around. You know, that kind of stuff.
It was easy.

I have the habit of cutting my adolescence up into different parts. While other parts are bursting with rainbows and pretty flowers, this is a part which few people shared, which I dreaded and which my nubile mind, unknowingly, always fought against.