17th June 2007 - 17th June 2007
Alan T. Duffy
TKD Centre Social Club Crossfire Sunday 17/06/2007
The rain had stopped for the first day in three weeks and spirits were high. Many were new to this brutal sport and this day would be the last day many would be seen alive..........eh, alive without bruises that is! After a No. 44 bus journey we made our way up the hill through a couple of cowpat laden fields and arrived at Crossfire. We signed in, kitted out and then came the moment of reckoning - the teams. We were randomly divided into two teams. One red and the other yellow. As we all know yellow signifies the earth from which a plant sprouts and takes root, and red signifies danger. Nothing could have been more true on the day as reds exercised their dangerous tactics and stamped the yellow team into the earth where they belonged. Blood was spilled (some was mine), egos were bruised and so were a few bellies, knees, arms, legs and backs. It was all good clean fun though and sometimes in the thick of paintball warfare it was hard to tell who was on your team and who was the enemy............so you shot them anyway just in case!
There were various tasks from a free-for-all shoot out to capture the flag. The terrain was tricky within the bracken clad pine forest. You had avoid the tree roots and protruding rocks as you dove for cover and shot wildly into the open spaces. Occassionally you would find a prime position to pick off the enemy. Nothing was more satisfying, for me anyway, than lining up someone and picking them off with a few rounds of stinging paintballs. Of course once you shot you gave away your position and you could be sure you would get a barrage of paintballs fired at your head in return, usually from Pat the nutter! During the afternoon we had one break for a cup of tea and a sit down then it was back to the battlefield for a couple more games.
You could argue that the team with the most money won the game because you paid for every cartridge of bullets. Of course if would be more accurate to say the team with the most points won. That happened to be red! But winning or losing was not important. It was having fun that mattered the most and everyone had a bucket full of that. Except for the yellows who lost of course because they're losers. Big fat girly losers who lost and lost badly and could only have won if every red team member had shot each other in the ass a couple of times. Then it might have been even. Annnnyyyyway, we all headed back into town that evening to the Stag's Head for a few beers to tell tall tales of battered buttocks and crippled nipples and raise our glasses to a successful day for the Tae-kwon do social club. Hurray!
18th June 2007, the day after.
Your legs are sore. On your body the marks left by the bullets remind you the adrenaline; the silence of the forest broken by the shooting; the pain; the good fun. In your ears there is still the sound of the bullets hacking the air and smashing against the bark of a friendly tree, few inches from a short but acute pain. Of course if your name is Pat, Pavel, Rory or Lii you might hear just the bullets hacking the air and then smashing against your chest, your back, your legs and your bum, but that’s the story of the proudly-self-called “suicide squad”, and I am sure someone else will tell about that!
That of yesterday was really good fun… I think everybody enjoyed that and will keep a good memory of the day… I will definitely remember that I’ve almost shot Pavel point-blank, while I was indeed trying to cover him (a girl can make a mistake, can’t she?), or the way in the last game I took my after-first-death revenge over Tom (who probably won’t feel that comfortable being seated in the next few days!!). Someone in the Red Team will probably point out that we have been badly defeated, but I enjoyed being part of the never-give-up-we-can-make-it Yellow Team I have to say. We maybe lacked in strategy but surely did not miss perseverance, integrity and indomitable spirit!
What I did really like though, beside the game, are the good laughs, the nice and friendly atmosphere, the way playing together made us know each other better and feel to be part of a group… that was really nice. And that was also the aim of the TKD Social Club, which seems to have had the amazing power to turn classmates into friends.
Heroes from the Yellow Team
On Sunday June the 17th we all went to play paintball. Some of us were experienced since they have played paintball before and some of us played this game first time. Nonetheless, this was not meant as a competition but as a social action organised by TSC (Taekwon-do Social Club). Apart from people training Taekwon-do took part in this game also friends of us, working colleagues as well as my friends from Aikido including my sensej Lorcan.
We were divided into two groups, Yellow and Red teams. I was a member of the Yellow Team and even though we were outnumbered, we were brave and not afraid of dying for our mates. Of course, we lost in the end since our planning was not that good.
In total we played six games, first two were just training games in the forest where we were supposed to try how to shoot and how to avoid of being shot J. I clearly remember instructions given to us at the beginning that head shots are not allowed. I reminded this rule even after I was shot third time during the first game to my head and got a lump ;-).
Third and fourth games were placed in an area around a fort, well defended by one team. Mission of the second team was to take a flag placed near the fort and bring it to a base camp at the other side of the fort. Pat, as a big leader of the Yellow Team, came up with a brilliant plan that a few people should be without guns, run for the flag while the others would cover them. The plan sounded promising; the only fault of it was that it did not work. We created a group of five (later on in a pub named the “Suicide Squad”) including me, Pat, Lee, Rory and Lorcan and we tried our best. Have to say that we were shot into pieces. During my first try I got about a half of metre far from the flag when I was shot. Therefore I raised my hand, turned my back towards the fort and wanted to back away. However at that time I got another 6 hits to my back marking me with bruises for about a week. Well, that is a life of a soldier. Others were not luckier. The second attempt just copied the first one. After about 4 minutes whole our Suicide Squad was inside of a “dead zone” followed up by the other members of the Yellow Team.
However the real hero was Lee. Mission of the last two games was to defend our own flag placed inside a fort and try to steal an enemy flag. A minute remained until the end of the last game; I was already dead, when I saw someone running unarmed towards the enemy fort and passing successfully the outer barrier nearly without noticing. It was Lee. However, when he reached the enemy flag and carried it for about 10 cm he was shot into pieces from a very close distance by all defenders who turned their weapons towards him. Well, it was insane, brave and … and helped us remember that even though our team lost our only regret was that we could not die more than twice for each other J.
In my opinion this game was very good fun and everybody I talked to enjoyed it. I would like to thank Pat for organising this game and also Ori for getting people’s emails and deposits. Without them we would not have played paintball. Just want to note that both of them were members of the Yellow Team!
The Tae Kwon Do Centre Social Club (TSC) is an informal group with two simple goals;
- To organise social events throughout the year which are open to Tae Kwon Do students as well as their friends and families.
- To build on the sense of camaraderie that already exists in the Tae Kwon Do Centre, by giving members the opportunity to socialise with students of all grades, who they might not otherwise meet during classes in the Do-Jang.
The TSC was formed early in 2007. During the Spring, we met for drinks on two occasions in pubs close to the Tae Kwon Do Centre to begin planning for our first major event, Paintball!
On Sunday, June 17th, a group of more than forty people participated in an exhilarating game of Paintball. Upon arrival at the Crossfire grounds near Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow, we were given our camoflage suits and goggles, and were assigned to either the Red or the Yellow team.
After a comprehensive safety briefing, we were given our weapons and we then left the base camp to march up a slight incline to where the first few games would take place. We were accompanied by three Marshals who made sure we adhered to the safety guidelines, (for the most part), explained the scoring system and gave rudamentry advice on strategy and tactics.
Game 1
The first game was the shortest, and the simplest. As one Marshal explained it, “The goal is to kill as many of the other guys as posssible.” Both teams began on opposite sides of the playing area, which was heavily wooded, and covered in moss, ferns, briars and the like. The game began with a blow of a whistle and both teams advanced on eachother. This was perhaps the most chaotic and confusing game of all, as people were just getting used to the idea of being shot at, while trying not to sprain an ankle.
After Game 2, which was a repeat of Game 1 with both teams starting from opposite sides of the playing area, it quickly became apparent that the yellow team would need a strategy of some sorts, as we sustained heavy losses and were well behind on points.
The next game saw the yellow team taking up a defensive position inside a castle, guarding a flag that was placed a few shrt feet outside the perimiter. The red team managed to capture the flag in one sortie, but saw their ranks thined out before they finally managed to retrieve it and take it to the safe zone. Despite the heavily casulties, they scored substantially for achieving the objective.
Roles were again reversed in the fourth game, and the yellow team now attempted to capture the flag from infront of the castle. The yellow team at last devised a strategy, whereby a handful of brave volunteers would advance on the flag together, in a zig-zag fashion, unarmed, (the rational being that it would be easier to move quickly across the uneven terrain, without being encumbered by the weapon,) as their comrades laid down a barrage of suppressive fire on the entrenched defenders. If we managed to capture the flag, with acceptable losses, we intended to retreat in an orderly fashion and then move around the castle well out of range, as the red team were not allowed to venture outside the castle perimeter.
Things didn’t quite go as planned! Having given our team-mates time to take up position, these foolhardy volunteeers, who would later christen themselves “The Suicide Squad” made a dash for the flag. I zigged to the left and zagged to the right with projectiles whizzing around me and finally made it to the flag. I had no sooner plucked it from the ground and turned to run when a salvo of enemy fire cut me to ribbons. I was bombarded with paintballs all across my back and legs and fell to the ground. As I lay on the ground I saw my comrades were in no better shape, and two of them had paint splattered all over their visors, and couldn’t see where they were going. I shouted to the red team that I was dead, and removed one armband to show that I had lost a life. One or two of my teammates were still advancing on the flag, and the red team were still firing in my general direction, so I was forced to crawl along the ground back towards the starting position. At this point, I wondered what had happened to my covering fire, when a paintball that hit me squarely in the head answered my question.
I made it back, retrieved my weapon, and tried to rally the yellow team for another asault, but to make short tale, I lost my second life and made my way to the dead zone which was quickly filling up with yellows.
We returned to the base camp for some refreshments and took a group photograph before going to another playing area which had two forts at opposite ends. The objective was to defend our flag and capture the enemy’s. This was a much larger area, and there was not nearly as much undergrowth, so it was easier to move around. Up until this point, I had been relatively sparing with my amunition, but I decided that it was time to change tack.
I purchased two extra magazines, and even though I lost both my lives again in the following two games, I sold each one of them dearly. My only real regret is that I did not have more lives to give for my team.
In one way, we were all winners that day, but in another, much more accurate way, red were the real winners!
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