Friendly fire

This post was written 1 May 2007.

Can you call a man who wears short shorts; chases an oddly-shaped ball; only to be brought down to the ground and group-groped by other sweaty men, a “Hero”?

Can you call a man; someone who makes a living off swatting a hard little ball to another; a “Man’s Man”?

Do you think hitting a green fuzzy sphere with a stiff net-like device on a patch of grass qualifies as a “Battlefield”?

These questions ran through my mind as I lay in a shallow grassy ditch while hard paintballs buzzed past my head at over 300 feet per second. I found the answer though.

The answers to those questions are: No; definitely not; and I don’t.

That’s why I play the only non-gay sport available to REAL men. BUSHBALL. Yes, the only sport to feature near-battle conditions. If you get hit there is no clutching your leg screaming “foul”. No poncy man in black running up to show you a Dulux paint swatch appropriate to how naughty you just were. No, no, you just lie there trying to not to scream; swear and cry all at the same time.

You crawl through thorn infested terrain; sprint up 2 storey hills; dive into ditches. All this wearing an assault vest that weighs anywhere between 10 and 15 kilograms.

There are no rewards; no sponsorship deals; no screaming female groupies wanting to bear your loin rats. Your angry purple bruises; broken skin and blood are the only medals you’re allowed. And you wear them with pride.

Hey, its better than being group-groped any day!

We usually play with a great bunch of cops and their friends. And it was a REALLY bad day for my group. We got our asses shot off. I also took 3 rounds directly to an area of my head that wasn’t protected by my helmet.

As groin shakingly fun as today was, we had to say a sad farewell to Lawrence. Lawrence is a good friend of Travis, Damian’s little brother. An excellent artist and IT professional, Lawrence is going to England soon and has kindly designed our Bushball Unit patch. It’s a modernised version of the vintage pin-ups that appeared on WW2 bomber fuselages. Modern aircraft are still decorated with “good luck” pin-up girls, so its only fitting that our team, the “Warboys”, gets a patch made in a similar vein (Damian wanted to call us the “A.T.F.” I thought it stood for “Asian Task Force”. He thought it stood for “Ass, Tities and Fucking”). I’ve seen the preliminary sketches and from what I’ve seen it’s going to be awesome.

In a fit of perverted irony the Triads insisted that Lawrence take a photo with them before they sent him down into “the Briny Deep” (pictured in the background)

Good luck Lawrence, take care and remember a sage piece of advice I found in a fortune cookie once: “There is no such thing as a free blowjob”.

Ps. He has cut his hair. Apparently he was a bit miffed that no-one noticed this. Well now the whole world knows!! Prepare to be stalked….