The Soldier

In the context of 2024, it's vital to understand how drastically things have changed. Actions that might land you in jail today were often shrugged off back in the 80s.

I was just a young lad in boarding school, a place overseen by a boarding house master who was nothing short of a legend. Allegedly, he was a priest, a doctor, a drunk, and a womanizer. He certainly wasn't running the establishment parents thought they were paying for. The boys in "Lord of the Flies" could have learned a thing or two about chaos from us. We were around 110 boys, running wild, and that was the beauty of it.

This story is about "The Soldier." I remember being 14 when my friend Billy and I ventured to Brazilian Video, or whatever it was called, to pick out some movies. We selected a few appropriate for the little kids, a couple for everyone, and one R+ movie that no one was supposed to know about. That movie was "The Soldier."

The movie opened with a bang: a terrorist driving his car straight over a lady with a pram, which, fortunately, was filled with cans. It was a soldier-type story, both light and confronting. The soldier went on to eliminate all the bad guys. In one memorable scene, he enters a house, sits at an office desk, takes a lamp, pulls out the light, uses a blowtorch to heat up the side of the light, injects some fuel—maybe petrol—into the molten glass, tapes it up, screws it back in, and walks away. Later, the bad guy sits down, turns on the light, and—goodnight, said the fox.

Imagine what a group of 14-year-olds thought upon seeing that! Later that day, we went shopping for light bulbs, syringes, a jerrycan full of petrol, and some masking tape. A few of us merry lads headed to the grade eight dorm, which had 14 beds and a row of lights along the top. We heated the light bulbs, injected petrol into them, taped them up, and replaced the current bulbs with our modified ones.

Our primary concerns were testing it without getting hurt, not getting caught, and witnessing the full explosive experience. As evening approached, we headed to the caravan park near the boarding house, from where we could see the upstairs rooms. The lights were all set, and one guy (initials B) just had to flick the switch.

Boom! Not a loud sound, but a massive blinding flash, like a sunburst, filled the dorm. Flames shot out the windows, and it was over in a second. Shards of glass were found in our beds, clothes, and socks for weeks afterward. No light bulbs were left, only very little noise, and lots of cheering from us dickheads in the caravan park.

All that followed was a little cleanup, and no one was ever the wiser.

Until today.