Needle phobia or fear of scary buddies?

I am pretty nervous about this coming week in camp.

Not only have they arranged for the close combat grading test to be this Thursday, they have also plonked us in the middle of a basic medic course. The highlights of the course includes poking intraveneous cathers into one's buddy, a skill which will be tested on (incidentally) Thursday!

I have not yet started on the actual poking lessons yet, but everyone is jittery about the whole thing. The senior medic who is conducting the course gave us a briefing last Friday, and he gave us a frightening demonstration of the actual poking on a guinea pig...

The poor guy was too frightened by the needle (well, it is VERY long!), and he thrashed about as the medic was inserting the cather. We ended up with blood all over the lecture room. In fact, the scene was not unlike that of a murder case. A few of my platoon mates nearly fainted at the sight of blood, while a few giggled. My guess was that they were trying to pretend that they are evil, to scare their buddies before the actual poking session tomorrow and on Thursday...

My buddy has assured me that he would try his best to target my vein (which would be a LOT less painful than if he were to poke it inside a muscle...), but failing which he would navigate the needle into the target... (I cringed at that, and he laughed his evil laughter.)

And in case you were wondering, it seems that all the guys here enjoy playing mind games with each other...