6th July 2004

When I was in kindergarten or first grade, my mum signed me up for a day care camp in my town. We would go at around 7 or 8 in the morning, and be at this one big park until 1 in the afternoon. Groups contained either boys or girls, and we all were within a year of each other. The segregated genders led to some amazing water battles later on. My first year was kind of boring, but in the second year we began to ignore the counsellors. I worked with the other kids to try and climb into a tree in our site, using a supply of rope nearby. We almost succeeded, but the counsellors made us cut the lines. The summer camp projects had begun.

In 1997, the group tried building a dam on a brook in the park. One of the other groups tried to undermine our effort with water balloon attacks and physical sabotage of the construction. In order to keep the dam project safe, we organised the whole crew into a militia. A regular group was around 20-25 people, and 3-4 counsellors to keep things under control. As a group, we spent the summer working on the dam and fighting off the enemy attacks with water balloons and the occasional super soaker. Camp policy said we couldn't have these water battles. We also couldn't go in the brook, or nearby woods. Not that we listened...

Later that year, at an annual carnival, a battle broke out between the guys and girls using shaving cream and water balloons. I enjoyed that year so much that I still think about that and the subsequent years every summer. I enjoyed the excitement of battle and the feeling of doing something worthwhile from the construction projects.

The next year was much the same - we restarted the damming project, rearmed and battled almost all year through. The administration was concentrated into a few people who were good friends, but they didn't treat the rest of the group very well. I was part of the original initiative behind the dams, so I was allowed to manage the project. Towards the end of the year, we had a civil war over respectful treatment. I personally feel that you should never profit from something you don't work for, and I refused to tolerate the ill treatment of the other people who were working so hard on this. I won the relatively short war, but the counsellors ended our work on the project when one of the other campers took a bath in the brook.

In 1999, we changed over from damming to fort building. Using a small area near the brook, we built a fort with walls, a trail network for supplies, a roof, seats (we even found an old reclining chair and brought it inside) , and at one point we even had a fire pit. We had to be more vigilant than with the dams, because both the camp administrators and other campers would tear it down. this time, the counsellors set up the administration. No one could be forced out, and everyone had to discuss ideas and changes together, even though the counsellors would be in charge of actual decisions.

Towards the end of camp, the fort was torn down but we never really found out who by. I wanted to rebuild, but a hurricane struck in September of 2000, and when we got back to camp the next summer the land had been significantly altered. I worked with some of the other guys to build a second fort, but we couldn't get the rest of the group interested. That was my last year at camp, and in the final month there were daily battles between different groups and different genders, but I personally felt we were missing something. I wanted both water wars and the construction projects we fought to defend.

The girls used to go to the bathroom around lunchtime everyday. Once a bunch of them were inside, the de facto leader, Mike, would get a bunch of guys in place outside the door. Whenever the girls would open it, we'd lob a few waterballoons inside. We could pin them in there almost all day, even though the camp administrators tried to stop it. The boys and girls bathrooms were in the same building, and it had a cathedral ceiling. the wall dividing the two only went up 7ft or so, so we would lob waterballoons over into their half at the same time. The girls were NOT HAPPY, let me say... Anyway, the next year I was too old for camp. I wanted to do the kind of meaningful construction I'd done at camp, and that led to Judea.

Some of the guys from Aquatica might remember Judea. it was formed in late 1999, and was my attempt to keep the kind of things we'd done at camp going in my neighbourhood. Judea was a failure, however. I couldn't get enough interest, and I was so busy with our enemy counterpart, Alexandria, and my younger brother's attempts to undermine my efforts.

Judea didn't really accomplish its goal. There was a brief period of success in the summer of 2000, but it fell through that fall because of administration issues. I worked on one idea, though, that caused the success of Waterbridge in June 2002. I wanted to make a whole culture, where we (the members) did what we would do in society when we were older, only on our own, without adult help OR supervision. I felt that we needed a city or fort, like I'd experienced in camp. Between 1999 and 2001, I tried countless times to establish and maintain a fort somewhere in parks near my house.

Finally, in June, 2002, I was at Guderian's house. I'd heard him mention living near the brook, the same brook I had had so many great times near further upstream. We took a walk down to the brook, and through a small strip of forested land along the west bank. I decided that it would be where the city would be built, the city that would restore the kind of construction projects and wars I'd enjoyed so much. I named it First Settlement.

That June, I began getting people interested and working out ideas and plans for the settlement. Guderian and I explored areas farther back from the brook, and worked on a simple HQ and the Telos-Groven Complex.

I felt that a military component was important for security and growth. During June and July I considered everything from hand to hand combat supported by waterguns to paintballs. I found and spent a lot of time on Hydrowar, m4's amazing site and my new gateway to the soakage world. I registered in Aquatica in July, and worked on a battle manual.

Waterbridge's first war was in August of 2002. Called the Judean Civil War, the war story was only ever on Hydrowar, and now we no longer know what day it was on or have the record of what happened (although memory tells us a lot). A 2v2, most of the war was spent wandering around. Still, everyone had a significantly good enough time that Guderian and I continued to work on Waterbridge and had a successful war in June 03. I launched a website in June 2003 for Waterbridge and a Proboards forum soon followed, now somewhat disused.

The end of Aquatica began a disinterest in other soakers. I got tired of the constant stream of issues facing Aquatica's 2nd generation, and I didn't really like WWN too much. I joined SSC in January 2004, and I'm still really only active in the war section. Recently, I've been spending more time at websites, trying to help link my team back into the network.

Waterbridge had its second war in 2003, a 4v4 that was a definite success. The 3rd war that August was a mess, owing to physical violence between a new member and the older members. I missed that war, but for the next 3 days I seriously doubted Waterbridge's future. Heads cooled off, though, and we threw out the aggressive newbie.

That brings me to last autumn, when I entered 9th grade. Guderian went to a different school, along with several other members. We stayed in touch over the winter using the forum, but by May there were issues communicating and the 4th war this June was more of a series of skirmishes. A new group, the Crescent Forest Militia (CFM) began this year and we will hopefully battle with them in August or later in July.

I want to get more construction projects going on in Waterbridge. I'm very excited about the skirmishes and wars, and I have finally managed to use tactics in battle. Flanking has become important, and the new members are learning what to do. This season will probably be the best ever, with at least 3 more to come. Even with the recent end to WWN, water warfare is growing. I can't wait until my next skirmish, another chance to do what I love: soak.