Game: Kilsbergsbataljen #8 - Civil War-Style
Location: Stråssa, Sweden
SPbTV Member: Benny
Date: 2010

Paintballing the World, a Personal History: Part 1, Frugal Beginnings.

This is dedicated to my entire paintball family... 
to my brother Josh who has been through the absolute best and worsts with me... 


and, of course, to Quacks, who broke my balls relentlessly and has waited patiently for me to get back to writing this. Enjoy it... you ****. 

<3 you guys. Except for Scooch. That guy with the white shirt up front. He's a tool. :P

I started this documentation of my paintball history 2 years ago. Life got in the way and I stopped about a year and a half ago. Ill be posting it in parts and completing the rest of it over the course of 2013. My goal is to have an article about each major scenario event I've ever attended and what I learned from the people I met and the way the game played out. Enjoy a double feature. Parts 1 & 2 coming today. 

I confess I do not read every paintball magazine or worry about every piece of gear I carry. I do not follow TechPb and while I used to post on the nation, since moving to Europe I have become less and less involved in forums.  Nor do I much care for new gear. Most of the times when people wax poetic about what new part they have or new gun made by so-and-so, I have very little idea what they are talking about. This is not to be a disservice to them. They are passionate. And I respect that passion. But my passion does not lie in the guns or the gear, in the wardrobe, the whose-who, the latest upgrade, the newest air system, the latest brand. My passion lies on the field. When you put on that mask you are simply what you do on the field. At least you should be. That is rapidly becoming not the case, and we will build to that... to the state of paintball today (2013), but to get there we have to go back.

Part 1. 

Circa 2002.

Paintball began for me in a dusty junkyard in Altona, NY. A few short miles from the Canadian border. I don't know how old I was. My friend Sean had a birthday party. So maybe 9 of us trucked up there, rented gear, and played.... it was your typical first time games. A shootout in a little town of makeshift houses. An intense defend-the-fort game. A skirmish in a junkyard. We went home bleeding and bruised.... and after that we were hooked.

My cousin got arrested because an occupant of his car had shot a biker with a paintball gun. The biker had gotten the plate number and my cousin took the rap. 

So my parents were not at first enthusiastic about me playing, let alone owning my own gear.

So I fell back upon that age-old tactic of pitting one parent against another. I took my dad to Tigerstripe Paintball, in Keeseville, NY, for Father's Day. Father's play for free. He loved it. He thought it was important that young men learn to shoot, learn to hide in the woods. He loves the woods. He loves surviving things. It was right up his alley. I got him to frame paintball the same way in his mind. So after about a year, I convinced him to convince Mother to let me buy my own marker. Of course, Mother had rules. Mainly that I could not spend any money garnered from X-mas or birthdays on paintball. I would need to mow lawns, do chores, save. I would need to learn to be frugal. And I would need to learn how to earn it. Earn my fix. It took me a long time to save enough cash. $5 bucks for mowing the lawn won't buy you a pod-pack, let alone a marker. When I finally saved up enough, I bought my first marker....

A brass-eagle Samurai.

BOOYAH MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!! 

It never worked. Ever. Not. One. shot. I took it out to some rogue-ball with some friends, gassed it up, cocked it and pulled the trigger. It sputtered to death and could not be resuscitated. Ever. My friends lent me a Talon, the most ghetto of all brass eagle markers, for the day. I had to take the Samurai back to Wal-Mart and save up AGAIN.... This time I upgraded. I mean I went allll out and bought me the old, the reliable, the Brass Eagle Stingray.

I loved that gun. The all plastic body with a metal bolt. It had recoil. It went CLANK CLANK CLANK when you fired it. I loved that thing. I tricked it out with a home-made bi-pod. I covered it in camo tape. I painted its blue plastic with gray and green and black spray paint.  I taped the cheap p.o.s. hopper together after it took a round and cracked in half. I kept that gun alive. It looked like shit. But I made it work. And I loved it. 

We played rogue ball. A LOT of rogue ball. In the field behind Tim's house. In the woods at Morgan’s. Then Rubin's dad gave us an acre of their forest to use for a real field. Caleb and I dug trenches. I don't mean little wholes. I mean 5 feet deep, 3 feet wide, 8 feet x 6 L trenches and roofed them over like it was Bastogne.The rest of the boys built bunkers out of scrapwood and fallen trees. Rubin's dad used a skidder and churned up some huge berms of dirt for us. It was a great rogue field but I’ve played on worse ‘official’ fields. It was half a mile back into their lands, forests they used for logging. There were no other people for miles. It was perfect. We'd buy 200-300 rounds of Sheridans and go to town on each other for an afternoon. There are stories. Many stories....

Morgan and I played ‘manhunt’ ... 2 v 8. I hid 20 feet up in a tree and he held them off on the road and while they focused on him I shot them in the back from above. We got all but one. My brother Josh betrayed me when I pegged him in the chest from the tree. He looked up and saw me and yelled and the last guy opened up on me with everything he had.... and then Josh and I tried again and we took out all 8 players as they tried to hunt us down, nearly running Josh over with a 4-wheeler in the process.... the last player running down the road to find cover and Josh calmly taking a knee and putting one squarely between his shoulder blades.... And Custer's Last Stand when one team had 5 minutes to build a 'fort' out of their bags and scrap in an open glade and then 2 indians with Semis got to run around in the woods and shoot them and if you were hit you couldn't leave and we used the bodies of people who were hit as cover and Morgan said he would be Custer and stood bravely with a Tshirt on a stick as a flag and was the first one shot and Cliff hid his whole body behind a green ammo can and Eli was screaming that he hated this and hated everyone and then nearly everyone was done and the Indians cleared over the backpacks and logs and finished us all off and it was glorious.... The battle in the snow in Morgan’s lower field where we dug a trench while the other team rolled giant snowball bunkers and Cliff buying the first 98C and changing the balance of power forever... he cut the snowball bunkers in half with that thing and we knew he was a god with that gun and it went on like that until we all had to upgrade.... Those were the good years. The start of the learning years.

And we dad to deal with Bill. Bill owned the closest thing to a paintball store in the area, besides Wal*Mart. It was pretty much a counter in the hallway between his house and his garage... which was about a half hour away, outside of town on a lonely strip of road. There was a plastic sign nailed the to the wooden garage that said Paintball. Or just a piece of plywood with Paintball spray-painted on it. You never knew. And when you went it, you stood on one side of the counter and asked for things and Bill rambled on about something from the other side. If you did this for 2 hours you might leave with what you wanted. Maybe. But probably not. And Rubin loved that guy... and Bill loved Rubin. Cause Rubin had a Spyder and loved to take it apart and he would lose pieces and we'd have to "Go to Bill's" which always took half a day and numbed your brain so you didn't want to play paintball, you just wanted to go home and rest in silence cause the whole thing felt queasy and unsafe...

We found Tigerstripe in Keeseville after about a year, but for awhile, Bill was it. Bill clearly had some mental issues. Not to demean the man, he had a good heart...  its just that some people are wired differently... His upstairs had different lights on. You could never just get your CO2 filled. He would keep you in his place for hours and hours and tell you how he invented tracer rounds for the M60 or won the Vietnam War or was NYS Wrestling Champion and invented the arm bar or had a black belt or... you get the idea.... And one time we went in and there was a hole in the ceiling from where he’d set off one of his CO2 tanks and it had launched itself through the drywall.... I shot Bill once. He said no one could ever shoot. And I did. I saw him and I waited in the bushes and I shot him so many times he had paintballs in the pockets of his Army jacket that he had used in Vietnam when he invented the tracer round and how to fire the M60 in bursts so the VC couldn't follow the tracers back to your MG...  and afterwards he said none of them broke. Not one. And that made me angry. Cause I had seen them break as I ducked for cover. But what could you do. He was nuts. It was cheap. And it was the only place we had.

Like this... except vertical... and in an enclosed space... about as big as your kitchen. 

I tell you this because it is why I do not care about the markers. About the newest gear. About rate of fire or high or low pressure. Or the latest pants or the newest mask. 
Or which team won the whatever in the wherever wearing all of whoevers clothing.

I don’t care because I never cared. 
Because I was in a bubble in a remote small town where they didn’t have paintball magazines or news of any kind. Where the only thing that mattered was getting enough cash to buy a tank fill and a few hundred rounds. 

When I started paintball I couldn't afford paint. Josh and I would walk the field after games and pick up rounds that weren't to dimpled or waterlogged. One day we went with 200 rounds to split between the two of us and came home with over 800. That was a big deal. We played another 3 days on those paintballs. Nowadays people buy 2-3 cases at an event like it is nothing. I still feel the sting. I still can afford a case... maybe. They quit the field when their pods run empty, where we used crawl desperately while enemies who heard our guns run out of ammo pelted the pushes around us, digging in the leaves for 2-3 rounds and then making them count... that was my youth. But I learned to play hard, to play smart. To make my precious 100 rounds count. So when people give me a pod or a bag or a case of paint... I treat it the same way I treated those lonely rounds I dug from forgotten bushes and absent-minded pod-spills on the field. Precious. And I do not care so much about the other aspects that people wax poetic about because it is a world I never knew. I could never buy a paintball magazine. That would be money I could save to buy paint... or field entrance... or a CO2 fill.

Dear Diary, JACKPOT!   

This frugality paid off though. I am deeply attached to the sport. Because I had to work. And earn every hour I spent on the field. It is why you rarely see me in the parking lot during a game. It is why I stay on the field after I run out of paint. It is why I leave it all on the field. Because that 35 dollars or 50 dollars I spent on registration is a precious 35 dollars.

But that too, is why I have had success. Because true reputation is built upon heart, not dollars. On action, not talk. On making do with what I do have, not posturing behind the latest fad.

This is not to condemn those who can afford the greater aspects of paintball. I bear them no ill will at all. In fact, I would say I am a little jealous and insecure around people who know so much more about the paintball world than I was ever privy too. I envy you, more than you will know, and someday, when I have a proper job, I will no doubt invest in better gear. But until then... I'll get by.

But now it is time for stories. Paintball is about stories. At the end of the day it is stories. Whether about you or the things you saw. I will recap the defining moments of paintball in the last few years. Because I realized this weekend, on that rainy uppsala field, that I am a completely different person on the field. I am happy. So happy. carefree. And not school, not love, not bad decisions, mistakes, regrets... NOTHING clings to BennyT when he dons his mask and the whistle blows.

On the field there is only Truth. The truth of what you do. And the truth of what you don't do. There is no past. Only the time between the start whistle and the end. Only the woods and the bunkers and the flying, buzzing, hissing world of threats. I thrive there. Because I am not afraid. Because I have grown from those rogue woodsball days into a tank hunter, a squad leader, even a generalship. Because there, in those brief moments, my character can be expressed without the justification of words, but by my actions, my spirit, my heart. And likewise the characters of those around come out as well. It is beautiful.

Part 2 coming soon. 

Pic of the Day, Feb 26

Full Album Available Here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.495646517134325.115459.116893811676266&type=3

Mid season mash up (by SilentSavage)

Game: Various
Location: Various
SPbTV Member: Silent Savage
Year: 2012

ASC Battle of Hoth 1 & 2

Game: Battle of Hoth
Location: Albany Scenario Paintball, NY
SPbTV Member: Tooch
Date: 2011

Veckring Part II

Game: EBG Veckring
Location: Veckring, France
SPbTV Member: BennyT
Year: 2010

Pic of the Day, Feb 18th

Full album here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.497722703593373.115874.116893811676266&type=3

Angry Viking

Game: EBG Mahlwinkel
Location: Mahlwinkel, Germany
Filmed:  Mats Pettersson, BFP
Date: 2012

SPBTV BLOG REBOOT

So life gets busy and maintaining a blog can be a lot of work. But maintaining a blog is also a fun way to share our vast media library.  

SO thanks to scheduling, this blog is now set to release at least 1-2 videos and 1-2 pictures every week for the next three months.  I've combed through our youtube library and our albums on FB and set up release dates Vids will go out on Weds and Friday and the pics will go out whenever I damn-well feel like it!  


We will try to inject some interviews, writings and other more bloggy stuff in here, but we don't get paid to do this, so don't hold your breath for the "War and Peace" paintball novel.  

Enjoy the vids and pics, share em with your friends, and check out the albums, cause Jaime does AWESOME work behind the lens.

- Benny

Fear and Loathing in the 518, #14

"What were we chasing, out there on the dark, lonesome highways, coiling like snakes between the game and home? What were we looking for, out there, in between the darkness and the light, through bloodshot eyes, strained by caffeine, truck lights, and the odd spliff? We left behind strained careers, late papers and broken relationships, drove through the night to pour out all our rage in secluded forests, with and upon a thousand other escapees only to ache our weary ways back home, bleeding and bruised, to face monday and the eternity of nothingness that lay between this weekend... and the next."
 ~Fear & Loathing in the 518

Storming the Refinery

Game: Kilsbergsbataljen #8

Location: Stråssa, Sweden

SPbTV Member: Benny

Year: 2010

More vids available on youtube/spbtv