Wednesday, 08 April 2009

• Currently Back to Mine By MJ Cole see related

  Army: a life’s experience or a prison of the mind?

  I am serving in my country’s military force for 5 months now and having served more than half of my time I think it’s time for me to review this -insert adjective- institution that my country’s constitution obligated me to join, even for a small amount of time. The taste I got so far can be described as bittersweet, with the scale favoring the bitter half.

  Through my experience of serving in three different camps I cant help but think today’s army is ultimately pointless. I started off with six weeks of "training". I was trained on how to:

  ·         March

  ·         Salute

  ·         Hold, use and clean an automatic rifle

  ·         Dig a ditch

  ·         Throw a grenade (a fake one of course)

  ·         Use a compass (Whoa!!)

  ·         How to establish and guard a perimeter

  ·         And some more useless stuff that were only theoretical, hence I could read them in a book..

  I thought that when I transferred to my new camp I would learn more on tactics, formation, new weapons etc, or at least exercise on a frequent basis to be fit. No one wants soldiers than are overweight and unfit, right? But no! We spent one month doing guarding shifts, almost every day. While not guarding the camp we were sweeping everything that had four walls around it, cleaning toilets and common places, and make sure that our boots were buffed and our beds are made. We also shot our weapons once on the firing range. You can tell me that if I wanted some training and more action I should join the marines. And you would be more than right. Thing is that I was put on the supplying unit of the army, which has as a primary objective to supply other unit with what they need. Nevertheless it’s still an army unit and should at least keep us alert somehow. It was the most boring month ever!

  And to top that I was sent to a military -wait for it!- super market! I mean what the hell?? A super market? I was in khakis giving cheese and ham to old ladies! How’s that for humiliation? I am really embarrassed writing this. They said from my old camp that they wanted to send a reliable person that would be a living display of the camp’s status. I spent two months there working like a slave, lifting tons of products and sort them in the market, cleaning inch by inch. And our superiors were only around to check if we were doing our job correctly, making us re-clean or redo our jobs if they were unsatisfied. In their defense, the manager was really strict about hygiene. To be honest those circumstances can be experienced in the outside world as well, so I know I sound a bit dramatic. But the transition from a chemistry laboratory to scrubbing toilets is something I didn’t have in mind.

  The thing that bothered me the most is that we got sucked into a micro society that the only thing that mattered was the guarding shift time schedule. I am not exaggerating on this. Every single day of a whole month was like a tape put on repeat. We did the exact same things every day. Get up, clean up, shave, guard the camp, eat, clean up some more, guard the camp a bit more, eat again and sleep. We got orders from people that are at least incompetent. All they wanted is all responsibilities taken away from them, so that at every screw up some of us could take the blame. Our voice couldn’t be heard since we were the weakest link on the chain, since we "didn’t know anything and we shouldn’t interfere". They demote us so bad that at some point you may think that you are stupid or useless. And those were the times that I felt imprisoned, not only as a human but as a mind and a soul.

  The thing I don’t regret about army is that I got to meet really good people. Male bonding is weird I know, but no women unfortunately. Don’t get me wrong. In a crowd of 200 people from which the majority was 18-20 year old kids, that were mostly annoying, I clicked with six people; three from the camp with the super market, and three from my second camp. I know that I will continue to hang out with them after army. Despite the dirty barracks, the awful food, and the superiors we still get to have fun and talk about things outside army, keeping our mental status near to healthy. Despite all the bad situations that we experienced, we kept helping each other not to freak out, hence the sweet part of my army days.

  I got a lot more to write but it’s getting into really long post so I might write a part two in the future.

  Private Con over and out  

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