Raison d’etre

I joined the army as an alternative to even darker routes (I couldn’t join a sailing voyage as men did in the past – the sea was blocked). Everything was done and tired; the pleasures were either in the crispy volumes of the digital archives* or in the east, where a war was taking place along with non-stop technological advancement in the field of killing devices. And so I went – and found a sense of being and belonging.

The military involved in the actual warfare, its main and near only purpose, turned out to be an important distinction between the people with a fighting spirit and the meek careerists with big mouths and no guts — the ones who joined the ranks solely for the rankings, status, or career. But none of that was important to me. It still isn’t. I only love her; I purely love my land.

I would die for her! We later made it official through swears and stamps. The latter were from an office of a promising unit (my actual team and the commandment): they had money, good reputation and the same values. So I said yes.

There was an only if: I was to take the basic military training in a terrible institution of a bureaucratically kafkaesque nature. if the phones were taken away (and the real samurai actually do go through it like that), you couldn’t tell if it was soviet union or now. The degraded old men in charge enjoyed it — they had nothing else in life. Everyone else despised it. Curiously, everyone also agrees that it makes a good training for both body and spirit. And now the worst months of my life are already over and I lived through it to tell it, although it is too tiring to even think about.

* these are still no less alluring and provide the best quiet solace, along with the cats.