things to appreciate while in the army - Time...

It's 8 pm on a Friday evening. Having just finished my afternoon shift I am wandering around a deserted basketball court surrounded by parked cars. On one side the windows of the dorms where I am to spend half of the night (until my early morning shift starts at 3.30 am). Right opposite, a three-meter wall that separates ours (the General Military Hospital) from the one of the National Air Force. Facing westwards I can make out the sound of cars in the not so distant avenue and the fading lights of a city that is about to start the weekend. Then I turn and look towards the east. Just a few meters outside the wall, there lies the Institute of Biomedical Research of the Academy of Athens. A brand new building made out of a mix of robust yellowish bricks and grey double windows, a proud specimen of that arrogant architecture, reserved for newly-founded research institutes and post-modern bank mansions. Down here I am left with my solitary walk, trying to stretch a bit before my early night sleep, bound to be interrupted at 3 am. Up there, young (and perhaps some not so young) scientists are probably adding the final (and for some not so final) touches to today's experiments. And the fact that their lights are all lit at this time of day doesn't surprise me at all.

Less than a year ago, I was one of them, spending Friday evenings in the cosiness of my milky-lit office, trying to put stuff in order so as for my week not to appear completely lost. Less than a year ago, it looked like there was never enough time. Time for working things out, time for getting the calculations right, time for having a new brilliant idea that would change the course of a stagnating project, sometimes not even time for having a drink before going to bed. Less than a year ago, I hated my job (and I have some really angry posts dated from back then to prove it). Less than a year ago I was thinking of my military service as a way out from a way of life I thought I was fed up with.

But last night, while walking up and down that empty basketball court, listening to Explosions in the Sky's powerful medleys of appeasing and awe-inspiring melodies, the unthinkable happened. Suddenly, I wanted my old life back. Despite all the burdens of it, despite all the load that made me hate my job back then. Last night, I would gladly take off my uniform and join the people on the other side of the wall, take up their problems, read the papers they would hand me, allow their problems to bother my little mind. Despite of all the time they would be lacking, the stress and anxiety of getting things done before Monday's group meeting, I would gladly offer to take their place. I realized that all the things that seemed meaningless and boring, less than a year ago, had regained their old electric-like aura.

And I knew that because there, in the middle of that stupid basketball court, in that incredibly uncomfortable uniform, with "Explosions in the Sky" on my headphones and all that time on my hands, all I could think of doing, all I could do, was to take out my small pocket notepad and write down, single-handedly what appeared to be my next "brilliant" idea.

just breathe...

...or so it seems. Like you are just breathing.

Then you turn to look back and realize that six months have passed within a single breath. You feel like everything travels at the speed of light, while you are sitting still in the middle of a plain, left in ruins by a storm that grows distant. You find yourself banished, deserted in a world where all which makes sense belong to others, where time is harvested by everyone else except you. You are stranded in the place you really belong. This is your exile. And you just breathe. Life is what takes place in your absence.

You smell the air, trying to follow the path of your own breath. Desperately trying to comprehend the turning of the wind, to grasp what -you think- lies obscure and hidden, absurd in essence, only relatively pragmatic. You realize the passing of time with a sudden blow. You force yourself out of a comfortable limbo. This melody, played backwards, is the only thing real.
You ought to sing along.

"See the path cut by the moon...
for you to walk on...
See the waves on distant shores...
Awaiting your arrival."

things to appreciate while in the army - Breaking dawn

There is a number of responsibilities that one finds himself burdened with while in the army. Most would agree that those inferring sleep deprivation are the most tedious. It so happens that the great majority of what might prosaically be considered as "army duties" simply constitute of long meaningless hours of vigil.
To my content, the concept of such "army duties" (as well as more or less everything else) is greatly relaxed at my current unit. Staying guard is only loosely connected to the watchful national guards we were in Chios. And those that are to be vigilant guards inside the barracks -the so-called "room guards"- are nor guards in essence, neither vigilant, as I realized last night.

During my first on-call duty at the 401 General Military Hospital of Athens, I merely had to stay awake for a number of hours and make sure that during those hours my on-call colleagues would wake up on time for their shifts. This proved to be somehow chimerical for various reasons. One: nobody preceded (or succeeded) my shift, which resulted in my waking up accidentally five minutes before my shift started. Two: nobody really cared about being woken up so I actually had nothing to do apart from chatting with my friend Tassos, who was the one who woke me up (for having someone to talk to I guess).

Then Tassos left for his own shift (a useless patrol around the hospital) and so I found myself sitting at a lonely desk at 6.00 am with the company of a sadly boring book by Steven Pressfield, which instead of keeping me awake with its (assumed) engaging plot, brought about drowsiness in constant waves. To this my only escape was standing up, strolling up and down an empty, humid corridor until I eventually made it outside the building in the foggy dew-covered courtyard. There I saw it.

It was about 6.30 and a late autumn dawn was breaking above the Athenian skyline. It was nothing spectacular, given my position, surrounded by the tall buildings of the hospital, the time of the year and the rainy weather. It had little to do with vision and was more of something that appealed to the rest of one's senses. The smell of the soaking leaves on the wet soil, the sound of distant thunder and the chilling morning cold which I suffered with an inexplicable satisfaction in my summer uniform. I could not help thinking that it was not the dawn itself I was enjoying, but simply the approaching end of my shift, (which also suspicuously coincided with the beginning of a four-day leave). Still I tend to believe it was a mixture of all that, the sense that there are some brief moments (as all moments are) that one can only appreciate while being in the army, a series of little things that harm noone, while at the same time one would never bother doing.

Staying up all night and watching the dawn break, even a dull, urban dawn like today's is one of these little things.

coming back to life

It's official. I am back in Athens. From today on, I will be able to walk down alleys like this one whenever (or almost whenever) I want.

As my army gear and clothes are soaking in a bath-tub filled with scalding hot water, which aims at eliminating any trace of bed-bug I might have brought back as a souvenir from my stay at the barracks of the 96th Sanitary (?) Regiment, I take two days off to retrospect.

Has it been fun? No -freaking- way. Whatever people may tell you about missing the days in uniform (and whatever I might have been telling myself before getting there), being in the army is the exact opposite of fun. Even if you are lucky enough to enlist in the Sanitary (famous for bearing a "light" load of army-crap). Even if you are lucky enough to meet genuinely interesting people, of the kind you would -and will- be friends with outside the army. Even if you get to be on a Greek island during August and September.
It is still NOT fun at all. Simply because waking up at 5.45 at the yelling of some complete imbecile whose faint attempt to pronounce something remotely similar to speech barely makes it to "Wake up" is not fun. And with this I think I have summed up most of it.

Has it been worth it? Certainly not. There have been a large number of discussions about the necessity of the military service during some long night patrols in Chios. My colleagues -my poor colleagues whom I shamefully admit to have abandoned over there- would agree with me. There is nothing to be gained from army life after the age of 25 (at least). A mature, decent man with a minimal sense of responsibility already knows how to make his bed, be respectful to superiors, kind to women and responsible while doing his job. If we are to assume that the scope of the army is to deal with people who lack these qualities, there are a number of mental institutions that would be up to the task. If, on the other hand, the service aims at making one accustomed to the absurdity of the Greek public sector, its corruptive routine and its infamous drive towards the utmost forms of laziness then "Thanks, but no thanks!".

Would I do it again? You must be kidding me. I have a bit more than a hundred days left to suffer the stupidity of the uniform and deal with the scum of this country (the mentally retarded or/and lazy asses who choose to become inferior officers instead of getting a real job and a life). I am not exactly looking forward to it but I can assure you of one thing. As with all shit in life I can still take some fun out of it over the next 102 days. I can drive them crazy since they did not manage to drive me.

This is my last master-plan for the army to be put forward starting from tomorrow.

PS. This one goes out to my co-soldiers back in Chios. As they struggle with the our most painful responsibility towards the Greek Constitution, my thoughts cannot but be with them.

today

He remembered once when the grass was dump and she came to him on hurried feet, her thin slippers drenched with dew. She stood upon his shoes nestling close and held up her face, showing it like a book open at a page.
"Think how you love me", she whispered. "I don't ask of you to always love me like this, but I ask you to remember. Somewhere inside me there 'll always be the person I am to-night"

Francis Scott Fitzgerald
Tender is the night

vote till you drop

So it is then...

"Respect the Irish vote"

the problem is: Which one?

In the times of "Enforced Democracy" in which we live the only vote to be respected is the last one. That is the one that gives the "expected", "desired" outcome. The Irish were too stubborn not to ratify the Lisbon Treaty -the evolution of the [in]famous European Constitution- through a parlamentary vote. Instead they opted for a referendum which gave a clear "No" last June. (I also had a few words to say back then).

Too stubborn they were, but not stubborn enough. EU policy is "vote till you drop", meaning till you drop the case, your case, till you realize that what you have to say doesn't really matter. What really matters is that you appear to be voting (even if it is time and again), justifying the republican "ideals" of the union.

Whether the Lisbon Treaty is a "step forward" or a "historical mistake" is irrelevant. It is now clearer than ever that the Europeans need not have any worries about whether their choices prove to be the right ones.

Because they actually have none.

PS. Greece is holding a general election today. Isn't it sad to see how similar a feeling of vanity the whole process yields to us Greeks?

busy as a bee

Yes, work -or to put it nicer a great number of activities- is the reason behind the lack of posts. My coming back to Athens is going to be official soon (yeaaaah) and some things need to be taken care of. People also need to be taken care of, and good care that is. So they have been my priority over the last week and I intend to make it -the taking care of them, I mean- even more regular as soon as I am stationed back at my old spot: 401 Athens General Military Hospital.

In the meantime, the pre-election fever has forced me to be reading two papers a day (hard work), catching up with the news and giving a lot of thought into finally deciding what to vote next Sunday. (It's not a real dilemma, I am just considering a slight variation from my previous choices).

Getting back to everyday life in Athens, which means everyday life in Greece with all that comes with it has forced me (yes "forced" is the right term here) to start another, lighter blog of almost entirely greek content (and therefore of entirely greek posting and commentary). Greek readers are to be greatly discouraged from checking it out at
http://koympariomaxoi.blogspot.com
as they are bound to discredit everything they thought they knew about me.

Still I have to say that the aforementioned blog is one more reason for the lack of posts in this one, although I promise to try to keep up both at an equal pace.