Hahahaha, great story man thanks for sharing! Military culture is so petty, you have to keep reminding yourself it isn't summer camp (and boy did anyone who forget get a wake-up call...)
Hahaha thanks man, I knew you'd like it. I was amazed by the sub-culture of the army. What was impressive was that the code was completely different from outside life, the "currency" was different. The "richest" person was the one who did the less. Sleep was the real currency, the more you slept (meaning you manage to escape doing things) the more you were "rich" and the others recognised and respected you.
I have 3 magic stories from the army, the one I told you already, it was the copy paste karma when I send the bastard to the camping. The second one was related with how the sub-culture is transmitted from generation to generation. Wonderful stuff.
The story started in my training camp, 2 months in freshman. If you were Machinery Operator in Engineering Corps 20 years ago, you had to go through a very hard specialized training, where the old soldiers had a real, established power on you, sometimes abusing like if you were special forces. The reason was that for all the specialities (except mine
) people would take a diploma with which they could find a job outside, i.e. bulldozer operator, etc.
Anyway, this was the environment and this additional training was the reason why I arrived in my unit the last in my class and became "professional guardian", etc.
One of our trainers was the D. a young bulldozer operator in the outside life that younger freshmen respected and feared a lot. In US you'd call him a redneck, or someone from the most remote village of Wisconsin, in Isreal I don't know the equivalence but you get the idea. I don't think he even had finished school.
Anyway, one day he took us to the doctor, like we are all 15 waiting outside waiting for our turn the doctor to see us. He was with us. Uncomfortable silence.
One of the most young (and fishy) persons of my class, then decided to break the silence and he asks D.
Fish: Mr. D can I ask you something? (Mister! What a fish he was ahahah)
D: Yes, what
Fish:
Does the time pass in the army? (What the fuck of a question is that hahahah?)
D: Time pass, the moment doesn't.
And I am. What the fuck! He is a fucking poet the guy! How the fuck this guy from the mountains came up with such a poetic phrase? My impression of that moment was IMMENSE and I kept this dialogue inside me for the rest of my term.
Fast fwd a few months. I have became the chief soldier, reigned supreme for a time in my main unit and it's now my time to be transferred to the last unit for the last 2 months from where I would take the release paper.
I am the last of my Class left in the camp, I have make the hand-over to the new Master of Universe, a "son" of mine and I am out in the town for the last coffee goodbye, mainly with grandsons as also most of the sons had too left.
It was a completely boring outing for most of part, we were looking at the people in the coffeeshop without talking too much. Silence. At some point one the younger ones turns to me and says:
Youngster: Mr. 5 can I ask you something?
No5: Sure, go on.
Youngster:
Does the time pass in the army?
Again. Word by word same question.
Apocalypse in my mind! A time tunnel that two moments months apart, connected in a way as if one moment just followed the other.
Then I knew. This beautiful phrase "Time pass, the moment doesn't" wasn't D's. He had listen it from somewhere, maybe even he had made that same question when he was young and received that answer.
This phrase could be 50 years old, preserved from mouth to mouth due to its beauty, from generation to generation living only in the sub-culture of the army, because there would be always one moment that some young would ask this question to an older who then would pass the torch to the next one and so on.
I felt in awe by that moment and without further explanation or analysis, being in the end of my journey I replied copy paste what I had heard when I was in the beginning of it.
No5: Time pass, the moment doesn't.
.)
