An anniversary of sorts
Sep. 9th, 2006 01:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaToday a year ago I was released from active service.
A year ago today I stopped being a soldier.
Amazing how the thought patterns remain the same and how different they are from my way of thinking before I was drafted.
It could come down to the fact that at 18 I was a silly teenager who had never been away from home and had never done anything remotely resembling independent action and thought.
How quickly these little things change.
Tomorrow it will be three years since I'd entered the Army, and one (at least I) feel uncomfortable with remembering these dates, because in the long run it's not theses dates that mean anything, especially now that all the benefits *snort* I received as a released soldier are now void and I am now just another citizen/civilian (אזרחית מן המיניין) I can see how the army has changed me, because despite all the horribleness, depression, insecurity and despair; it was also probably the best time of my life up until now.
I have yet to feel at home anywhere as I did in the rec-rooms during lunch time where I had my mid-day meal and coffee with the people who are now my closest friends (you know who you are :).
I also realised that I have this ability to do whatever the hell I want and that as long as the paper-work is given in at some point and that nothing was "on the record" I can do what I like, so for a yeah and a half I worked as a soldier in the Unit I am now reserved in, but I was registered in a Unit whose correspondence with the Unit I actually served was close to nil.
I even brought forth the cancellation of a job in that Unit, because it just wasn't manned.
I have saved future soldiers from a job that would turn their brains into much and make them lax in their everyday lives.
Go me!
I also developed an unwavering cynical view on life, because really, you can't do anything in the army unless you devalue your interaction with people, because they absolutely suck! I did lots of things in the army I'm proud of (it's all hush-hush, since I'm paranoid) and none of it had to do with the people I served with, yeah some of them were nice, most of them should be boiled in hot oil and left to steep underground so that the smell of their flesh permeates all the computer wires and that the soul eaters in the depths of the bunker devours them!
Yeah, I'm a little bit bitter.
But not much.
Really.
Whatever.
So I'm a cynical opportunistic bitcah, I'm lucky I wasn't crushed by the multitude of egomania prevalent in Air Force Intelligence!
You can go both ways in the army, you either embrace militaristic and paternalistic thought processes and go out believing that all Arabs should die.
Or you can end up like me; I ended up a humanist feminist radical (Not to mention Queer, but that's just me).
A third option of course is to remain indifferent as the day you went in, which is probably healthier for you in the long run, but makes for boring conversation :)
A year ago today I stopped being a soldier.
Amazing how the thought patterns remain the same and how different they are from my way of thinking before I was drafted.
It could come down to the fact that at 18 I was a silly teenager who had never been away from home and had never done anything remotely resembling independent action and thought.
How quickly these little things change.
Tomorrow it will be three years since I'd entered the Army, and one (at least I) feel uncomfortable with remembering these dates, because in the long run it's not theses dates that mean anything, especially now that all the benefits *snort* I received as a released soldier are now void and I am now just another citizen/civilian (אזרחית מן המיניין) I can see how the army has changed me, because despite all the horribleness, depression, insecurity and despair; it was also probably the best time of my life up until now.
I have yet to feel at home anywhere as I did in the rec-rooms during lunch time where I had my mid-day meal and coffee with the people who are now my closest friends (you know who you are :).
I also realised that I have this ability to do whatever the hell I want and that as long as the paper-work is given in at some point and that nothing was "on the record" I can do what I like, so for a yeah and a half I worked as a soldier in the Unit I am now reserved in, but I was registered in a Unit whose correspondence with the Unit I actually served was close to nil.
I even brought forth the cancellation of a job in that Unit, because it just wasn't manned.
I have saved future soldiers from a job that would turn their brains into much and make them lax in their everyday lives.
Go me!
I also developed an unwavering cynical view on life, because really, you can't do anything in the army unless you devalue your interaction with people, because they absolutely suck! I did lots of things in the army I'm proud of (it's all hush-hush, since I'm paranoid) and none of it had to do with the people I served with, yeah some of them were nice, most of them should be boiled in hot oil and left to steep underground so that the smell of their flesh permeates all the computer wires and that the soul eaters in the depths of the bunker devours them!
Yeah, I'm a little bit bitter.
But not much.
Really.
Whatever.
So I'm a cynical opportunistic bitcah, I'm lucky I wasn't crushed by the multitude of egomania prevalent in Air Force Intelligence!
You can go both ways in the army, you either embrace militaristic and paternalistic thought processes and go out believing that all Arabs should die.
Or you can end up like me; I ended up a humanist feminist radical (Not to mention Queer, but that's just me).
A third option of course is to remain indifferent as the day you went in, which is probably healthier for you in the long run, but makes for boring conversation :)
