Tomcat's Army Report

Preamble
(for the original version)

I don't know who of you has been a soldier; those of you who were, you should really know what the Hungarian Home Guard is. Basically, there are all kinds of people in the army, intelligent, less intelligent, hopelessly stupid, tyrannical, introverted, respectful and creepy ones. This interesting mixture of people is locked together for nine months, having to live in each others' company, rounded with weapons and military equipment, sometimes among inhuman conditions, all this while everybody blows it off. And this can lead to weird results. So weird things can happen in a military base that no civilian can even imagine. There will be many such stories on the forthcoming pages, but don't think these are fake: these are true stories, even if they are hard to believe in the world you're living in. The army is different, and can change a man completely. There will be strange words in this report. These are partly known words in civilian life, like "baldie" (rookie soldier), "scuttler" (military boots) or "sniffbag" (bag of the gas mask), but there will be words perhaps never heard, like "to vomit for someone" (shout with someone), "being patient" (doing everything precisely, according to the rules). These words are collected in a mini-dictionary at the end of the report. Other words are collected in another dictionary, which are valid words for the military, like "internal service", "sub-unit", "MDW", etc. Right here in the preamble, I would like to correct some common views regarding the army. 1. The army service is something hard, the training is inhuman, it's not for normal people. This is not true. There are no sergeants shouting orders, like in American war movies, there are no nighttime alarms, and most soldiers neither ever see the obstacle course, nor the jail. The army is simply not hard; it is some kind of holiday, a good party, worth it to join. It's not true that the soldier must not go home at all for nine months. There is no base where one cannot go home at least twice a month. 2. The army teaches drills and masculinity. Now this isn't true either. It's false that everyone will start smoking and drinking in there, and it's also not true that everyone will leave the service as a criminal. No one takes care of everything in fact, there is nothing like personality forming forces. But you can grow fat. 3. Nine months is a horribly long time; one cannot take that. But yes, one can take that. Only the few first weeks are hard. 4. The old soldiers usually give rookies a hard time, they practically torture them all the time. This is true, but you needn't permit them to do so. They don't have a right for this, and officers can really get upset when hearing so. And now let's start the show... tomcat^grm