Tomcat's Army Report
Epilogue
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What did you expect? Every story has an epilogue. In this case it's about the
happenings after our demobilization.
Unfortunately, Company 31/A got in a way worse situation later. Sergeant-Major Racz had been kicked from the course he attended, he had failed in six out of seven subjects, and he returned to the unit in December. He had been taken to court for abuse of superiority. You can imagine this great man together with Lieutenant Mihalyi as company commander. Besides, the May guys received a new, freshly graduated officer, Lieutenant Boross, who really found his new stars awesome, and always found ruining others' day funny. Needless to say, he and Racz soon became good friends. I visited the ex-baldies in January. That was not the regular kind of visitation, but a kind of dog house visit, climbing the fence in the night. The May was very-very old that time. Hard to believe, but this base was able to further deprove. There was even less discipline than in our days. For example, the guard duty was not simply functionally unable to perform any defense for the base, but it practically didn't exist. The common method was that the guard commander sent one baldie to each of the towers, whom they replaced only the next morning, and they rotted there for 24 hours. Anyway, they had the liberty not to rot there, as oldies let them leave the tower back, along with the weapons, and go wherever they wanted, to the town, to the pub, anywhere. The guys told that they had some duties when they only had the commander, two shift leaders and two baldies in the guard room, and that was all, no one in the towers, everybody was out in town. When the officer on duty went to check, they phoned the quarters and asked the internal serviceman to quickly send his subsidiary to the tower. The subsidiary rushed there, picked the gun up, reported the officer, then went back. They also told stories. Well, perhaps it's enough that we, the February bunch, in fact had never done anything... Sure, even our party made 2600 liters of petrol disappear, but during the night, in secrecy, while the May folks simply walked to the vehicle depot in bright daylight, filled their cans before the very eyes of the depot guard, and simply walked away. There was a case when they pissed Racz. The little prick had a headache, asked everyone if he had an aspirin. One of the guys gave him Darmoline, saying that he'd better take two pills if the pain was strong, but only after meals. Later Racz was transported to hospital, because he developed a serious diarrhea, and his head still pained. Yes, Darmolin is a very strong laxative, even half a pill washes the bowels clean. Captain Toth kept being a dumbass. Once it happened that the lock of the steel door at the back of the guard room got damaged, and it couldn't be closed any more. In fact it was a shift leader who kicked it open, because he got bored of always running around the building when going out with the patrol. Captain Toth checked the door and said:
- Why isn't it closed?
The guard commander, after overstepping the shock, explained to him that he had very little experience in nailing 3 centimeter thick steel doors. Captain Toth thought a bit and answered: - Right, then come to my office after your duty. I will give you some special nails! So, things were going on. I slept in my old bed that night, we talked a lot with the guys, and I also went with them to have breakfast. They gave me a uniform, which I tried to put on according to the regulations, but they just waved hands: no one cared about uniforms here, they even brought whores in by simply putting a coat and a cap on them. Once they brought one with long, blond hair, which was visible from miles, but when she walked past the officer in duty, he didn't care. So, I put on the uniform irregularly. The cooks recognized me. The spoon halted in their hands.
- What are you doing here?
Sergeant-major Csoszi's face was similarly shocked when he saw me.
- Erm... Polgar? What are you doing here?
Yes, I was: I'd never seen uglier food before, but I ate it. Anyway, the May guys were also building funny faces, when I stood up to take my tray to the kitchen window. As they spotted me, the restaurant suddenly became silent, and just some whisperings were audible:
- Isn't it that February guy from 31/A...
Yes, the guys still remembered me. Also the officers. They told that Major Frankovics mentioned my name every day, during the morning guard briefing, as a bad example of handling the weapon. Only Major Brody inserted sometimes that I wasn't a bad soldier anyway. Well, really not... tomcat^grm |