From: Lubosh <Lubosh.Hanuska@anu.edu.au>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Subject: Quo Vadis ? #11
Date: 18 Nov 1992 02:17:53 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
Distribution: world
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X-XXDate: Wed, 18 Nov 92 21:18:01 GMT

Unforgettable

Well, I have to say I have skipped one thing - the unforgettable military
service. It might have lost its charm, since the cold war is basically
over, but there is a lot I want to to tell you about. When studying at
the uni one could "choose" (only fools and Jehovah's witnesses [ but they
were never admitted to a uni ] did not) to do the basic training in an
army reserve specifically for university students... Everyone who
completed the training had to do only half of the compulsory service
after leaving the university, and it was a great advantage. Of course
everybody did hate it, but it was only one day a week, so it was
"surviveable" (I hope this is understandable :-)... I think without at
least something like that nobody can really understand things like
"Police Academy". Of course, we had a bunch of absolutely brainwashed
officers (most of them used to help it themselves) with very strong loud
voices, and intellect of frozen chicken (there were a few exceptions, but
one shouldn't have trusted them - they could just be pretending). Our
average training consisted of coming in time to get ready for the morning
march at 6 AM, then spending the whole day in uniforms - the catch was
that those for indoor training were a bit uncomfy, and those for outdoor
training were very good, but we didn't have a chance to enjoy it since
the outdoor training used to be pretty horrible. We had about half of the
time in the barracks, drilling stupid movements like marching, or chewing
through the theories most of which were absolutely incompatible with the
theorems we studied in logic... The other half was outdoors, which I
sometimes enjoyed, because it sometimes saved me a time I would otherwise
spend sweating in the gym. However, I didn't like things like "digging
in", especially not in the winter time when one got quickly wet in the
snow, and then had to come over the frozen soil... But I have to say one
thing - I have NEVER EVER  had so many reasons to laugh, and we used to
spend whole days to telling what we happened in the military to the girls
at the college. And the girls I was studying with were just great - on
the day of our military training (it was Wednesday) they used to cook for
us something very good, wash our dirty uniforms (what an oportunity for a
good deed), and then we had to tell them what happened (there were no
military secrets among us) during the day. We really had a good time, and
a lot of fun, I think they even envied us the shooting. Well, shooting is
a lot of fun, I have to admit, when it's shooting ONLY for shooting.
Plastic explosives are also fun (but don't play with them at home),
throwing handgrenades makes people to go beyond their limits, and the
best car I have ever driven undoubtly was the OT personal carrier with
eight wheel drive and a huge 16 L TATRA engine ! But when the real
military service came after I finished the university, it wasn't that
funny at all... Those people probably really thought if the NATO armies
would be within our gun range, and my brother-in-law would be in the RDA
(Royal Danish Army, isn't it :-) uniform, I wouldn't have any doubt to
shoot at him !!! Anyway, you'll get more about it next time.

May the Lord let you feel His presence today wherever you are !
Lubosh
+ !           "We write this in order that our joy may be complete." 1
John 1,4