O/T The immigrant notes

[Fig sign]

Part 6 Losers of the Soviet Army .

 

A little preface :

It took me long time to write this part .

May be because my behavior was not always the best here

Looking from the distance I feel only pity for them ,

but that days I sometimes hadn`t any .

My father said once "wolves are better then human :

A male wolf will never attack female ,cub or other male ,that begged for pardon .

All wolf can do is to kill.

They don`t know how to humiliate."

And when I told him after the army my army story ,he said :

"This would never happen ,when I served "...

Any Soviet Army unit was a closed male collective .

Some guys were serving thousands kilometers from home ,some were not

I was not ,but got one leave for an evening for all service ,there were a lot ,who

hadn`t got a leave at all.

The guys in such unit are the bunch of individuals ,

Different home places ,different languages ,education .

The difficulties of service ,especially the first weeks of service ,

where they knocking off all the civil habits and put in that place

unquestional obedience and endless drills and a lot of other things

that are very alien to any civil man ,no wonder that all this sorts people fast .

Everyone knows who is a leader and who is a follower ,

who is a friend or a foe ,whom you can trust and who can trust you ,

and people very fast separate to the close groups of 2,3,4 men

max. sticking one another and acting as one ,helping ,protecting one another

and standing back to back in fight .

Most of the man that remained alone outside this circle of help and friendship were

outcasts of the sort ,and regarded as a second sort man .

Easy guess then when someone feels need to humilate somebody he choose one of them.

Now when it happens first time all the unit observes this from the distance .

If this offended man will fight ,even if he loose he will be accepted sooner or later

Cause HE IS NOT A COWARD !

Those who are cowards ,collaborators with the officers ,betraing their comrades ,not giveng a damn for others

are losers forever and they may be stong as Rambo their fate are known from the start and the

name for them - losers !

Looking from the distance I feel pity for some of them but I hate snitchers even today .

 

 

One night in the training unit barrack the roar of our sarge waked our

first squad (tank commanders ).

Wake up ,you bunch of the bloody xxxx ! We stood in two lines near the beds and he started to read

some papers .It came that one guy from our squad wrote diary .

This guy was a thin ,little lad from a small Belorussian town .always with frightened face

Not willing to talk with noone ,never realising where he is now !

OUr sarge shouted :"you guys don`t know with whom you are serving !

We have a new Chekhov here .

I will read a bit from this unknown masterpiece :"

on the first page --xxxx this bloody days !

The guys from our squad are rude ,cruel xxxx ,our sarge is a dog that barking on me every day.

This is a hell on Earth .

He traveled from page to page :

Today was the worst day in my life .The dog catched me in the morning check and !@#$ed my brain out

for the dirty uniform and all the dumba$$e$ laughed .they always laugh .And bash me too .

And so on he read this for an hour,maybe .

They waked soon all the platoon .all the squads stood in attention listenin` to this .

This sarge was aa real xxxx .

It was a humiliation of the whole poor guy`s life .

He stood weeping .

Suddenly the sarge of the second platoon roared :

Now we `ll read some letters and he started to read some other poor guy`s letters ...

We stood 2 hours !

This guy`s life was ruined .

He loose the face completly . Who could listen to his orders when he`ll became a seargant .

He was in depressed state of mind and once I told him :

"Next time the guys from our squad `ll start to treat you bad stand up and fight !

I`ll help you and many other too."

He was too afraid ,he really never understood what `s going around him.

They soon transfered him to somewhere and I `ve never heard about him anymore .

Other cathegory of losers where Runaways !

There where real champions that wandered days and weeks in the forest and all the army was

trying to catch them .

Once 2 guys from our corps ran away with two AK and we were looking for them 10 days -

the military (our corps ),the KGB and militia (police ).

The fun of this was that thousands soldiers were going from two sides of the forest simultaneosly

and everyone of us walking alone or with a friend can be taken for these two .

We hadn`t found them that day but there were a lot of shooting .

When this guys were surrounded ,they started to shoot and were killed from the BMP fire .

There were soldiers their own comrades shooters.

And suisiders .

I many times wondered why guys take this so heavy ,stand up man and fight ,

you are the man ,such life worth nothing and nothing to loose.

Instead of this they hide hate deep inside and waited for a moment of vengance .

Our officers really were afraid to give us weapons and almost never they gave us full load.

They were afraid to get a bulet from some deprived loser .

And there were snitchers .

I hated them all my life .

The fate of a snitcher was very unhappy ,being descovered by his comrades .that he betrayed .

No officer was able to protect snitcher from humiliation and punishment.

When I started to serve in the combat unit my officers asked me to snitch for them

This was made in very nice form but I was offended :how they ever had a thought that I was capable of this ?

So I told them in very specific langusge what I think about them and this proposition and found myself in stockade for a good couple of days with a "funny" crime description :

The disobedience to the order .

After that the guys told me that they talked with every one ,only I was soon to became a crazy sergant ...

In two words :

I was not better than others ,noone was willing to help a man who had no selfrespect

and wish to fight if he was offended .

THE MAN WITHOUT FRIENDS ,OPPOSING HIMSELF TO COLLECTIVE WAS DOOMED .

We were many times worse than beasts .

But I think that this is universal man`s specific ,basically it can happen in any army ,jail

or any other place of a kind.

Help others ,respect yourself and do not be afraid of a bleeded nose or swollen eye ,and this

clash can even end with a friendship sometimes .

 

 

When my older daughter came with tears from school a couple of years ago I told her :

Remember this :

A wolf better than human .......................

.................................................

.................................................

Noone will help you if you will not fight back.

Never betray a friend ........................

Never snitch for the teachers .

Why I hate snitchers ?!?

..............................

..............................

 

 

This will never end .

The wolf is better !

 

Iskander teh misanthrope

 

[ 11-24-2003, 02:41 AM: Message edited by: Iskander teh Lazy ]

[Phil Orenstein]

Islander,

Let me chime in here. I only stopped onto the board tonight for a few brief moments before doing some work, but you're post caught my attention. I'll print it out to read later when I have time. Last year when I had some more time to be on this board I struck up a friendship with Elad Sela who lives near Netanya. We were on the same page with regard to what American mideast foriegn policy should be which has a long way to go to cease buttering up Israel's hostile neighbors. It was just after the Passover bombing and he had the courage to go back to Netanya for a conference and for that matter go anywhere in his own land without fear. He was called up for the reserves a little while later and I have not heard from him since. Have you? That's all. Looking forward to reading the piece.

 

Best,

Phil

[Jack Mitchell]

Iskander,

 

I must say that you tell a fascinating story.

Bravo for your honesty and integrity.

I just love the wolf analogy - your father is/was a very wise man.

 

 

Regards, Jack

 

[ 11-23-2003, 11:51 PM: Message edited by: Jack Mitchell ]

[JParis]

This needs a bump for the pure history of it, the long gone names, what this forum used to be.

Thanks Terry for digging this one out...

Alex passed back in 2020 but he is still talked about fondly in some circles

[Newbeeee™]

3 hours ago, JParis said:

This needs a bump for the pure history of it, the long gone names, what this forum used to be.

Thanks Terry for digging this one out...

Alex passed back in 2020 but he is still talked about fondly in some circles

Alex's post now seems more relevant than ever with the glutenous b4stards around the big table squeezing us all ever tighter and tighter.
And yes, this place was awesome, and we're all just passing through....

[metalmansteve]

What ever happened to the OP?  I was hoping to hear about his immigration story.

[Newbeeee™]

9 hours ago, metalmansteve said:

What ever happened to the OP?  I was hoping to hear about his immigration story.

 

[Thad]

20 hours ago, JParis said:

This needs a bump for the pure history of it, the long gone names, what this forum used to be.

Thanks Terry for digging this one out...

Alex passed back in 2020 but he is still talked about fondly in some circles

A side note, for those who weren't around back then...Alex's avatar was Winnie the Poo. Thus all the "bear" references throughout his posting history and replies to him.

[Jobnt]

Iskander. 

Teh original teh.