Some time last year they enlisted me into reserve of vojska. Which meant I'd have to keep an uniform (luckily, no šinjel this time, they switched to windbreakers meanwhile), and a duffel bag instead of backpack (backpack was easier to carry, but hard to pack), and to carry all that at times when they schedule an exercise. Which didn't happen yet, not even a daily, this was a first, and the 77th scouts rota was formed, and I was to be its comms guy attached to its HQ. We were supposed to gather at midnight, which was ridiculous and never repeated, all the subsequent times it began at 7:00. A six day exercise, and later we understood why.
I readied myself as far as I could, the evening before - shortened my beard, shaved the parts I shave, had a shower, we went to get supplies, as the girls shouldn't lack anything while I'm away. While we toured the shops, the phone rang - Šime is in town. His enterprise makes buttons, and he was the travelling salesman. There being a substantial amount of textile industry in the city, he came to contract some delivery. Had a room in the hotel and I came to him to see him. But fuck, I can't stay long, can't drink - had to take the car so I can get back on time to the gathering spot (the former airport, right behind kombinat's industrial zone). So it felt a bit awkward, seeing my army time pal in civilian clothes while getting ready to wear the uniform again. We went through our memories, chatted for a couple of hours, then split.
From the guys I knew from somewhere, there were Fefi (knew him by fame, he was a name around šećerana) and Brlja (though I didn't know him much at the time, but on subsequent exercises). Also our rota's paramedic, Aleksa, will later become our neighbor when he buys the adjacent lot and builds his house. At this time, I actually didn't really know any of them.
We stood for hours, until morning, and then a breakfast was distributed (a 100g slice of bread, a pašteta, tea) and then we formed a convoy. We had a kampanjola (italian jeep), two infantry transporters and two trucks, one of them laden with radio equipment. And we got weapons, an M-72, which we just hauled around and did nothing with, save for perhaps once disassembling it an reassembling. Piece of cake.
I'm still amazed seeing how adults go childish when in reserve. Telling jokes, pulling pranks, telling how tales of who did any big drinking, eating or fucking. Nobody brought any booze, this is the first time, but later it never failed. We had some old guy, all gray, never understood how he got into this, called him Solunac*. We actually had it easy, the gathering spot is in the neighborhood - we had about a dozen guys from Kikinda, 50km away. How they came and how will they return is anyone's guess. Dad drove me, feeling all important that he sees me in uniform again. Luckily, that virus has already caused immunity in my case.
When we finally took off, at the neckbreaking speed of 45kmh or less, we had to make only two or three breaks to get counted and re-coordinated or whatever, to pass the 40km to some "agricultural good" (i.e. larger, self-managed manor), where the so-called "dynamic of the exercise" will happen. We got even sleeping bags, and bales of hay neatly lined up in a big hangar. I got into a fit of coughing - whether I inhaled a hair when I cropped my beard, or was I irritated by hay, or irritated by just everything, doesn't matter. I coughed so much that I went to sleep in a vehicle, where it was a lot colder, but at least I stopped coughing all the time, and for what little I still coughed, I bothered only myself.
Shortening the beard didn't do any good. The major, who was in CO for the rota while exercise lasted (though nominally Savela** was the commander, famous for "if anyone asks where were you exercising, say it was at privatnik's"), insisted on having a haircut and a shave on anyone who had to do it. Which, by rules, is within his rights when the exercise is longer than five days, and which is precisely the reason they made it six days long. I objected that "comrade major, the exercise is from 7th to 12th, twelve minus seven is five days" "no, it's six, you didn't count the first day" "that was two days ago, already gone" "doesn't matter, it's a command". Okay, fuck you, there goes my beard and Savela's hair. The major they called Ginger, for his surname had something to do with baking, so after Ginger Banker... he just kept beating rubbish.
We had a few serious nutcases in the rota, who had undergone serious scouts training during their service, some martial arts, bunch of dirty tricks, real commandoes. One even captured a rifle from (his neighbor who was on the) blue side. This created a lot of paperwork, but counted as a plus.
When I reappeared at MPSŠC next wednesday, of course half-shaved - that one time was enough, Ginger got his scalp, may he shove it wherever he wants - that one-handed colleague notet, in a fit of schadenfreude, "now we have the pleasure to see you without the beard", "Yes, and now you'll have an even longer one, watching it grow back".
----
* Solun is Thesalloniki, in Greece. A Solunac was anyone who fought at the Thesalloniki front in 1917 and lived long enough to bore everyone to death with the tales of it. At this point, there were perhaps a hundred of them still alive.
**Sava, aka Savela (short rising accent on first syllable) really was a privatnik, don't know what trade at the time; later he and his wife (a doctor) opened a pharmacy, which was the neighbor to my firm's offices from 1992 on. They discunted later, he disappeared from my horizon and she went to work at Labor medicine, where she did my checkup for the drivers' at age of 65. She didn't recognize me.