october 1981.
So we got organized somehow. Since we had nothing else to do whole day but guard duty, which was two hours out of each six, someone got the idea that we publish the rota magazine. Which turned out to be only the 1st platoon, because the other two didn't even think to participate. We had paper and pencils and then a typewriter was found, then a gestetner aka šapirograf too, so we could print the 20-25 copies. And then we got lucky, as two guys were of visual artsy persuasion. One was a Hungarian, from some village near Subotica, and accidentally spoke serbocroatian very well, which is rare in that area, the other from Krk or Brač, a Dalmatian. As soon as the two found each other, things flowed. One did the illustrations, the other the caricatures, etching them with a needle straight on the template, which printed very neatly. On the drawing across the bottom of the back page there's seven of us, me peeking in from the right edge, camera dangling on my neck. And he got the likeness right.
There were a few advantages to being in the guard. First, you're doing nothing, except after four hour break you get to walk the rifle on your shoulder for two hours, somewhere by the fence. Second, you have only two officers above you, one being the guard commander, who's just a desetar (tenner, decurion), which is a soldier's rank, not really an officer, and the dežurni officer of the barracks, who's never around. Third, nobody can see you, i.e. everyone knows you're guard, who else would walk a rifle around, and while anyone can see you nobody's looking at you, which we widely used to skip shaving. I'd shave only every third day, when the roster would put me at the main gate, that's where you need to be hip to be seen by officers coming to work in the morning. Special pleasure was to salute them by regulation, specially when they forget about it and have something in their right hands. Whoa, buddy, you forgot.
It would also happen that I would pass with six days of not shaving, when my gate day was a sunday, when they don't come to work. So Blaja and I would drop by the canteen to have a beer after lunch, and the bartender would ask „you are from the reserve?“.
Between the guardhouse and the small gate there was another house, with just the room of the dežurni officer (that one was heated), and a larger room, for visits - for the guests to wait until the soldier they came for would be available, get the permit to leave the barracks etc. These two guys simply took the waiting room and turned it into a painting workshop. This being the vojska, if anything was going on it was assumed that it's by someone's order, so everything's fine. For nearly two months the guys painted there, until someone took notice, asked around and found out that there was neither an order or permission from anyone. So they packed it in and managed elsewhere. While it lasted, at least we had a kind of a social club near to the guardhouse.
By the time of the 2nd issue of our bulletin it got hairy, it was november already and the day got shorter, we couldn't just sit outside and write. The staff was three of us - Blaja, Bule Spajić from Tomaševac and I. Practically all of Zrenjanin... The lieutenant Gašparesku from Pančevo took pity on us. He did talk with us before, seeing what we were doing, and being practically our generation. I did remember to ask him about Ž.M., Đuđa's son-in-law. Ouch... there he spilled the beans. Said the guy was the worst sleaze he ever saw. They were classmates at the academy, some engineering thingy, and this Ž.M. somehow wasn't willing to work off his scholarship and stipend, and to be in the reserve later, even if he did the minimum - work as officer in the vojska year for year, and then simply leave the service, no, everyone knows that the vojska won't let you off that easily. So he found some radioactive isotope and injected it in his eyes. Did himself just enough damage to get dismissed right away, no debt, and started wearing serious spectacles ever since. So there, a diploma at state's cost, lodging and food. But this guy said nobody could stand him even before that.
So this lt Gašparesku gave us the key to his office, which was accidentally next door to the guardhouse (which wasn't a separate building, just two rooms in that one). Nothing special, two desks, four chairs and heating. We spent nice hours in that office, the three of us, in warm. One would type some article into a mimeograph sheet, the excuse to be there in the first place, the other two would just muck around. And there a talk touched on the matter of my avoiding of physical exercise. No avoiding, it's simply that I never did it since the age of ten, I have a bit of heart fault and that's it. The military [health board] considered it nothing so here I am where I am. A can do fast, long, strong, pick two. And there a bet was made that I can't do ten pushups, on one beer. Okay. I didn't even take the šinjel off, it was warm but let's not go overboard. And I did them. Bule felt cheated, but Blaja had a bright idea how to recoup: ten more for one more beer, counting on my limitations. Well, I got me two beers for nothing. And I wasn't really bluffing, I didn't know myself whether I'd be capable of doing them.
Aaaaah heating. Nothing was heated, except the laundry and 2-3 higher officer's offices. Several times before sleeping there would be the dilemma whether to close the windows, and each time the folk wisdom won: „stink never killed anyone, chill did“. Except when Gile Bacin (also of Zrenjanin) made a habit to fart the worst when entering the dorm, and then walk to his bed, farthest from the door. By the time the wave hit him, he'd be already snoring. So he was given the notice to fart outside, then come in. Until then we lost twenty minutes each time, waiting with open windows before closing them.
We published two issues. Then there was some celebraton, fuck me if I remember what, mid november or early december, and the commendations and symbolic prizes were handed out. Two or three guys, who won medals for sports at the coastal military region, got ten days extra leave. Bule Spajić, as the editor-in-chief, got some book, from the throwaway run of some title which is added to libraries because it must, and thrown away at next occasion. It was clear that it absolutely doesn't matter that we telegraphists were the intellectual peak of what's possible in the vojska, it has no fucks to give for any mind, culture or anything of the kind, it loves just cannon fodder.
Mentions: Blagoje Vajski (Blaja), dežurni, Đurđa Rođanović (Đuđa), šinjel, vojska, in serbian
3-III-2023 - 24-I-2026