21-XII-1981.
Guess we passed that telegraphy test the day before or after the Army day (was it on 21st or 22nd? when was the winter solstice?). A surprisingly nice day, and the exam wasn't arranged on the school keys, installed on desks, but on the prc in the back of the classroom (the canadian PRC something transmitter, strap-as-backpack, 12 kg with accumulator), while the corporal was on the other one at the teacher's desk. Perhaps six or seven of us (nineteen, the butcher being ciao by now) passed. The officers, probably, got a mark 2 (of five) for this. Later I got a hint, by circumspect channels, that Elvir was still a lieutenant when all his classmates were captains, and one was already cramming for major's [exam].
Because - what happened? Bad organization, they can blame only themselves. By order of things, the october class was supposed to take over the guard duty by mid november, just like we did begin guarding by mid august. For us at least they managed to organize our day at the firing range with live ammo, which is a prerequisite. For the octoberials they dragged their feet over several weeks, never making things happen together and on time, so they begin guartianing eventually now, when we finished our training and were supposed to exercise for the exam. This meant that each of us was short, on average, some ten hours with headset and pencil, to drill it to the level of reflex.
And me having passed it, no bragging rights there, my speed didn't exceed 40 (letters per minute) and even that was mostly due to the corporal keying in the text from the first five pages from a booklet with example coded text, which we knew by heart. In fact, I forgot the morse more or less within weeks, but the first four groups from page one I know even now: BOSLI TAZMI TISIX BOMAT.
And then in the following few days we all dispersed. All nineteen of us were sent here for the training, and were due to return to our original units when done with it. Most did return, except Toške arrived at some cubbyhole, overlooking the coast somewhere in Istria; Dudek also did not return to Vis but don't really know where he ended. Blaja stayed in the Home of JNA to play in the orchestra, so they amused the officers on various parties, played at various functions but also private parties, said he had a merry old time, he's been over the whole coast from Vodice to Rogoznica, even met Elvir again („did you kiss?“ „almost had our pants down“). When there were only two or three of us left, we were still on guard duty, though as depty commanders, as commanders had to have a rank (a desetar or junior corporal, which were privates' ranks).
Which was sort of fun, as I could sleep all day - the deputy's is a night duty - in the guardhouse, where no officer has jurisdiction but the chief commander (mostly absent) and the dežurni officer - whose office is unfortunately too near, but then he either sleeps or watches TV or just walks around and is spotted from afar, never much trouble unless we cause some. At night, I led the change of guards at 22:00, at 0:00, but by 2:00 I just had enough. Now to distribute guards to their posts is called "razvoditi stražu" - the verb being the same as "to divorce" (literally, to guide apart or in a distributive manner). So I asked the guys "was I getting you married?" "no you weren't" "then you can divorce yourself".
The guardhouse was a mild chaos. Three shifts at three guardposts, plus chief and deputy, that's eleven of us, tied to the place for 24 hours, three guys always out there, the others in that room. True, we had an extra room just behind this, with just beds, for when one really needed sleep, it was quieter. And lo how we never had coffee when we did the guard before these octobrists came, and these lizzards* have collected a heap of bags of instant coffee from those SDO (dry daily ration) boxes, isn't much of a coffee but keeps eyes open and doesn't really taste so bad. Just inventing hot water was, for once, a problem... Well for that there's the true and tried soldiers' cooker - a razor blade is halved, the halves shoved into opposite sides of a cork cork, a wire tied to each half, the other ends plugged into 220 volts, the current flows straight through the water and boils half a liter in a little over a minute. Of course, make sure the blade never touches metal. It works. Too bad we didn't come up with this.
There was extra food too, the mutton cans from the same SDO boxes, it's hard to believe how many have skipped them when that friday of the month, when SDO is on the menu, and rather ate something they'd buy in the canteen. There was a problem how to eat that, as we didn't feel like temporarily commandeering a knife and a fork from the mess hall, and among all the equipment we got there was no flatware. We did get the canteens, but they were forever empty. I did have, always in [my] pocket, a brisa (in Banat that's how we call a britva, penknife), and someone had another, so I demonstrated my skillful eating with chopsticks. Each skill is worthwhile, you never know when you may need it.
It's rather obvious how rarely I shaved... That's another advantage of guard duty, you're out of sight, nobody notices you, nobody commands you. Nobody even sees you, except when you're the morning shift at the gate, when the officers come to work. That's when you shave smoothly down and up, and strictly by the book salute the incoming officer as he passes through the gate. They may forget about it but I may not - by the same book, he's obliged to salute back when a soldier salutes, and I managed to catch them, several times, when they fumbled through their bags or pockets... Wish I had a candid camera then, there were comedic scenes to remember.
In the times of the thickest guard schedules, I managed to skip shaving for five days in a row. And when the whole stint was over (at noon, that's when guard changes), Blaja and I would go to the canteen to have a beer, and the bartender would ask „you guys are reservists?“, „yeah, sure we are“. If he can pretend not to know us, we can also pretend that he doesn't know us.
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* miliary slang - the fresh privates allegedly still have tails, ergo lizzards.
Mentions: 19-V-2013., Blagoje Vajski (Blaja), dežurni, Dražen Jerić (Dudek), Elvir Pozder, Tošić (Toške), in serbian
2-II-2026 - 22-II-2026