FOURTH NIGHT

(see Three Months in the Life of the Cypriot National Guard for a preface to this piece)

IN THE CYPRIOT National Guard, all of the conscripts except those serving a reduced three-month term undergo a one-month training after boot camp known as ‘combat school.’  Combat school is where, as my training camp company commander put it, “you learn what it means to be a soldier—to run from morning to night, to go on treks, to go shooting.”  Since their service time is so short, three-monthers bypass combat school and are instead sent directly to their assigned army camps after basic training. 

Few of the conscripts in my boot camp actually wanted to attend combat school.  It is only natural that conscripted soldiers—who are compelled to enlist by law not choice—will generally be averse to training of any kind.  Eastern Mediterranean peoples also as a rule avoid physical exercise as much as possible, possibly a genetic leaning that evolved out of the draining heat.  Continue reading

The first part of this piece is the May 4 entry and the second part is the June 4 entry.

8. THE LAMP

THE EPICENTER of the training camp was a vast plaza roughly the size of a football pitch where all parades and ceremonies took place.  The paved plaza was empty save for two buildings. On the far end, overlooking the Mediterranean, was the training camp headquarters building.  And in the middle of the plaza, rising up out of the center of this vast concrete plain, was the church.  It was one-fifth the size of the headquarters building and was essentially no more than an altar and sanctum designed for outdoor services, but its focal location sent the clear message that the activities of the training camp were dedicated and beholden to the house of God, who was after all the best general the army had ever known since He was the only superior who commanded the respect of almost all the soldiers.  He was so effective at infusing discipline and elevating morale among army ranks that no other officer had ever raised the tender and controversial matter of His beard, although a few officers did secretly nurse the hope that He might one day be reconceived as a clean-shaven Lord, or at least a mustached one.  Continue reading

The first part of this piece is the May 4 entry.

3 GRIVAS

AFTER ROLL CALL at morning lineup, a corporal announced that those who wished to see a doctor should go line up by the wall. Twenty-three of the seventy-three conscripts with apparently obscure ailments that manifested no external symptoms at once buoyantly made their way to the wall where they waited, their grinning faces radiating health and well-being.

An officer from headquarters then took the place of the corporal. He glared down silently upon us through his red-tinted sunglasses.

“Somebody discharged in the showers,” he finally said. “Obviously whoever did it learned it at home. His old man taught him. That’s the only excuse for that.” Continue reading

(see the April 4 posting Three Months in the Life of the Cypriot National Guard for a preface to this piece)

arphas (ärf’äs) 1. a Cypriot male who conscripts in the January “alpha” series of National Guard basic training   2. (derogatory) a jackass (pl. arphades)

1 THE CONSCRIPTION OFFICER

THE CONSCRIPTION OFFICER did not look up from his desk when I entered his office. Nor did he look up when I handed him the copy of my birth certificate proving I was over the age of twenty-six or the consul’s letter from a Cyprus embassy in the U.S. confirming I had spent most of my life outside of Cyprus.

He glanced at the consul’s document. “Why isn’t this in Greek!” he muttered in a voice without a trace of Cypriot dialect. “They want to make us all Amerikanakia!” He slowly and disgustedly shook his head at this diplomatic betrayal of the ethnic struggle. It was deplorable because the National Guard had been trying for close to a half century to make us Cypriots all Greeks. Continue reading

A Foreword

PICK AT RANDOM a young man living in a nation that does not maintain conscription and, even if he is averse to violence and authoritarianism, chances are at some point he has entertained the thought of joining the military. There are any number of reasons: sheer curiosity and a desire to see something of the world outside of one’s hometown, a guaranteed income and future university funding, naïve reveries about the heroisms and glories of combat, and of course the desire to serve one’s country, which although much trumpeted is usually more bluster than patriotism, especially if the home team has a recent history of waging wars, not suffering them. Continue reading

THE STEWARDESS smiled and placed a folded napkin on my tray wrapped in two ribbons, one red, the other blue. I untied the knot and smoothed out the napkin, which read “PRESIDENTIAL Flight – China 2006” alongside a custom design incorporating the flag of China and Cyprus.

The same message was printed on the menu, the in-flight entertainment guide, the cloth placemats, the fabric velcroed to the headrest and the complimentary gift pouch, although the last two involved an expanded version of the in-flight mantra – “EUROCYPRIA Welcomes You to the PRESIDENTIAL Flight China 2006” – presumably to impart hospitality and a subtle touch of self-promotion to the august declaration. This was no ordinary flight; it was presidential, by god. Continue reading