Once, in the early 80's I happened to serve in one educational unit almost in the center of Russia. Still at the station, a gloomy captain, who was taking us from the recruiting station, honestly confessed: "Guys, get ready, it will be very difficult. Not even from the service. And from the orders that reign there for more than one year. " We somehow did not attach any importance to this, we still heard something about army miracles, although we got inside, of course.
The truck that picked us up at the destination, half an hour to get to the training, lost in the forest, very near the sleeping area. Well, there we were met by the "cheerful" guys, in the pilot's pockets, shifted to their eyes, lined up in a row and watching with an unpleasant squint as we jump out of the car one by one. Then we realized that this is a "demobilization", which before the citizen was left to serve someone for a month, to whom two.
At first, when the captain was still with us, portrayed themselves as hospitable hosts, they asked for a long time who, from where, the countrymen were being selected, obviously.
And then, when the officer left, without any manners, they threw the contents of our backpacks straight to the ground and took away all the most valuable things: more or less decent personal belongings, toothpastes, shampoos, foodstuffs bought by parents, grandmothers and grandfathers for a week for a comfortable life . And, of course, money. This is how our civil life ended ...
In the army in general, interesting orders, so many misunderstandings and real idiocy. I, for example, never understood what is the use of driving soldiers out for morning exercises in a 15-degree frost in the form of "number one". This is when you run out in some pants and boots with a bare torso. Naturally, justified by good intentions, that for our own good, to be strong and healthy, to defend the Motherland. So many children later had different ARD and ARVI.
And run in gas masks in a 30-degree heat before losing the pulse, when the sweat obscures the eyes, the heart beats like a hare, and there's absolutely nothing to breathe? And on the orders of comrade "demobil" after evening verification, standing at the switch, to address him with the words: "Comrade switch, let you turn off!" And sing a lullaby at night the same old servant, and count the days, how much "grandfather" order? And to bury in the woods the bulls from cigarettes found on the barracks plaza, digging out a meter hole and almost chanting "an untimely departed fellow" bull "? And to beat soldiers for too slow execution of the order on any place, without analyzing? This was called a noble word - to educate, and often done with the permission and instructions of the superior "comrade officer".
And to force a young soldier to stand with all four limbs on an inverted stool, and then to rip it off that there are forces with a soldier's belt with a badge as many times as he has served? It was called "transfer from one category of employees to another." These categories were called in different regions and parts differently. Each subsequent category, which had a time period of six months, naturally provided for certain privileges. Those who have served in our time a year or more, in general, no one has ever touched. Even the officers used to be afraid to send, for example, a watch in the kitchen, a soldier who already had the right to be untouchable.
My father, who served in the early fifties, often told about the army, and, incidentally, never spoke about such cases, which are listed above. There were, of course, their own quirks. But this, somehow more concerned innocuous jokes and jokes. And after all that generation the boys smelled the smell of war, although they worked in the rear, because for 7-10 years they were all then. If they had hawkish relations, they kept, most likely, on respect for the old-timers. So, they were more humane and kinder?
And now, reading the next report on the escape from the unit with an automatic weapon in the hands of another soldier, I am no longer surprised why he escaped ... But they are serving only one year now. So it takes a year to break!
Is it possible to defeat the "hazing" in the army? Maybe, well, to hell with this general military duty, all the same, all the same during the conscription company, 60-70 percent of the recruits turn out to be sick and who is crippled, and it is unclear whether this is true or false.
But if it's still impossible to create a normal, efficient army on a contract basis, then it's just necessary to change our legislation, to criminalize every army commander who does not perform his direct duties, forgetting the Charter, for each ensign and sergeant who put his hand or simply covers cases of hazing. Is it so difficult to do this?