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The Turkish Republic has mandatory military service for males over the age of 18. One can get deferment as long as they are in an institute of higher education or if they are employed overseas, but unless there's a medical reason, everyone has to eventually serve 18 months. Some university graduates also have a program which allows them an 8 month service. Quite a few years ago, another special law was passed, allowing for those who have worked overseas to pay the government 10,000 Deutsche Marks and serve for only one month. As one can guess, this law usually accommodates those Turks who labour in Europe and who usually can't afford to take 18 months' vacation. Rather than lose these people (the penalty for dodging the service is the loss of citizenship), or more specifically, the hard cash that they bring in to the country, the government has come up with this idea. They get 17 months of their life and the government earns some much needed cash. Everyone is happy (except those who are not able to take advantage of this program of course). As an aside, the program was offered to all Turks after the earthquake of 1999 regardless of where or how long they'd worked. Those selected to the program were given a special, one-time opportunity to serve a month-long term after paying 15,000 DM, all of which went to earthquake succour. These people (and there were quite a few of them) were sent to novice camps (as they're called) all over the country. People from overseas; however, have always been sent to the same place: A small town in the southwest of the country called Burdur. Burdur houses about 100,000 people, and is nestled into the foothills of the Taurus mountains where it lies by a smallish lake which bears the same name as the town. The main sources of income are the military camp, a university, and a sugar manufacturing plant, in the order which they contribute to the town's economic welfare. So, having paid my dues and done the paperwork (for which my father had to make a trip to the capital at Ankara and hand deliver the final form to the National Defence Ministry), it was to Burdur I headed, along with my housemate from Pittsburgh and my friend of some fifteen years, Hakan. Having read some information about the paid service at several sites on the Internet, I had developed a rough idea of what it was going to be like and what to expect. Since they will be there for only one month and since most of them are almost middle-aged, the novices at Burdur (said the information) are treated a lot better than novices elsewhere. This proved to be only somewhat true, for only very recently the command in Burdur had been changed from Artillery to Infantry. Thus, instead of the 56th Artillery Tugay (I think a tugay is the same as a regiment or a brigade), I found myself in 3. Avci Piyade Tugayi (3rd Hunter Infantry Regiment). Along with this change came quite a few a new commanders, including the head honcho himself. I would learn later that the new commander was quite strict on discipline. These memories are dedicated to all the 18-monthers who give up the most productive period of their lives to such a vacuum. They went through a far more rigorous training than we did and they have to suffer far longer. One immediately realizes their predicament - upon meeting someone the second or third question one hears is "Safak kac? (How many dawns left?)". This refers to the days they have left to serve. We started our countdown from 29, they from 550. Most of the graffiti on the bathroom walls is made up of the numbers of the dawns. Once an officer asked us to define who a soldier was. A few patriotic sounding answers were put forth, so I kept mine to myself: Pittsburgh 10 November 2000 |
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Copyleft notice: Copyright (C) 1999-2005 Mustafa Ünlü. This information is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. |