No one, probably not even the senior commanders and certainly not us,
took us seriously. In the three days of the first week, we were supposed
to learn to march in step, with arms swinging in unison, not bent at the
elbows of course, and raised to the shoulder height of the person in
front. The lines had to be kept straight. This was supposed to be
accomplished with a bunch of reluctant soldiers, a few of which can't
even speak Turkish, some of whom are pushing 40, and very few of whom
are in any kind of shape.


We are here for only a month; we are also recognized as emissaries of
the country to the outside world and should refrain from saying bad things
about the military.
The üsteğmen said it explicitly in one of his discussions. "People, please
don't take the bad parts of your stay here out of this compound. Let's
discuss whatever it is that you don't like here. If you do bad mouth the
military over there, you are not only betraying your country, but also
yourselves." How can I write about it without the bad parts? How can I
leave the bad parts there if whenever the he doesn't like the way the
"discussion" is going, he can order you to sit down and shut up?

For example, on how little we really learned, even about discipline and
order, the two things which were emphasized the most: Order broke down
quite quickly. Once, we were supposed to line up outside the civilian
clothes depot (to get the civvies before a weekend leave), the NCOs were
laxer than usual and people quickly left their lines and made a big
pile, with quite a few trying to cut in, some protesting, a big mess.
It's not like the stuff is going anywhere either, we are all eventually
going to get our things out. This is only one example. Then, there was
the incident when the first aid mannequins in the training area were
"assaulted". The females had their clothes torn off, one of them was
placed on its hands and knees, with a big cut on the back of its/her
skirt. I saw this sight with my own eyes; it was quite disturbing. There
was an incident where two people come back from weekend leave drunk and
beat up an officer. They got two weeks in jail, which did not count
against their service time so they then had to stay the extra days as
well. This was the most severe punishment which was passed out. The
weirdest incident of them all had to be the rumour that someone had been
caught molesting a watermelon over at the rocket artillery battalion.

Every time there was a break, most people lit up. I estimate that about
80% of the people smoked. Cigarette butts littered the ground everywhere
we went. This is in spite of the many trash cans within sight or even
within throwing distance, in spite of the fact that it is us who have to
pick the shit off the ground every morning or whenever the officer in
charge feels like it. When we are in a conference room, we are unable to
enter/exit in an orderly fashion or keep the place clean unless there is
much shouting by more than one NCO.

Some of the blame can be laid at the door of the way things were set up.
The bins are of the small variety and can't handle the thrash from all
these people, especially in high traffic areas. The military sees us as
a source of income so they have some poor 18 monthers follow us
everywhere we go, selling tea in plastic cups, water in plastic bottles
and simit and poğaça (Turkish donuts and savory pastries). It is ironic
that they demand silence in the conference room yet have some vendor in
there selling his wares.

Order broke down even more as we approached the end of the month. We
quickly went from the best marching company to the worst. Most people
just shuffled about, only a handful shouted the marching chants when
ordered to. Things was pretty loose at the inspections, especially when
the officer was late. Tempers grew short and there were fights.
Fortunately, my squad kept out of it - we managed to come through with
never a fight between ourselves, unlike quite a few other squads. 


Pittsburgh 10 November 2000