We start to publish a diary of a reporter of Informator.lg.ua Anton Holoborodko who voluntarily changed editor’s office for barracks…
Day Zero, August 13
My service in the army hasn’t begin yet, this is going to be tomorrow. Tomorrow the bus will take me to the training center, tomorrow I will learn where I will serve, tomorrow is my 1st day. But I already have something to say, so today is zero day, August 13, 2015.
Recruitment office. I went there myself, voluntarily. In fact I had to ask to send me the notice with the request to arrive there, nobody even looked for my file.
I drove 300 km, arrived from Kiev to the place where I am officially registered. So I tell them “Here I am, all is fine?”
Mr. Major tells me “Dude, we have no time for you. We are making lists for SSU and MIA of those who are trying to avoid military service”
I ask him: “Will you mobilize me?”
He tells me:”I don’t know, go to the hospital and after that we will think about it. Just wait here for 20 minutes…”
I got documents for medical commission only after 3rd attempt…
In general recruitment office staff make positive impression. They allowed me to reschedule my trip from Thursday to Friday, told me what I need to take with me and assured me that everything else like uniform, shoes and other things will be provided by the state.
The reaction of other people. Maybe not everybody understand, but mobilized people have doubts about what is waiting for them ahead? And here every second woman who finds out that I am joining the Army claps her hands pretending that she begun to see clearly. Suddenly she realized that there is dead man in front of her and she needs to say good bye to him with sorrow. Dear friends, this is not the death penalty. We will return back home! Man are more positive! They have restrained reaction, some even support. Some promise to join in future.
Those who are trying to avoid mobilization. I want to tell about mothers who have sons of the age 25 and older and who are going with their sons hand by hand to recruitment offices saying “My son will not go there”. Or there are older fat guys running around hospital and trying to get docs that they have disability. I saw couple of such men. Men, do you have conscience? Betrayal is not in General Staff and not in the Parliament and not even in President’s Administration. Betrayal is when you are avoiding your duty. If you defeat betrayal inside yourself there will be less of it in the country immediately. And think about who is going to replace those guys who are holding the front line on the East of Ukraine for a year already. They also have relatives and friends to return to!
We join Army to protect our beloved ones. We go there so tomorrow we don’t need to run away from our land, so we don’t leave our houses. We go there in to stop Putin followers from coming after us tomorrow.
We will win and will come back home!
Day 1, August 14: 1st day off and dinner
8 am. Recruitment office. From the whole area they sent… 3 men. The 3rd men hasn’t arrived. Two of us, me and Sasha are going. Both going to the army 1st time. Interesting that Sasha is the guy whose mother didn’t want to let him go. Great guy, now we share same nightstand and out beds are next to each other.
We were taken to Poltava by a car. There is nothing to say about it. If I am correct we will be at the training center in Military Institute of Communications.
To pass medical commission and psychologist on the territory of the training center is just a formality. No complains and you are accepted. But there was a little problem, they messed up something in recruitment office and I had to go to the hospital in Poltava and make fluorography again.
We were assigned to 12th company, platoon 7. In total there are 25 men there now. There are about 150 men living in barracks, most of them were in army before. So if there is something not clear, they show and tell us everything. And this makes me happy.
They showed me my bed. This was the end of my communication with the superiors in the 1st day.
1stdinner. 12th company, platoon 7.
We made our bed and went to the porch to find out “what, where and how…” Next something interesting happened. Ensign Officer walked out of barracks and said “Those who are going to the city – line up”. And there were 3 of us in civilian clothes at the end of the line. Ensign Officer counts everybody, gets to us and asks “Where are you from? Ah, doesn’t matter”. So this was my 1st time when I got out to the city.
They took us to ATM, some withdraw money. Those who were mobilized a month ago got their 1st salary, they says about 1100 UAH. After that we went shopping, some got cigarettes, some got snacks. And back to our position. I learnt one thing, in the army you need to be in the right time in the right place, otherwise you can miss everything. We found out about this trip accidentally.
Later we continued to get acquainted with our platoon. I also need to say that Sasha is from Kremenchug. He joined the army as he had no job, no money, utilities like water and electricity in his apartment were switched off. He says that there were times when he was starving for several days. He realized that he won’t be able to dig garbage and went to recruitment office. He hopes that after army he will get some job as security guard. I think that was good decision. There is another one with similar story, but I will tell about him next time,
And to finalize I should say that barracks is like a chorus of coughing people. Somebody cough in one corner and the symphony starts in another corner.
They promised to give us uniform tomorrow if they can. Tomorrow is the ceremony of taking the army oath for those who got mobilized one month ago. So everybody get up at 5:30 am tomorrow.
1stbreakfast. It’sok. Not very tasty, but nourishing
Today’s dinner. Bread with lard, bread with butter, cucumber, millet porridge, fish and tea. Quite tasty. Maybe not salty enough, but that’s not a problem.
Day 2. August 15. “Chorus” and “avatars”
1st night. Yesterday I wrote about coughing chorus in barracks. As soon as the lights were switched off, the noise in the hive sopped. Sounds of “symphonic orchestra” added to “chorus”, nets on the beds are creaking so loud that if somebody can’t sleep and he’s turning around in his bed, half of lower deck around him wakes up.
Photo, small illustration, view from the bed.
And in the morning they told me that I was “solo singer” snoring.
We woke up in 5:30 am, surprisingly easy. Morning procedures and breakfast.
After that, man who were mobilized earlier went to take the oath. Company Commander asked us not to hang around the territory…
They promised to give uniform in the morning, but looks like that’s not going to happen…
The only thing that was interesting today was when my brother came, we talked about 20 minutes at the checkpoint.
“Avatars”. Yes, there are there. People drink, there are not many of them, but still there are some. Today there was oath ceremony, it means people will get day off and go to the city. I saw about 3-4 drunk guys on the territory. Commanders are trying to fight that, and judging from the comments, they are quite successful. But that is hard, a pig can find mud puddle anywhere.
Looks like tomorrow will be same as today. But they promise serious training starting from Monday.
We will win and return home!
Day 3. August 16
…thanks to all alcoholics, drug addicted and other idiots.
After yesterday’s oath, 10 men from our battalion are in the cage of Law Enforcement’s Military Service.
10 bustards betrayed the whole battalion
Because of those bustards all days off are cancelled till the end of training. DO YOU UNDERSTAND, NO DAYS OFF TILL THE END OF TRAINING!!!
Dinner. The ration upgraded with my own lard, garlic and pepper.
I think later I won’t be spamming posts with photos of army food. It should be pretty same everyday.
Briefly. Nothing to say. Breakfast, dinner, supper, concert.
Let’s says this, everybody have their own tastes and preferences. As for me, women in traditional style dress and old fat guys in bloomers don’t boost my combat spirit.
There was vocal and dance ensemble “Poltava” and honored singer of Ukraine Vasyliy Panchuk. As for others, there pretty nice songs.
Company Commander promised that interesting things are going to start on Monday and added after a pause “Maybe”.
Day 4. August 17
I got uniform. Do you understand? I finally got the uniform after serving for 4 days already! In the morning they promised us to give it to us after breakfast. Later they said at 12:00, and after that they said after dinner. As the result we got it after about 4 pm.
While getting the uniform I drove my Ensign Officer crazy as I wasn’t accepting any uniform till I tried all sizes. The boots were fine, but there were no widely advertised brown color demi-season boots at the storehouse. Ensign Officer was trying to raise his voice a little, but I can do same thing also )))
Here are the boots that we got. They are Talan. But let’s what happens to them later. Ensign Officer at the storehouse says that there are no brown ones, didn’t arrive yet. Well… as they say – wait for three years till you get what was promised.
I got outside, and was trying to adjust my belt. It was so short that it didn’t match. I go back and say “It’s short, it doesn’t match” and show it to the officer.
He tells me “It’s 73 years old, it’s older than you are, I don’t have any other at the storehouse”.
“So should I walk without my pants?” I ask him.
“I will check” he says and less than in 2 minutes he found another one, longer.
And at the end he asks me “You are probably a volunteer?”
I say “No, I am reporter”. And he says “I can hear that in your voice”. So he wished me good luck, not raising his voice this time. I don’t know what he could hear in my voice, but I got the uniform of right size that matched. And if I found out that new boots are there, I will exchange them also.
Now I want to say how much I am sick of so many senseless rollcalls and line-ups. So much time gets wasted, it’s terrible. It would be good to spend that time for something else. And that’s the problem number 2. For 4 days no commander worked with our platoon, nobody told us about plans of training, or what we are doing here, who we are going to be after training, where we can be sent or how to get a day off. Nothing, just live as you live. It’s unreal to find any commander. They vanish right after line-up procedure, evaporate as a drop of water on a frying pan.
There is also zero political work with mobilized men who just arrived.
No training in the first 4 days at all.
Ok, there was no uniform and we had days off. But you have a feeling like if you were a calf that doesn’t understand what’s going on around. For sure all that de-motivates you.
The only thing that makes me happy in this situation – other soldiers from my platoon. All of us were mobilized during same mobilization wave, they are mostly working people. But they are great men and always help and tell you if you don’t know something, so the team is good.
Honestly, I really hope that tomorrow the situation will change regarding military training. Guys who got mobilized earlier say that all of them were feeling same way and later it became better and they learn necessary things and do it good.