Military service - part 1

From 18 to 20

In my time, the citizen turned 18 and had to “enlist” for military service, a service that normally lasted one year, daily, during which, it was said, the fellow would learn to “be a man” and “become an adult”.

Registration, and the first presentation, were mandatory, but one could request postponement for about 3 seasons (3 years). Those who were taking the entrance exam for some university course usually requested these postponements, hoping to attend a CPOR (Army Reserve Officers Training Course), intended for university students and, it was said, less “rough” than the military services for privates. I believe CPOR lasted only about 10 (ten) months.

To tell the truth, it was an opportunity for many people to position themselves in life since, besides learning to march and follow orders, whoever wanted to ended up learning things such as automobile mechanics, principles of electricity, radiocommunication, driving cars, tractors, cranes, printing, civil construction, cooking, in short, many things.

There was also EFORM (Navy Reserve Officers Training School), which took about 100 students per year and was sought after by some who liked the Navy or preferred the Navy to the Army. The problem was that the course took two and a half years, although only during school vacations. I had begun to like nautical sports, sailing with a few enthusiasts, at the modest Guanabara Regatta Club, in Botafogo, and wanted to go deeper into the subject.

My class turned 18 in 1965, “reported” that year (I did so at the Leme Fort and requested postponement) because of the entrance exam in Jan 1966. In that 1966 things started late because, due to the heavy rains of the beginning of that year, with many catastrophes in Rio de Janeiro (landslides, etc.), everything was postponed. As soon as I passed the entrance exam I enrolled for EFORM, about 10 candidates per vacancy, and the 100 that EFORM could take passed. Whoever did not pass went to CPOR or hoped for an “excess contingent” exemption (there were more people than vacancies). And there were always those who wanted to do military service. Few, but there were. For example, Enir, Enian’s brother, entered firmly decided to become a Corporal and then an Army Sergeant. And he fulfilled that destiny. I even think he became a lieutenant there in RS.

Well, accepted into EFORM, we went to do the first year (Jul 1966, Nov 66-Dec 66- Jan 67-Feb 67 and half of Jul 67) at CIAW (Admiral Wandenkolk Instruction Center), on Ilha das Enxadas in Guanabara Bay (in front of what is today the Museum of Tomorrow), where they considered us “on board”. I believe the Navy considers people “on board” when they are from the gate inward of any unit, whether it floats or not. For purposes of counting time for promotions or retirement, I believe there are some nuances about what counts as “on board” or not.

Our routine was, daily, to arrive at “Cais da Bandeira”, beside the building where the Ministry of the Navy was, today it must be the headquarters of the Naval District and, unfailingly at 7:00 a.m., we were collected by an “aviso” (a type of boat whose function was to transport people from one place to another). That “aviso”, which my memory, without great certainty, says was called Jahú, took about 250 people at a time to CIAW. There we learned “arts of war”, that is, “close order drill” (marching, turning right, turning left, doing “hal-t” without stopping marching, doing “hal-t” stopping marching, position of “atten-tion”, position of “at-ease”, of “present arms”, in short, a series of nonsense things that had their reasons for being from the point of view of our military men. And, it was expected, probably from the military men of the alleged enemies we would face. If the enemies did not follow the same manuals and booklets, it would be a veeeery serious problem, as the Americans discovered when facing the Vietnamese, who did not do these conventional close order drills and ended up, in practice, winning the war, which involves, besides shots, propaganda. Perhaps more the second, as I went on learning in life.

We learned to shoot, to disassemble and reassemble weapons in the dark, to fight fires, do gymnastics, climb, crawl, some basic principles of naval machinery, of radiocommunication, of astronomical navigation, of dead reckoning and instrument navigation, by optics, and other naval arts. We also learned to live among ourselves and with different people, some brilliant, others ridiculous. We learned that life is confusing. And we learned to live within the confusion.

One of the first interesting things we learned was about hierarchy (wherever there were two people, one was always more “senior” (more graduated) than the other, according to various criteria that everyone knew “by heart”. For example, among us, apparently equal freshmen, the grade on the EFORM admission exam prevailed and, in case of a tie, the older one (one day counted), etc. We also learned about duty shifts and leaves. Whoever did not arrive punctually by 7:00 a.m. missed the “aviso” and, automatically, remained on duty that day. And automatically the most senior (the highest-ranking) of that duty shift was released to go home that night because he would be replaced by the “detained” one. So there was rooting among those on duty for someone to arrive late. And the third most senior rooted for three to arrive late. This was for those who lived in Rio and liked going home. There were a few colleagues who, one noticed, preferred to remain on board. Those who were from outside Rio and had scarce resources, those who lived farther from Cais da Bandeira, one understood. Some 3 or 4, although they did not say so, it seemed to me that, there, they had more peace, or more comfort, than at home. Life is complex and we were beginning to see, more clearly, these nuances.

There was a sergeant in charge of seeing who arrived late and controlling these things. In the first year (at CIAW) it was the striking Marine sergeant with the war name “Tranin” (his surname). Both in name and in profile (physical and psychological), he recalled the character Sergeant Snorkel, from the Beetle Bailey comic strip. A mixture of a good and innocent person with extreme love for the Navy, which deep down was his family. A good and innocent person but with a certain sadistic inclination in the pleasure with which he wrote down the names of the latecomers! When everyone began arriving before 7:00 a.m., Tranin, so as not to become sad, with no one to punish, created a folkloric regulation: “I only want the name of the last one.” So, even arriving within the time, whichever of us was the last to arrive began to be retained on that day’s duty shift, to the great joy of the most senior ones. The way was to start arriving before Tranin. How many colleagues became outraged by that arbitrariness! Little by little we learned to laugh at these situations.

Since we are recalling the learning process, we learned that there was no point in playing dead to survive: anything that happened, from noise or indiscipline, or the disappearance of something, always had a culprit: the most senior person present at the event that originated the problem. And the most senior could always be any one of us. All because, if there was a problem, and the most senior had not taken action before a superior appeared, it was because he was not being proactive and exercising his obligations, therefore he accepted being punished. The punishments ranged from doing some 50 laps, running, around the soccer field or “paying” 50 push-ups, to being retained (“arrested”) for “n” days, in truth replacing someone who would be on duty and who was released.

Arrested, in a cell (cage), I only remember two cases that happened precisely to me, whose reasons I tell, one after the other in “part 3, 1968, of these military service chronicles, already at the Naval School” of the military service chronicles. It is fair to say that the door of the cells, at least for me, was not kept closed (locked with a key), I only had to stay in the cell when I had nothing to do or was going to sleep. But it is somewhat “sinister” to be in a cell. Even without being locked in, it is not a good experience.

One of the times, the problem originated like this: I asked to go to the dentist on duty at CIAW, which was granted to me. Arriving at the dentist’s office, I was in doubt whether my appointment was, let us say, at 10:00 a.m. or at 10:30 a.m. and I looked at / leafed through the agenda open on the table. The Officer who was being attended, a certain Lieutenant Lapin, saw it and, having nothing better to do, reported me, in writing, for having read the “diary” of an officer, a crime provided for in naval barracks legislation, a detail that he associated with the word agenda. I went to trial and was officially declared arrested for a week. They asked me not to appeal, nor create trouble. I then learned that this Lapin showed personality deviations that deserved retiring him, also because it would be dangerous to leave a weapon or a boat and its cannons in the hands of a person whose mental sanity was demonstrably a problem. But why had he not already been retired? Well, why! Because the corporation was waiting for him to complete a little more time on active duty in order to be retired one rank above (Lieutenant Commander, I believe equivalent to “major” in the Army), becoming entitled to the treatment of “commander” and a slightly better pay for him, so that his wife and children would have a little more resources throughout the life that remained to them. After all, there had been many years of companionship in the Naval College, then at the Naval School, and that behavior was what everyone expected the corporation to have with any one of them. Who was going to pay for the benefit? Was it fair compared with other Brazilian citizens? The matter was spoken of under one’s breath, but never openly. But it was identical to civil servants, especially from the judiciary, or from state-owned companies, full of rights, while there are people going hungry.

I enjoyed a SPA for one week because I was the poor fellow victimized by Lt. Lapin, so the officers of the day (including the night) invited me to spend time in the “wardroom” with them. Nothing was done, but we were “on alert”, for whatever might be necessary. What if someone decided to invade the manly Brazil.

One night (late Feb 1967?), colleague Samuel, being on duty, nobody knows why (he thought himself a smarter type), decided to sound the alarm because he had “supposedly” seen a suspicious vessel there in Guanabara Bay, which seemed to him to be a submarine coming to the surface. It was an unusual situation. Nobody believing it, but everyone being obliged to pretend that someone (Argentina?) was invading Brazil, entering through Rio de Janeiro. All the protocols for that so-awaited unexpected day were activated. At the same time, a certain feeling of ridicule. Army, Air Force, General Staff of the Armed Forces, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in short, we were there playing war. But what if it was not? And what if it was? Secret files were opened and read in a hurry, but everything with one eye on the papers and the other on that SOB Samuel, because we could be playing pool, reading a book or napping hidden somewhere. It came to nothing, although everyone knew it was a prank by Samuel who, from that day on, began to be persecuted by everyone, colleagues and officers, and practically lost the right to leaves. He must have regretted the joke a lot. Everything that happened began to be his fault. When nothing happened, his shoe or belt buckle was not clean enough, or his beard was badly shaved, or anything did not “mark” (that was the slang for not being according to the rules), and there Samuel stayed arrested and outraged. I do not even remember whether he finished military service with us. He was a forgettable type, from a forgettable little group.

Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer, chronicler and columnist, member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the Institute of Engineering # R2026 Jan Ra, 11,534 characters.