Military service, part 2

At 20

In July 1967, we spent 15 days at CIAW and 15 days actually and legally embarked, in maneuvers on the high seas aboard the Brazilian naval squadron, in my case on the “Cruiser Barroso”, the rest of EFORM distributed among a frigate, two destroyers, a corvette and a submarine, almost all of them, in a certain way, second-hand vessels from the Second World War, that is, projects from the 1930s. The opposition to the government claimed that such ships were pushed on us in exchange for money by corrupt intermediaries.

These maneuvers served for us to get to know the troops better (the sailors) and how things worked in practice. It was not without effectiveness. We went to Salvador (BA) and from there to Santos (SP), returning to Rio. On these trips, we learned what it is to be embarked for days, with defined tasks, routine and/or war tasks, the latter happening at any hours, with real cannon shots and missiles, navigating in zig-zag, knowing where one was and the routes to follow (at the time GPS did not exist and my functions were in the “navy-deck” area, that is, navigation, positioning, route). Knowing where one is, in the middle of the sea, seeing the horizon in all directions and senses, is not such a simple thing, nor so complicated; after all, the Portuguese and the Spaniards had been doing it since the end of the 15th century (~1490). In truth, navigating is an art.

And the fact that they were obsolete allowed us to know true museums of mechanics and the origin of the equipment. To understand things and the whys. At the time (1967), much of mechanics had already been replaced by electro-electronics, today (2020), entirely by electronics. For example, an anti-aircraft cannon was “manned” by two or three gunners, each one on his bicycle-type little seat. The first followed the target horizontally through a sight, moving some handwheels. The second followed the target vertically, through another sight on another little seat and other handwheels. The third, through binoculars whose focus also depended on handwheels, kept the sharpness of the target, therefore the distance. With this, the three coordinates of the target were obtained in real time, and under the cannons, a whole apparatus of circular and straight gears, gyroscopes, pendulums, in short, the so-called servo-mechanisms, which aimed the cannons a little ahead of the target so that, when the projectile was fired (by the crewman who operated the telescopic-optical sight), its trajectory would meet the moving target. To this day, when I remember that, I am impressed by those true analog computers which, in a geometric way, integrated and derived complex ballistic equations in real time.

We also learned another millenary art: what the human being called “sailor” is like. How he behaves, under normal conditions, after some days isolated on a ship, whether on board or on dry land, after certain days embarked. What the common traits are. What the behavioral groups are. What the most frequent personality deviations are, in short, a beautiful psychological-psychiatric exercise. It applies to any isolated personnel as well, whether on construction sites, or in airplane crews, in short.

Worthy of note is the behavior of the crew upon arriving at a port, both as individuals and as a group, which disinhibits individual personalities. In the specific case, there were many ships and many crewmen. It is international practice that the local police allow foreign squadrons to set up their own policing in the regions where it is known that their crew members will concentrate, which is usually in the bohemian and tourist areas.

It was then that we learned that the patrols (24h a day in each port) would be composed of a jeep-type vehicle, equipped, without a hood, a sergeant, two sailors and one EFORM student, each one carrying a VHF radio, a semi-automatic .45 pistol, a baton and a pair of handcuffs. To “learn and see how it was”. Instructions? See with the sergeant who went along, who normally would be a guy with experience from other times! Enormous curiosity, because the stories that reached us were folkloric. We were between anxious to go and, at the same time, terrified of going.

There were two patrols at a time, doing a kind of round. Bohemian zones was a euphemism for prostitution zones, where the problems were concentrated. I did a round on a night “service” in Salvador and a daytime service in Santos. On both occasions it was possible to notice that, normally, the population treated us as any police force. Since the local police did not appear or only appeared if called, we were often stopped to solve something or “do justice”.

In the simple eyes of the common people, this ended up creating embarrassing situations, difficult to get out of, procedures normally needing to be done with a rudeness to which the mama’s boys of EFORM were not accustomed.

Another problem is that, in theory and in practice, it was not clear whether the sergeants were hierarchically above or below the students or “aspirants” to “midshipman” of EFORM. So, in an attitude of not exposing themselves, normally one side pushed the leadership onto the other and vice versa, aiming to preserve themselves from eventual confusions. The sergeants were around 40 years old and we from EFORM around 20.

In Salvador I was an eyewitness to some episodes that made me quite embarrassed as a human being and mama’s boy, and which, in practice, set me against the rest of the jeep crew (which, with everyone carrying a .45 in the holster, is neither nice nor negligible). I got a tough group, which, if on the one hand is good for this type of function, they enjoy certain kinds of jokes of rough people, think you have the same sense of humor as they do, and set out to amuse themselves, for example, entering the prostitution houses and kicking the door of some room when they think the customer is in the middle of intercourse, just for mischief.

The worst is that everyone laughs, including the victim. If the victim lost his erection, legend said he would stay a year without “raising it”. If he did not lose it, he would run after his, until then, tormentors, to ejaculate on them, in short, a circus of horrors, of tragic and lamentable taste. And I, passing as a little rich boy, wanting to keep the level.

In some houses, the level was better than in others, and I was able to know environments that I never needed or did not want to frequent. Nothing against whoever needed or wanted to.

At a certain point, when we crossed a corner, we saw the jeep of the other night round, surrounded by a crowd. I suggested that we go there to help and, although with the others’ sour faces, we went. The other jeep was operated by personnel from the Marine Corps and the EFORM guy was Ivo. Arriving there, we found a heated discussion and Ivo with a 100-cruzeiro bill in his hand (US$ 5.00 would be equivalent today to 10 dollars?). It took me a while to understand but the issue was the following: a little gentleman had paid Cr$ 100 to the prostitute but had not managed to perform what he had paid to have, and wanted the money back.

The discussion seems to have started heatedly, with some in favor, others against, and they ended up on the sidewalk exactly when Ivo’s jeep was passing and the little crowd in front stopped “the police” so that justice might manifest itself (without irony, all the people serious, the parties too). Ivo looking at me, bewildered, with the bill in his hands. I was already regretting having gone there to rescue Ivo, my guard looking at me mockingly: “see, we told you not to come!”. I, already almost beside Ivo, who would not get off the jeep, in the middle of the crowd (about 50, which seemed to me like 500), when a divine inspiration came to me: Solomon! I took the 100 bill and gave two 50s to Ivo and got out of there (Ivo gave 50 to each one and everyone was happy, they told us later). When the round ended we met at the pier, everyone already laughing about the night survived. I got a good hug from Ivo, which I do not forget, and we all went to sleep the sleep of the just with duty fulfilled. Literally.

The next day Emiliano and Engel split the rental of a car (a Beetle) and went to see Salvador, took the waterfront and headed north! The city ended around what today is Rio Vermelho. There they gave a ride to two little Bahian girls who wanted to go to the more deserted beaches. They passed near the beach called “Placafor” and arrived at the then deserted Stela Maris, where they “camped” and bathed for a good while. In truth, the girls took advantage of the aspirants, because it soon became clear that they were much more experienced in the matter. It can even be said that the aspirants were ravished. They did not file a complaint with the police because, at night, they had to visit that Anjo Azul, the fashionable nightclub, and wanted to appear as adults, with the girls in tow, drinking that drink called angel pee, served in lovely little ceramic chamber pots. That is what they did, and they had the greatest prestige before the rest of the ignorant plebs, pretending to be knowledgeable but left sucking their fingers. Those were the rites of passage into adult life.

From Salvador, we went to Santos where, as far as I remember, there was a complicated episode with a complicated aspirant, the “little king”, I will not remember his name. This aspirant entered EFORM through the window. His father was an admiral and the “little king” had not passed the exam for Naval College, nor for the Naval School, nor for anything, but he very much wanted to be in the Navy, so his father pulled some strings and managed to find a way. The “little king” was incorporated into the quartermaster class of EFORM. At that time logic prevailed over political correctness and only people with minimum physical conditions were accepted into the Marines and into the fleet. The objective was to win wars, not to give employment and lose wars. People outside the weight, breath, vision, hearing, etc. indices were not accepted. When on the limit, they were placed in the quartermaster corps. We all thought that the Little King did not fit even within the limits of the quartermaster corps, but he was there. And he was very happy, thrilled with everything, which disarmed everyone and he ended up being treated like any other person.

So, inadvertently (or not), they included the Little King in a patrol in Santos. The Little King did not hesitate and took command of the jeep, and the sergeant “let it go”. When they were passing through the “zone”, they came across a pimp beating a “protégée” and, the protégée, upon seeing “the police”, ran to ask for help. The Little King, having heard the stories from Salvador and of sailor folklore, decided to play police and justice on earth, and intervened.

The pimp, smarter, seeing that it was a NAVY patrol and since neither he nor the protégée were from the squadron, they would not fall under the patrol’s jurisdiction, challenged the Little King. The Little King went out of his mind, freaked out, drew the .45, fired a shot into the air and placed the .45 against the pimp’s forehead, ordering him to kneel and one of the sailors of the patrol to put the handcuffs on the pimp. The desperate sergeant tried to calm the Little King but at the same time was afraid of the .45 (and of the Little King’s father, I suppose). Then the Santos police arrived, probably called by another pimp or some lookout, but evidently on the pimp’s side. Arguments that this was an irregularity, etc. and so on, but the Little King made a point of taking the pimp “walking” to the police station, handcuffed to the jeep, with a crowd around, most of them cheering. I learned about it the next day from Barros (a.k.a. Mazzaropi), Marine aspirant, who was in the other jeep and saw everything. I wish I had seen it.

Because of this episode the Little King ended up being removed from our class. I heard, but I do not know for sure, that he later completed EFORM some years afterward and “joined” the Navy as a 2nd Lieutenant Quartermaster.

Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer, chronicler and columnist, member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the Institute of Engineering # R2026 Jan Ra, 11,433 characters.