My vacation before training has come to an end. Last night, Vika wrote to me: “Come to the base urgently tomorrow, you are leaving on January 17.”
As unfortunate as it is, I relaxed when I got home. Upon learning that I had to go to the base tomorrow, I began to return to that state of mind again – a serious attitude, discarding everything unnecessary, all sorts of trifles, and focusing on preparation.
Like last time, it all started with a strong feeling of anxiety, so much so that it was difficult to even eat. As I said, after two weeks of sitting at home, I relaxed to a certain extent. Moreover, a few days ago, when I was chatting with Vitalik, he wrote that, in his opinion, they would probably send us at the end of July. I thought that was probably true. And that made me relax even more :). So when I found out that we would be leaving soon, I started thinking again, “Damn, why?”, “Why, everything was so good,” etc.
It is very difficult for an ordinary civilian to remain in such a state of tension for a long time, so at the first opportunity, they leave it behind, I would even say — jump out of it. I had to go through the process of internal self-adjustment again.
After packing all my things, I left and was at the base at eight in the evening.
At the base, I learned that the departure had been postponed by one day, to January 18.
I was placed in a different room, and I didn’t know most of the people in it.
I met a guy named Ruslan. He is 18 years old. I asked him who he was going with. He said that at first he wanted to be a scout, but then he changed his mind and decided to go to the UAV. He said he didn’t want to die right away. Of course, I was curious why an 18-year-old guy joined the army in the first place. He said, “I was just sitting at home with nothing to do. Then I decided I didn’t want to sit around like that. I want some action.” I noted to myself that there are people like this in the army.
I met another guy, Alexander. I asked him what he wanted to be. He said that he actually wanted to be an assault soldier. I asked why. He said he wanted to take out as many Russians as possible (it seemed to me that this was a bit boastful). And then he added, “I have a lot of stupidity. I mean, strength.” During our further conversation, Alexander said, “We’ll come back either as 300 or 200 anyway.”
Hearing this, I somehow felt strongly what a big difference there is between these two worlds — the world of civilians and the world of the military. Just a day ago, I was living in a house. I lived next to various family people, website developers, language teachers. They had planned, peaceful, comfortable lives. Lots of children running around, people talking about various everyday things, etc. If someone had approached one of them and said seriously, “In the near future, you will have only two options: you will become either 300th or 200th,” they would probably have turned pale, gone gray, and lost consciousness.
For my part, I am learning to perceive such phrases wisely and philosophically.
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