02-VI-1982.
The guys from the TV crew came and brought a whole calf's leg, to be stored in our freezer, and 20 liters of good black wine, to stay in our custody until the live transmission next tuesday, of "Games without frontiers". They didn't stay long, and weren't too happy to see the bannerman instead of one of the two sergeants. There seemed to be some history between them, which neither side forgot.
We didn't touch the beef, and took good care of the wine. It evaporated in two evenings. Then the next day the new boss sent the offroader to get a refill. Three days later another refill, and that one we didn't touch, saved it for the big day.
(this shot must have been made before mid may, still wearing jacket)
Around this time Morkec and I went to town again, maybe to buy more photo material, and of course by dusk we sat down at the terrace on the boardwalk to drink a couple of gemišts. I later recognized it as the same terrace where I was as a kid, the last shot of august 1959..
So we sit and sip, nice weather, a beauty. And all of a sudden I hear a familiar voice from the next table. What the fuck, whom do I know in Šibenik at all, even if it was someone from our barracks, there's barely anyone left of those I know, they were all there for the training and got assigned all over the place. I looked at where the voice came from, yup they are soldiers but no familiar faces.
And then I got it. Looked until the guy spoke again, and then said only „Vulović, is it you?“. Then he recognized my voice too. Because for the last five months we spoke regularly, whenever we were both dežurni in the same shift, over the phone. He was in the receiving station, somewhere in the valley behind our hill, and from them to us, the transmitting station, there was a phone line strung. They maintained the connection with the neighboring stations. One of them should have been on Kozjak, above Split, and the other one on one of peaks of Velebit, and then maybe some on the islands. We'd only turn the transceivers on and tune them. Why was it organized so, to have the communications center in some nook of the valley while the signal was distributed from a station on a top of a hill, masquerading as a meteorological station, devil would know, military and logic...
We didn't talk much, officially we shouldn't even know each other, nor know who's where, by the same logic. Few sentences, „talk with you tomorrow“ and we each turned back to our drinks and company. This was a prototype for such encounters, which will occur later in larger numbers, where I'd finally meet in person someone I knew for a long time.
While I translated the manual for the Tectronix oscilloscope, I was also the sargeant's scribe (the older one's only, the younger one didn't seem to need a pen pusher), I was even making schedules for the guard, and dežurni for both emission units. Which was the big deal, just rotate them regularly and shuffle a bit when someone's away. Then boss returned me back to my regular duty (so at least I didn't have to clean up his office and make his bed), and took Šime for the scribe instead. Fuckit, he needed literates dearly... And so, as two guys he could trust, he once summoned us and said there was a problem. With Black Rifa (crn=black, and his surname was Crnković, Crnaljević or some such), who was the crazy Bosančeros, permanently causing trouble. Once we stayead awake until half two, just waiting for him to return from a leave, because it's a serious fuckup if anything happened to him, an office is responsible for his people... But he did come.
What was it this time? Says the cooks (Pič and Jožek) noticed him sneaking into the kitchen, then going straight to the dorm - and that's where our lockers (aka cassettes) were, and everyone had a key to his own. They suspect there may be some theft, but they haven't noticed anyhing obviously missing, so they have no clue. So we three should be the committee to officially open his locker and write down whatever we find in there. The boss, of course, had a skeleton key to all lockers. We expected he may be stealing eurokrem (a nutella type of condiment, just shaped as a chocolate), or cans of spam, of veal or mutton kind of course, as we assumed he may be a muslim.
Okay, deal. Šime had pencil and paper ready to write an official note. We opened it, and found some fifteen cans inside. Of green peas.
We exchanged looks. Fuckit, what insanity is this, such risk taking, stealing in a situation where it's highly likely to be noticed, even caught, and for what? Cans of green peas, which he could get just like that, who ever needs them. Once more we exchange looks, shrug it off, lock it as found, and decide to let it go, nothing happened.
In the vojska you meet all kinds.
Mentions: august 1959., Damir Molnarec (Morkec), dežurni, Lovorko Olujić (Šime), Robert Pintarič (Pič), vojska, in serbian
15-VII-2022 - 25-VI-2026