“I Have to Control My Nerves”

Abstract

I believed I had to go for military service. I wanted to be sent to Şirnak and I was sent there. I grew up in a lower middle-class neighborhood. I was influenced by school, the books I read, and the movies I saw. Moreover, there was the nationalism thing. As it is said, “We love our homeland, we are Turkish boys.” Yet, everything changes as soon as you enter through the gates of the barracks. What you face is totally different from what you have so far been told. You are psychologically crushed. Yet there is no going back after you step through the door. Soldiers who were conscripted only three months before you have the right to shout at you, to slap your face. If he wanted, a single officer could beat 400 privates and no one would stop him. You know the dirty advice: “If rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” I took it. And during the three months of basic training I got used to it. “O.K.,” I told myself, “Now you are a soldier.”