Where is the place that remains in my memory? When I thought about it, I could not come up with an answer easily. I never really liked places. Actually, I do not remember the places I went very well. After some time of deep thinking, I found the place that left relatively big impacts on me. It was the place that I did not like, rather, the place that I hated. It was the military unit where I did my service.
I remember being carried on a train. My hair was freshly shaved, and I was wearing the green military uniform. I was just out of the boot camp in Non-san. We ate the military ration for our lunch, and it was awful. After the long ride back to Seoul, the recruits were disposed. I was taken and led by a small female officer to my unit. On the small bus, there were some other recruits rode with me to our new two-year home. We were all so silent. None of us recruits dared to speak first, for we were afraid of the new officers, and were afraid of our future.
We arrived at a place. Amidst the mountains, completely shutdown from the outside world by the woods and ridges, there was my unit, the gathering of small and humble buildings, a tiny training field, and steep stairs. The moment I realized I was doomed. It was somewhere near Kyeonggi-do. The mission is classified and I cannot tell, but I think it will be sort of OK to tell that there were huge antennas. The antennas were so big that they cast shadows on half the unit - the unit itself was small, too. It was this small that running around the unit would not take more than fifteen minutes, and most of the running time would be spent on climbing up the stairs. After analyzing the place, I felt like I was comdemned in the middle of the dammed mountain. But what I saw was just the beginning of the pains to come.
I was a military translater and needed to handle the classified documents. I was introduced a bunker. The underground office that I would be spending most part of my two year service. It was the most terrible part. Air, cold and dry, since the air-conditioner was running twenty four-seven for the sake of the machines. Space, ceilings low and walls narrow. Doors, always shut and required keys to pass. Computers, so many and the light and some kind of eletromagnetics from the displays tortured my eyes. Sunshine, none. In the prison wearing the facade of a military unit, I was given the worst cell. They thought that my mission did not require much more spaces than the bunker. It was true. But a human needed more spaces than that.
The whole place was a jail to me. At first, I thought I was going to suffocate. The boot camp was a vast place. It usually took half to an hour walk to get anywhere in the boot camp. But here in the bunker, I could walk no more than a dozen steps in one direction. Outside the bunker it was not much better. The training field was very small and was occupied with vehicles. We had gym facilities but none of them worked properly. The troops had to repair the facilities constantly. Our quarters had two story beds, which I thought will soon collapse. Thankfully, that did not happen during my time. If we would leave the place only for a month untouched by human hands, the unit would look no less than a ruin. Walls had cracks, and it was worse than the hundred-year old school building which I attended in my childhood.
The food was what made me suffer, too. We did not have proper cook nor the kitchen facility. We had to order our meals from the outside food suppliers. Most of the times the meal was horrifying. They were merely not edible. The meal that my highschool offered was bad but it was worse. Meats were tough and the seasoning was too salty or too spicy. Salt was always the problem. The food was never properly salted and was one of the either way; too salty or too bland. We did not have PX either. I think that was the peak of it. The lack of PX drove everyone in the unit mad. No snacks, no cigarettes (though I did not smoke), no drinks, just nothing. So we made our driver troop to buy some extra food when he returns from the driving. But that was a rare occasion, since it need the permission from the commander.
To top it all, I was so alone. I had no friends. Yes, I did not get along with my comrades. But all they wanted to me were to play football with them, eat a lot, sleep early, those kinds of things. I was only a private and they expected me to be a healthy, not-questioning and empty-minded hard-working soldier. I was a person far from that. I tried to. But in less than months I found myself not a good soldier. I needed some distance from other people, I hated playing sports with them, and I thought I was not so strong. It gradually got better as I spent more time with them, but still I did not like them.
The two horrible years taught me that my home is the best and most comfortable place in the world. I missed mother's caring, I missed my bedroom and my computer and my everything that I could not bring into the unit. But it also taught me to live without someone taking care of me. It helped me when I lived on my own after I finished my service. I knew how to cook, how to do the laundry, how to clean up the room, and most of all, how to live with the loneliness. Solitude makes one grow, after all.
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