The short update

Me: "Ever see Aliens?"
Other disenchanted conscript: "Sure."
Me: "I was just thinking about the sergeant, and the speech he gave right at the beginning. 'A day in the Marine Corps is like a day on the farm. Every meal's a banquet, every paycheck a fortune, every formation a parade. I love the Corps!'" *beat* "He got eaten by the aliens in the first wave."
Him: "Hooray, bugs."

Slightly longer update

Went to the conscription office today, then the tax office, then the conscription office again. Paid out the balance of my six-month term after Day 45 (28 December), so I'm officially at D-Day minus 9 (or I will be, once I hand in the orders from Athens to Mesologi).

More strikes and protests in Athens today, I heard.

Army is, of course, not enjoyable in the slightest. Logic go bye-bye, and there's a sense that anyone can catch penalties for anything. Case in point: punk kids making major fuss night before last, playing around with shaving cream, sliming other kids. Somehow the Lieutenant got the impression that I'd gotten the same treatment. I hadn't, but I *had* nearly been clocked in the skull by a half-full water bottle thrown from across the barracks around about midnight. Didn't see who it was. So the Lieutenant screams at everyone for their severe disobedience, demands that either the guilty parties give themselves up, or someone else gives them up. If not, everyone's confined to base.

Including me, with leave upcoming to straighten out my buyout. Singled out, in fact, because I didn't cough up the names of those responsible - not that I could see with the lights out and my glasses off and my head turned to the wall so my back was to whoever threw the damned water bottle.

Stupid punks. Stupid officers. Stupid army. Stupid country.