Military Intelligence

Drawing by Maria Malingowski

This particular story is presumably all true. It happened to one of my friends, Dima Berelovich. Dima immigrated to the United States in 1995 after serving in Kazakhstan’s army for two years. Some of the stories that he told me give a totally new meaning to the term "military intelligence". I wrote the story in the first person, just as he told it to me. Enjoy.

To prove once more that the term “military intelligence” is an oxymoron, the Kazakhstan “voenkomat”, or the army draft office sent me to a training school for military mountain guides. Upon my graduation, for reasons unknown to mere mortals, they stationed me in the desert, to serve with an outfit that guarded the area against Muslim rebels. To be completely honest, the “rebels” couldn’t care less about the political situation; for the most part they warred among themselves and their terrorist actions consisted mainly of throwing dead animals in local wells to poison water.

My outfit was stationed in the middle of nowhere; there was nothing to see besides the endless sea of sand for months at a time and, to put it mildly, we were bored. After a couple of months drinking became our favorite pastime. We drank everything that had alcohol in it – moonshine, rubbing alcohol from our first-aid kits and even toothpaste dissolved in water.

One day we realized that there was nothing left to drink. Fortunately, our survival training taught us to find ways out of even the most hopeless situations. Desperate to the point of insanity two guys from my outfit took one of our tanks, drove it to the nearest village and traded it for a lamb and two buckets of moonshine. Needless to say, we had quite a party that night.

When we woke up the next morning, a very unpleasant surprise was awaiting us – two generals from Alma-Ata (capital of Kazakhstan) decided to show up with a surprise inspection. Since a missing tank is not an easy thing to hide, the guys ended up confessing pretty quickly.

After several bouts of hysterical laughter the general gave these guys two options – either we get the tank back before the end of the next day, or the culprits get court-marshaled.

At sunrise we elected a delegation – five guys who would go to the village and attempt to bring back the tank. All of us threw money in the pot, a total of about 400 rubles; we felt bad about taking back the tank and leaving the old guy short a lamb and two buckets of moonshine.

Our hopes for a peaceful resolution did not come to pass - the old man met us outside the gates with an antique-looking double-barreled shotgun.

“Grandfather” – we bowed respectfully to the old man. “We need that tank back. If we don’t bring it back by tomorrow we’ll all go to jail. We’ll give you 400 rubles to pay for the stuff you gave us.”

The old man looked right through us, moving his lips as though chewing something soft. Finally his eyes focused and he shook his head. “I don’t need your money. There are no shops around here. No! I’m keeping the tank - I traded it fair and square.”

As we began to beg the old man raised his shotgun and fired straight at us. No warning at all... We scampered around, trying to make it out of the range of the old man’s gun as quickly as we could. Now we had another option on our already bleak list – getting the tank, getting court-marshaled, or getting shot by a crazy old guy. To make a long story short we ended up devising a whole covert operation to get the tank back. We waited until it got dark. About two hours after the sunset several guys from our outfit went to the side of the house that was opposite to where the tank was parked. Dressed as Muslim rebels they set a small fire by the well. When the old man ran out of his house and started shooting at them, they started shooting back with blanks to draw him away from the house. Meanwhile, on the other side of the house two more guys slithered their way into the tank and drove off. As it turned out the tank was chained to an apple tree – something that became obvious only after when they drove into our camp and dragging a tree.

The whole thing worked out well for us – we got the tank back, spent a great night eating kebabs and getting drunk, and at the end of the day ended up with enough apples to last us for a week. To this day I feel bad for the old guy...