James Bond and UM 01314

There is something that bothers me a lot lately (besides the current constant bullying through noises and pollution and everything here at the apartment). But is really hard to talk about since it's unbelievable even to me.

At the end of HS which in itself was an unbelievable adventure, with John Travolta, ONJ, Joe Dassin as class mates, others, (Jane Fonda as chemistry teacher by example) i went for the mandatory 9 months military stage. Though i had this fracture at 13 that does not allow me to freely move the left hand (60% mobility left in elbow articulation) i have been drafted and went with all my colleagues, future students at some of the sections of the Mechanical Faculty in Iași at Galați, where there was a tank regiment (UM01314, UM from Military Unit). We were told many times, everything there was a state secret, but i don't believe that is the case anymore, after 40 years. We were supposed to be trained as tank or tank platoon commanders (T55) but were organized as infantry platoons. We had a day lieutenant who was going home in the afternoon and his lieutenant (replacement, whatever) was one of us, by his first name Mugur (pronounced Moogoor, the word for bud in Romanian). However he looked older (not admitted the first time in college) and was enrolled in future evening classes so i didn't get to see it after that at Iași.

Nowadays after i got Amazon video and FLEX box from Xfinity i started to browse the free movies and ended up seeing some of the handsome Roger Moore (my childhood favorite actor) movies, including The Saint and some of the James Bond. However every time i looked at him i saw my ex platoon commander from 78-79. But Roger Moore was 50 at the time.

Mugur has been there alright every day from September to June, i saw him going to bed and waking up every day in that stinking dorm, ate the same crappy food, except for a 10 day "permission" in December, another short one in May and probably another 10 days one for him only as his function privilege. But when we were marching the 10 miles to the shooting range, we all spread after a mile or so so we could not see each other actually marching. And after December all the training slowed down and turned to long mornings of sleeping with our head on the benches or reading all kinda books that we were trading among each other while the lieutenant was teaching us tank mechanics, tactics and whatever strategy theory, Soviet style.

I remember one particular episode since. Due to my HS French teacher, "who went to study in France for 6 months after college" (in reality i think he was the French singer Hervé Cristiani) i memorized a poem of Baudelaire. One day i was reading from a bilingual French Romanian edition of Baudelaire when the good lieutenant "caught me" reading and called me in front of the class with that book. Then he opened it at the exact same page where that poem was and asked me if i knew that poem. I could not lie to him and i said yes and then he asked me to recite which at first i was reluctant and i think he ordered me to and everybody went in awe of course and since that day they started to call me Jean Georges (John George in French) and that was my name throughout college.

But wait there's more. One day "his sister" came to visit him. Don't know how "he managed" to bring her inside the dorm in the military base for us all to see her. She looked exactly like Maud whatever his partner in a James Bond movie. And the captain, the battalion commander over all 200 of us future students was a guy Mihai Oprea which now i think was the ex- King of Romania Michael (Mihai).

Don't know what exactly the expression is in English, but i've never been screwed in my entire life more than by these two guys.

Just remembered something. Firs three weeks we could not take a shower because the showers were broken as i can remember. As we were learning the infantry steps and moves whatever (i'm not familiar with these terms in English) a nail from the sole of one my shoes "grew" inwards. It took me weeks until i finally stopped complaining and just pulled it out of there.