Voices from the Front: Turkish Soldiers on the War with the Kurdish Guerrillas

Front Matter....Pages i-10
I Came Back Without Having Seen the Enemy....Pages 11-14
A Twenty-Year-Old Youngster is Going …....Pages 15-18
I Became a Soldier with a Beard....Pages 19-23
If Soldiers had the Opportunity, They Would Run Away....Pages 25-28
To Escape Military Service, You Need to Stay Away from Bread....Pages 29-31
The Donkey Was Looking at Me … Should I Shoot Him Right Here? I Asked Myself …....Pages 33-39
It Is Up to the Poor to Protect the Homeland; the Rich know How to Go About It …....Pages 41-48
My Mother Asks, “Where is Muş?”....Pages 49-59
I Slapped him Twice; He could not Understand Why He was Being Beaten …....Pages 61-66
“I Have to Control My Nerves”....Pages 67-75
Time Doesn’t Pass There; It Is as if Time Has Frozen …....Pages 77-81
The Greatest Advantage of the State Is to Send the Twenty-Year-Old Youth to the Region....Pages 83-89
Another Reward for Being a Veteran Is that Nobody Lets You Marry Their Daughter....Pages 91-95
At Least I Sort of Saved Myself....Pages 97-103
On the One Hand, There Is Great Respect and Love, but on the Other, There Is Brutality....Pages 105-108
1313: The Number Inscribed on my Arm....Pages 109-115
I Love All Human Beings; Even the Terrorists We Captured....Pages 117-122
We Took Out the Powder from Our Bullets and Inscribed Our Remaining Days....Pages 123-131
I, Too, Lived that Festive Day....Pages 133-138
You Can’t Finish Your Military Service by Running Away from It; You Have to Go Through It....Pages 139-143
Turkey’s Balances Are Disturbed....Pages 145-149
If I Knew an Alternative for Evading Military Service, I Would Advise the Youth to Take It....Pages 151-155
I Definitely Wouldn’t Send My Child into Military Service....Pages 157-163
I Ordered the Soldier to Kill the Dog; There Was No Other Way....Pages 165-172
What Would a Woman’s Voice Do There? You Hear It because You Are Lonely …....Pages 173-181
I Became a Terrorist, Like They Said, a Real Terrorist …....Pages 183-188
Our Nickname Among the Terrorists Was “Battalion of Bastards”....Pages 189-198
I Didn’t Live up to the Uniform I Wore....Pages 199-204
They Call It the “Invisible Enemy”: My Only Fear Was the Landmine and I Stepped on One …....Pages 205-212
I Was Frightened. Instantly, I Thought of Death, of Dying …....Pages 213-218
We Kept Asking, “Why Us?” But then We Realized that There Was No Way Out …....Pages 219-228
Real Military Service Starts Here....Pages 229-235
We Should Be the Ones Who Sanctify Life, not Death!....Pages 237-243
Soldiers are the Ones Experiencing This Pain, I Mean the Conscripted Privates …....Pages 245-251
Mother, I Survived Another Day....Pages 253-259
These Were Moments When We Missed Death....Pages 261-268
Am I an Idiot? Are the People Who Go There Idiots?....Pages 269-274
While Everybody Is Sunbathing and Enjoying Themselves, We Go into an Operation!....Pages 275-280
They Called Me “The Old Soldier”....Pages 281-286
No Blood-for-Blood....Pages 287-290
I Don’t Even Own a Piece of Land as Big as This Ashtray; Which Land Am I Going to Defend?....Pages 291-300
In Place of the Ones Who Cannot Talk....Pages 301-308
Numbers …....Pages 309-316
Back Matter....Pages 317-320