The army is very reminiscent of a Shaolin monastery. There, too, they force you to work, train, and the mentor’s explanations are very vague and you can get hit on the head for being stupid. Only you can leave the monastery at any moment, so the preparation has to be stretched out for a long time. And you’ll get the hell out of the army, so enlightenment occurs there at an accelerated pace. Author’s notes: This is a collection of stories on an army theme, which I published at one time on Pikabu. Initially, I didn’t plan to drag it all here, but a comrade hiding under the nickname “Boar” collected it all and edited it, so, out of respect for his work, I’ll have to post it. I made minimal edits - I collected some things scattered across two posts into one story, and added pieces somewhere for better gluing. I did not include my thoughts on the topic of weapons in the collection, since “Kalashnikov and Schmeisser” are posted separately, and the rest requires serious revision. And he threw out something personal and not related to the category of army tales. Otherwise, it’s almost the same as before.