“I will send you to a military school” – was my threat to the antics of Mr. Shiny, many years ago when he was a little boy.
It never came to materialise, which was extra-good karma for me. And a very sane and happy childhood for him.
Forty years ago, Mr. Fascist was not so generous with me.
In summer of 1983, my brother Rabid and me were carted off to the “Liceo Militar“, after a string of misfortunes, failing exams and some minor truancy.
I got expelled from Catholic school that year. And Rabid was carted off as well for my faults. I think he never forgave me for it.
Another miscarriage of justice perpetrated by Mr. Fascist, who got us registered to start bootcamp in September of that year.
The military school concept is well known through the Americas, from grandiloquent West-Pointesque institutions with gaudy uniforms, and militaristic drills and maneuvers in the Anglosphere; to the despair of destitute reeducation camps in some parts of Latin America.
The school we were sent to was in the middle of the range: it had enough militaria to pass for a low-quality military training bootcamp but with enough “correctional” undertones. The teachers were both civilians and military men and there was a small contingent of female students as well. They wore uniform, lived in an off-campus residence and were pretty much autonomous to the rest of the school.
The school was run by an branch of the armed forces and was staffed by sergeants, corporals and other NCOs who were close to retirement age. Perhaps they were not success stories. There were a couple of mid-grade officers, who had obviously fell off the promotion ladder and were in a semi-retirement limbo. The director was a full colonel, close to retirement age as well.
Most of these people were strict but fair, but a couple of them were almost universally despised because they had a fetish for sticking to the rules and regulations and meted out harsh punishments, like Himmelstoß in “All Quiet on the Western Front”
I suppose there are assholes like those in every army around the world.
The food was mediocre at best, there was lots of physical exercise and pointless marching. Drills with and without a rifle. Silly rituals and practices, and punishment consisted mainly in more physical exertion, or drills that could go on for hours. Standing up at attention, or saluting, or any number other godless exertions.
Academic time was just a part of the day; the rest of the time was “being in the army”.
The authoritarian oppression of my school years was a trigger for my animosity and contempt for authority. And in an indirect manner, the military school taught me a lot about fending for myself and becoming self-sufficient. It also gave me my first foray into computers -a curious nerdy thing back in the eighties- and a respectable knowledge of the myriad ways in which you can get even at injustices.
I learnt lockpicking, chemistry and other peculiar skills. I started smoking cigarettes. I got into my first fist-fight, which I barely won.
I realised that being seen by others is important; and created a sinister persona, as I figured it was the way to go for a wispy, spectacled kid.
Some of my exploits were propaganda set-pieces, like blowing up a window at home during the Easter break, when only a reduced crew staffed the school. We were promptly booted off back to the camp as a punishment.
We spent a week there, almost alone and surrounded by NCO’s. It felt like a prison.
I orchestrated the news of our sudden arrival to school as a result of parental rage at an explosion caused by me and my brother, in one of our rare moments of collaboration. I made sure of telling Rabid to share a similar story of our exploits with generous details and subtle exaggerations. We had to work together on this.
We gained fame of “incorrigible” when lessons re-started. Nobody in their right mind is deprived of the Easter break. Nobody is ever sent back to the “Liceo” during a major holiday. Nobody.
And the story circulated from the mouth of the guards and NCO’s, the sources of authority in the little world of the school.
The plan worked: we gained almost mythical infamy. There is nothing like the fear of retribution to keep the bullies away.
Very few unfortunate bullies crossed our paths since that Easter and they all met outrageous retribution.
Rabid. He was the nutcase, violent and unpredictable one. I was the “bright one”, naive and good natured until the “Liceo Militar” happened.
I went in at 13 as an innocent little mouse and finished there at 17, as a large and sinister rat with big ideas and pointy teeth.