Cyprus-Forum.com

[Paphitis]

One thing that brings me great comfort is that at time of war a soldier retains the right to shoot anyone in the back who tries to flee the battle scene.

For me it’s very personal… I was a refugee once as a child and it’s NEVER gonna happen again!

These kind of things are more common and have been practiced in war.

For example, if the soldiers did not have faith in their commander, they would wait for contact with the enemy, and during the battle, one would turn their gun against them and shoot. The casualty was always listed as KIA by the enemy, but in actual fact it was friendly fire that was not so friendly.

[Paphitis]

Why are atheists pussies? Are they afraid of losing their precious little pathetic atheist life?

You just had one idiot that thought it was a bright idea to call himself an Atheist and then spread shit about the CNG.

Are you calling me idiot?

Did you serve in the CNG Paphitis?

No of course I have not served the CNG. I don't live in Cyprus.

But to answer your question, I did 11 years in Australia's ADF and have a good knowledge of training from personal experiences. It was the best and proudest time of my life. It was also the most difficult challenges I have ever faced in my life.

When you get through that, you should feel proud like you have accomplished the impossible, feel 10 Feet tall and indestructible.

I have been yelled at, spat at, and spat at like a dog. It was friggin hard. I was never prepared for all the shit I encountered because they don't tell you about it. Literally, it was bloody brutal and the females got just as much as the guys.

I initially got some very special treatment when I was at NEOC! I started off in the Navy at HMAS Creswell until the Seasprite Contract was cancelled and a whole bunch of us (8) were transferred to the Air Force. So effectively I had to it twice.

I remember a Chief Young. For a whole week during Drill in preparation for Anzac Day, I remember this freak standing in front of us staring each one of us in the eye. If you blinked, you were taken out of the Parade and was given Flag Duty instead. The friggin bastard stood in front of me for 5 minutes and I was bighting my tongue to stop from blinking. My eyes were watering.

That guy was so intimidating.

On Anzac Day, I was driven to him by car to Canberra's War Memorial. Had a bit of personal time with him. The guy was just doing his job and had a lot invested in seeing us all do well.

But during Drill, the guy was an utter prick!

[Nikitas]

Atheist,

Your calculations ignore many, too many, instances in history when a small, organized, determined force with clear objectives demolished a more powerful enemy.

No need to look too far. Greece in 1912 had a population of 4 million and the Ottoman Empire 28 million. Greece liberated territories more than twice its size in that war against a superior enemy. The reason is simple, there was a clear objective, the means to achieve it and the decisiveness to do it. Just a few years earlier in 1897 Greece had suffered a humiliating defeat by the Ottomans, and the comments following it were not unlike yours now. The time lapse between the two was 25 years. That is how quickly things can change.

It takes a small technological click to cancel out seeminglys superior forces. The problem with us is that we are not looking for that click, we are instead turning to the UN, the EU, the ECHR, thinking that we will get someplace if we "internationalise" the problem which we say is invasion and occupation. It is not.

The enemy is not after our signature to legalise the "new realities", they want the whole island, read Davutoglu's numerous statements on that. Failing to understand that simple fact will lead to more disasters. Giving up the CNG is a sure step in that direction.

[Atheist]

No of course I have not served the CNG. I don't live in Cyprus.

If you are such a patriot why don't you come to Cyprus to serve? Apparently you wouldn't sacrifice your comforts, let alone your life, to serve Cyprus.

What you did in Australia sounds more like a paid job and nothing like risking your life in a war with an enemy 100 times bigger than you.

For me it’s very personal… I was a refugee once as a child and it’s NEVER gonna happen again!

There needed be so many refugees. If you were as brave as you claim you could have just stayed put, like the very few enclaved. But most Cypriots would not even give up their comforts, let alone their lives. Beyond that talk is cheap.

[Nikitas]

The enemy is not one hundred times bigger than us. On the ground, as explained above, the forces are about equal.

The purpose of the CNG now, (and this was stated even by mild mannered and "progressive" Greek politicians like George Papandreou), is to resist long enough for either a cease fire or a generalised Greek Turkish conflict which will reach from Famagusta to the Evros river in norther Greece.

Putting the situation in terms of who is and who is not chicken etc, is not the way to deal with it. Neither is disarming. Can you be so sure that the Turks will not push to take over the whole island, as Davutoglu often said their long term objective is? Read his books. They will tell you a lot about the opponent.

[Paphitis]

No of course I have not served the CNG. I don't live in Cyprus.

If you are such a patriot why don't you come to Cyprus to serve? Apparently you wouldn't sacrifice your comforts, let alone your life, to serve Cyprus.

What you did in Australia sounds more like a paid job and nothing like risking your life in a war with an enemy 100 times bigger than you.

For me it’s very personal… I was a refugee once as a child and it’s NEVER gonna happen again!

There needed be so many refugees. If you were as brave as you claim you could have just stayed put, like the very few enclaved. But most Cypriots would not even give up their comforts, let alone their lives. Beyond that talk is cheap.

Would love to serve the CNG Atheist, but it's not exactly practical for me.

At one stage I made inquiries, but I don't intend on living in Cyprus ever i am afraid. A few years ago, if you had asked, I had every intention of living in Cyprus but now I really don't think so.

I would be dead keen to compare notes between the ADF and CNG though. The training was so hard core I initially had so many regrets. I remember my Bus which I got from Sydney Airport for the 2 hour ride to HMAS Creswell, We were all laughing, listening to Walkmans, and just generally being kids and immature pratts wearing Ray Bans because they were trendy and ripped jeans (big mistake that was).

When we got to gate, the arms went up as if we were entering a NAZI war camp. There were a bunch of Officers waiting for our arrival on the parade grounds.

The doors open, one gets on each bus there were 4 buses) and they started screaming at us and behaving like lunatics. They were friggin angry and making fun of us.

They were ripping our sunnies off our faces, throwing our Walkman's around. One actually listened to our music and was making fun of our taste in music just to ridicule us. they told us to fall in but we did not know how to fall in and they were man handling us. then they helped themselves to our luggage and started to open some, looking at our underwear and mocking. Everyone was shitting themselves. Then they issued our uniforms and we had 5 minutes to wear them and get back to the parade ground and "fall in" for more abuse.

We were seperated into 4 Divisions - not real Divisions. Reds, Blues, Greens and Yellows.

I was a Green - Phillip's Division. Competition between the Divisions was stiff - another story in its own.

[Atheist]

Atheist,

Your calculations ignore many, too many, instances in history when a small, organized, determined force with clear objectives demolished a more powerful enemy.

No need to look too far. Greece in 1912 had a population of 4 million and the Ottoman Empire 28 million. Greece liberated territories more than twice its size in that war against a superior enemy. The reason is simple, there was a clear objective, the means to achieve it and the decisiveness to do it. Just a few years earlier in 1897 Greece had suffered a humiliating defeat by the Ottomans, and the comments following it were not unlike yours now. The time lapse between the two was 25 years. That is how quickly things can change.

It takes a small technological click to cancel out seeminglys superior forces. The problem with us is that we are not looking for that click, we are instead turning to the UN, the EU, the ECHR, thinking that we will get someplace if we "internationalise" the problem which we say is invasion and occupation. It is not.

The enemy is not after our signature to legalise the "new realities", they want the whole island, read Davutoglu's numerous statements on that. Failing to understand that simple fact will lead to more disasters. Giving up the CNG is a sure step in that direction.

Nikitas, in 1912 it was not just Greece. It was the Balkan League which included Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and Bulgaria and the League's forces outnumbered (2:1) the local forces of the Ottoman Empire which was already in the process of collapsing. That has nothing to do with the situation today and the vast gap of power between Turkey and Cyprus (100:1).

Yes, a "technological click" can make a big difference. But technological advancements are made by those who are already technologically advanced, not by those who are bankrupt due to wrong choices, such as wasting money on an army that can have no practical use other than making a coup which invites a foreign occupation.

[Paphitis]

The mental re-arrangements had begun in earnest.

We felt like prisoners, constantly being degraded and we were literally scared, but that was just the beginning.

Mobile Phones would go off, usually parents schecking on their kids. We were briefed if you can call it that, and then dismissed for 5 minutes to make a final call to Parents or loved ones. They told us it would be the last contact with the outside world for 11 weeks. Parents had a hotline to call to check on the welfare of their kids but were never allowed any contact after this.

Nothing was sacred. Even anyone's race back then. Were we in the KKK?

There was later a Parliamentary Inquiry over these matters. They called it Bastardy and there was certainly a lot of it.

Most of us were late teens, early twenties. There were a few in their thirties and one or 2 in their fourties. One was a doctor.

Then they took away all our luggage, clothes, personal belongings were handed in including watches, mobile phones, jewellery, ID, passports, any ear piercings etc etc.

We felt like prisoners being processed, literally. And they made us feel as welcome and as comfortable as a rapist at a Supermax! No personal belongings allowed, ever.

[Atheist]

The enemy is not one hundred times bigger than us. On the ground, as explained above, the forces are about equal.

The purpose of the CNG now, (and this was stated even by mild mannered and "progressive" Greek politicians like George Papandreou), is to resist long enough for either a cease fire or a generalised Greek Turkish conflict which will reach from Famagusta to the Evros river in norther Greece.

Putting the situation in terms of who is and who is not chicken etc, is not the way to deal with it. Neither is disarming. Can you be so sure that the Turks will not push to take over the whole island, as Davutoglu often said their long term objective is? Read his books. They will tell you a lot about the opponent.

And the Russians didn't send the whole Russian army to defeat the Georgians. They just send us much as it was needed. If the Turks wanted to take the whole Cyprus militarily they could have upgraded / increased their troops as needed and then proceed.

If the Turks wanted to take the whole Cyprus what is stopping them is not CNG, but the consequences they could face (sanctions etc).

Unlike partition which was an option from the 50s (and discussed with the British) where they could send GCs to the south, occupying the whole of Cyprus would mean either a genocide of 800.000 people, or turning Cypriots into Palestinians, which would be an ongoing problem for them in their international relations far bigger than the problems that their current occupation causes to them. It is this that stops them from taking the rest of Cyprus, and not because Erdogan or Davutoglu care to sacrifice some Turkish troops to get the job done.

Turkey wants to control Cyprus in other ways. Via a solution that would make the whole Cyprus their vassal and not by actually occupying the whole island. And I repeat: If they wanted to occupy the whole island, casualties caused by the CNG would be the least of their concerns.

What brings us closer and closer to accepting a solution that will make us a Turkish vassal is the fact that we are broke and our debtors are using that as a leverage to force us to close the Cyprus problem as soon as possible. This makes wasting money on the useless CNG doubly stupid.

[Paphitis]

Meal times were the best.

Everything was in the Officer's Mess. The Officers Training us were sitting on one table tegether, probably discussing how they were going to torture us.

Us maggots were the furthest away from them we can get. Chief Young was not allowed to get into the Officer's Mess - he was the most brutal, saddistic prick I ever met.

The service was 5 star with waiters and the food was divine. Just when we thought we could relax, there were Officers walking up and down the table looking at us eating. They would stop if you picked up the wrong fork or saw you shovelling food down your mouth.

The first thing I did, was switch the knives and forks around to the other side. I got some special attention on my table manners. Was told to stand and they asked why I did that and I replied "I am left handed Sir" They laughed and mocked. The other cadets would jjust look down towards their plate. I quickly changed my forks back as I was instructed to and sat down.

What followed was the knife and fork course of course!