I knew from the beginning that this was going to happen, that my mandatory military service would come to an end and life would be back to normal for me as a civilian. So it happened, as of yesterday, I officially completed my tour with Air Force and boarded the last shuttle bus to leave my beloved summer resort for good. Was I happy just to leave the boring military life behind? After all, the service is mandatory and few young Taiwanese men would ever want to leave their girl friends behind (and get cheated while they are away) just to spend 1 year of their most productive years doing meaningless PTs and idiotic stuff.
At elevation of 9,800 ft, the Majesty Da-Wu Mountain and her mountain range was my favorite scenery every morning at the radar station
Cloud pouring down over the mountain range like waterwall at dust
But my tour at a radar station was different from the very beginning. I served in the most beautiful place I’ve ever visited in the world and frankly, I HAD A HELL OF TIME up in the mountain. Just consider the following facts and judge for yourself how easy my life was as a staff sergeant who was in charge of training and development courses in the mountain.
1. The most strenuous physical training I ever had to endure was the whole afternoon of pickup basketball games followed by 2 hrs of ping-pong and pool. That was rough.
2. The most prudent military advice I ever had to give to enlisted officers and master drill sergeants was how to bid on MLB sports lottery based on the starting pitchers and lineup strength. However, my expertise quickly became useless as baseball season ended, NBA is on strike and now, they have to bid on NHL games.
3. While doing graveyard shift at the security surveillance desk one right, I managed to beat “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2” on the veteran difficulty level in 4 hrs on Xbox. It was definitely more fun than staring at the live images from 24 security surveillance cameras all night. There was nothing to watch at night anyway.
4. After boot camp, I actually gained 6 pounds just by eating all kinds of junk food in my bedroom while watching movies with my pals.
5. My life was so good that the army and navy guys stationed with us called me “Sergeant Goodtime”.
Da-Wu Mountain at dust in the summer
The full moon over Taiwan strait and the city light of Kaohsiung, my hometown
It’s not that I was lazy or not diligent doing my job. For a CPA and CFA, typing and pushing paper around was just too easy. If I really wanted to, I could have easily finished one full month of workload in one week and write poetry and watch movies the rest of month. To make sure that I had things to do every day, I had to go watch sunrise and sunset, play hoop and ping pong, read newspaper, watch TV, take afternoon nap, and try creative writing for at least 8 hrs a day just not to get bored.
Of course, there were times that we had to put up with some idiotic commands from senior officers such as waxing the whole dining hall before we tore it down. But those days were long gone and life had mostly been good for me. To be fair, my service was more like an all-inclusive, paid vacation thanks to the courtesy of Air Force and I am deeply grateful for that.
So what’s next for me? Going back to the states? Landing another j-o-b in the investment? I would leave that for my next post.
Sunrise over the "sea of cloud"
Another shot of sunrise
