The Days We Served in the Army Together

There is a place called the military camp! There are people called soldiers! There is a wake-up call called emergency assembly! There is an endurance test called a five-kilometer run!

There is a torment called the 400-meter obstacle course! There is a stroll called a forced march! There is a title called martyr!

There is a blanket called a tofu block! There is a dream called waking up naturally! There is a dance called the capture-the-enemy fist!

There is a paradise called the guesthouse! There is a carefree act called a group roadside pee on the highway!

You may regret serving for two, five, or twelve years, but if you never serve, you'll regret it for the rest of your life.

The military camp is a great furnace. You go in as a piece of iron and come out as steel.

Our old squad leader once advised us to make sure we were tempered into steel, and never to become a piece of iron slag.

The old squad leader also said that there are two places that can truly temper a man: the military camp and prison.

Only those with nowhere else to go would choose prison, so let us aspiring young people devote ourselves to the military.

I dedicate this book to the comrades who served alongside me in those years.