I'm tired. But can I allow myself that?

Can I allow myself to say that I’m tired? To be like that? I mean - tired. Even to talk about it?

In recent years my rhythm has become steady: depart, return, recover, depart. I adjusted everything to the university lectures’ schedule; for at least half a year ahead, I know which weekday falls on which holiday, and so I plan my trips accordingly.

Every departure is different. Only the return is very similar. Those 24 hours to Lithuania sometimes feel endless. So many hours until finally… home! Then a shower and into bed, sleep!

But after such an experience, sleeping doesn’t come easily, no matter how tired you are. The body doesn’t switch off that easily, nor does the mind.

When I talk about not being able to relax, I think I know very well what I’m talking about - I’ve been discussing this topic with my soldiers for years.

“We can’t relax 100%, because, even if you get a day off, for example while eating, you might get a message that we must leave immediately” they say.

Still, that inability to relax or sleep often leads to painful things: addictions, or after going on leave, a “breaking of the chains,” various violations. Once I asked a soldier about very clear and strict rules in his military unit.

“If they smell it [alcohol] the first time, there is a penalty or sanction: the soldier is removed from combat operations and will be sent to the woods, to a permanent deployment site where he will spend a month. There are tents in the woods, there’s really nothing to do, except maybe chop wood or prepare food; yes, there are some trainings, shooting, but in the woods – there is no civilization, and your head clears very well. And you know what?”  the soldier laughs, “after some time there, everyone asks to go back to the frontline. They gladly go to the frontline, even if it sounds absurd, being sent from the front to the woods is a punishment. But yes, it really is a punishment, that soldier becomes a kind of vagabond, unable to be with his brothers-in-arms. And yet, despite everything, they’re all in the same information field and see what the other soldiers, his brothers-in-arms, are doing.”

The man says that this method, although being effective, is only the first sanction. The second, he details, is that the soldier is removed not only from the company but from the whole regiment and transferred to some other, the weakest military unit which is “drained” and “tired,” one that simply lacks people.

“We transfer them with pleasure,” he smiles roguishly, “and that knowledge, that from a really good, orderly unit, you’ll end up in a completely different situation, disciplines you a lot. They can even move you from airborne to some motor-rifle brigade. To wherever people are most needed.”

I’m a little bit tired…

I thank the Media Support Fund for supporting the post series “War in Ukraine: The Gap Between the Military and Society”