Prologue
I am a soldier. I suppose this describes me better than any other sentence.
I am a European soldier, living in this hectic turn of the millennium, experiencing the life and the world at their full extent... Or at least, I do my best to try.
I am a
continental
European, so forgive me for my poor English; it's not my native language. But I am proud of it, since it is far better than most of my countrymen, and the reason for that is going to be part of my story.
I am the last offspring of a family of soldiers. Both my grandfathers fought during World War one, the first in France, and the second one on the Alps, and won it; both of them came home, but the youngest survived just to die during World War two at El Alamein. Gold Medal.
My father was young enough to be a partisan. Survived a German reprisal in 1944, and at the end of the war was in the regular Army when peace was almost as hot and the communist armies were camping on our eastern borders.
He stayed in the Army all his life, and moved his family all across the country, as Army families do everywhere in the world. I grew up like that, moving once every three years, and came to know my homeland – and the Army - quite well.
Once, during a Regimental parade in one of the many garrisons we have been living in, the Colonel asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up.
I did not hesitate a second; I proudly looked at my dad's ranks, and announced: "I will be a Captain!"
My father almost choked.
I was five.
I stuck to my word. I joined the Army in 1982, won my admission to the Academy and joined my first unit in 1987.
The world had changed in between those years.
We are a middle power in Europe. Contrary to the French, and thanks to the British, we had no colonies from which natives wanted to kick us out; contrary to the German, and thanks to the US, we had no major parts of the country to re-conquer; and contrary to the Brits, we had not a great imperial tradition to defend. So our post-war commitment had been minimal, and our Army had been a big garrison one.
But in 1982 we first went to Lebanon (which we never really left), and after that crisis started to arise everywhere in the world, closer and closer to our mainland... And ever a peace-loving establishment as ours started to build up.
When I got my first platoon, we were not a garrison Army anymore.
Understand me: we are not the US Army. We don't go everywhere, and we don't go there as heavy as they do. But we go to quite many places, many more than we can actually afford. Actually, in percentage (manpower abroad vs. total manpower) we were the second most committed nation in the world during the last ten years.
So, I have seen quite a lot of action.
I enjoyed it. I felt like I was taking an active part in the building up of a better world... Or at least in keeping the mess as far as possible from my home.
I believe serving overseas made me a better human being. It thought me, in the hard way, how to better understand the others, their strengths, their weaknesses and their peculiarities.
Coming to understand different peoples, also helped to better understand individuals close to me.
Women, in particular.
You must understand this: in order to achieve my main objective, joining the Officers Academy, I always studied like an idiot. I am not an idiot, I am a normal guy, with a slightly more than average IQ, but I always engaged with the most skilled counterparts, and in the most challenging schools: it was a matter of pride.
It was difficult. It took all of my energies and most of my time.
No time for girls, at my high school, I'm afraid.
Look, I wasn't a nerd, not even a geek. I found time for sports: skiing, swimming and judo. But almost no time was left for dancing, going out, flirting...
Hell, the problem is that I can't even remember girls I liked and couldn't get. I didn't even
notice
them!
I was just too committed. I always thought that if you really want something and you know it's difficult, then you have to commit yourself enough.
Enough, at the time, meant
completely
.
I managed.
When I marched into my first Unit, I was a confident soldier, but a lonely one, with no girlfriend back at home.
That also helped me in doing well. I become a good soldier, and a decent commander. I was ready when the game became serious.
And during time, I realized that the Army also did me well.
Almost suddenly, I was not shy anymore with girls; I grew self-confident, and knew how to behave, so I was ready to approach them, and to conquer them.
This is my story.
Spring of Manhood
I wasn't a virgin, when I joined the Army. I was just very inexperienced, while most of my colleagues were boosting scores of girls scattered all over the country.
But my first experience is rather enlightening, I suppose, about my unreadiness when it came to girls.
I completed my High School in an extremely good school in the Northwest, one of the safest and richest areas of the country, but not one of the most exciting.
All my friends were in my same situation: too much study, too few girls. I had no siblings, and the few girls of our class were either uninterested in flirts (too much studying as for us, I suppose), or engaged with guys from other schools or from the University.
Our few coming outs were boys-only things, involving lots of biking and wine tasting, lots of fantasies about girls, projects about girls, but few or no girls at all.
But anyway, there are always exceptions.
There were three pretty girls in my class.
The top-scoring one (in our special hit parade) was a petite brunette, strongly engaged with an older guy at the University, and she was studying really hard 'cause she wanted to manage into the most exclusive Medicine faculty around.
No.2 was a block of ice. A southerner, actually the daughter of one of my dad's men, very pretty but only ready to discuss homeworks... Got enough already, thanks.
No.3 was far more human. Quite pretty, athletic, muscled, long light brown hair, grey eyes, nice breasts, long legs, and a maybe slightly oversized bum. Friendly, not a heavy student (one of the worst in the class), but a clever and intelligent girl.
The kind of girl people was talking about as a "not serious" one, just because she was told having fucked a wild boy who was in our class two years before (the year I was not there yet), and eventually lost the year due to his poor score. Everybody was laughing when she claimed to be a "virgin", since it was pretty clear she meant she was a Virgo.
And
she was engaged.
Well, I care nothing if she had been fucking a bad guy two years before, and I was not engaged myself, so I had no problems. She was pretty and friendly, and I was horny and frustrated like only an 18-years-old boy with no girlfriend can be.
Problem was, I had no idea how to approach her, nor the time (or the courage) to try my chances with her.
Our final exams were closing, and tension was mounting. Final score at those exams was fundamental for the admission to University (or to the Academy for what I was concerned), so we were all quite stressed.
Silvia (that was the girl's name) was the only daughter of a policeman, and somehow was closer to my thinking than most of my other friends. One day we had a long discussion during the Philosophy lesson about the cold war and the international situation: it was the time the Soviets were deploying the
SS20
missiles against Europe, and President Reagan was pushing for Europeans to deploy Cruise missiles, the so-called
Euromissiles,
to counter them. There was a lot of unrest everywhere; I remember bad incidents at Greenham Common, in England, but also at home the debate was heating up. That time, most of students my age were quite left-wing and seemed to honestly believe that the Soviets were just defending themselves from "American Imperialism".
As it came out, only Silvia and I were in favour of getting those missiles deployed (the teacher was quite pleased with her class, and unpleased with Silvia and I), and we got a lot of shit from the most militant guys.
That happened on the last hour of the day.
When we left the school and I was walking towards the bus stop, I heard hooting behind me, and saw an ugly orange French car boarding the sidewalk. Silvia was a few months older than me, and got her driving license already, with a small car as a bonus from her dad, to go to school during the week and reach her boyfriend during the weekends.
It was quite a surprise to be invited on for a lift home.
Nothing happened, just small talks going home, but that became a habit: every morning Silvia would pick me up at my place to go to school, and then she would take me home. I got a friend, enjoyed sharing the car with a pretty girl and saved the bus money.
But, if possible, I got ever hornier.
Understand me: it was late spring, and girls' cloths were getting more and more brief... Apparently, Silvia had no bras in her closet, and her skirts were all very thin and transparent. Not to mention her ultra-tight jeans.
But still, that was just friendship. She behaved as an elder sister, clearly implying she was a woman and I was a boy... There were eight months difference between us, but the point was that she was engaged with a boy five years older and going to get married after the exams. Oh, well!
Right. The exams.
"What about preparing the exams together?"
The proposal quite surprised me. I was sailing my way with some distinction, but I was far from being the guy you want assistance from to prepare an exam. Typically, I was ok in most subjects, excellent in three and a catastrophe in two (including philosophy, wonder why).
But, as it turned out, we had the same subjects assigned for the final exam.
What would you do?
I chose against my better judgement for the first time in my life.
And I did well.
We set up our base at her place.
Silvia's mother loved me (that was going to be an embarrassing constant with my girlfriends), and since at the time they were building up a countryside house out of town, we ended up quite often being alone in their city flat.
No, she didn't jump on me. She really wanted to
study
