The Land of Sad Songs – Stories From Protect and Survive Finland
- Thread starter DrakonFin
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Falkenburg
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Just remember that it's Approval Voting, folks. That means you don't have to confine your support to a single TL. 
So if you think the fine job Drakonfin has made of this TL deserves recognition you can express your preference while still supporting others in the same category.
Falkenburg
So if you think the fine job Drakonfin has made of this TL deserves recognition you can express your preference while still supporting others in the same category.
Falkenburg
Nominated your TL again. Hopefully, you might get more votes that last year.
Me too, keep up the great work. Love reading your updates...... and believe me, I know how hard it can be to find the time ......
Nominated your TL again. Hopefully, you might get more votes that last year.
CanKiwi said:
Thank you for the nomination, guys!
I guess I have to redouble my efforts to get a bunch of updates ready and posted ASAP to properly thank you..
Good updates, DrakonFin.
What happened to Simo Hayha? (He is the one-man army who killed as many as 740 soldiers. That guy was badass. So badass that the Soviets sent teams of countersnipers (who he killed) and called in artillery strikes on his positions. He was shot in the face, but survived and shot the guy who killed him. Then he walked back to camp.)
I am curious to know if the guy who survived artillery strikes survived this world-ending war.
What happened to Simo Hayha? (He is the one-man army who killed as many as 740 soldiers. That guy was badass. So badass that the Soviets sent teams of countersnipers (who he killed) and called in artillery strikes on his positions. He was shot in the face, but survived and shot the guy who killed him. Then he walked back to camp.)
I am curious to know if the guy who survived artillery strikes survived this world-ending war.
He's probably dead, if not by the bombs, then by radiation or subsequent general shittiness.
That is a good question. In 1984 Häyhä would have been 79 years of age. An old man, then, but a reasonably fit for his age I believe because he lived a quite active life and IOTL lived to the respectable age of 96. After the war Häyhä lived on his farm in Ruokolahti in south-eastern Finland. He might have still lived there in 1983, or then he had already moved to the nursing home for war veterans in Hamina where he lived for the last years of his life.
Now, what makes the issue interesting is that this was the very area that came under Soviet occupation during the brief war ITTL. It is possible that Häyhä would have been evacuated to western or central Finland during the run-up to the war in late 1983 or early 1984. But if he for some reason still was in Hamina or surroundings during the war, the Exchange and the aftermath, he would have been in the middle of the only area in Finland controlled by (for a while) intact Soviet units. The Soviet HQ in the area was in Hamina, no less. See the last part of Chapter XX (and future updates
).(BTW, I worked with Häyhä's grandson some years ago. He told me that he was in military service when his grandfather died in 2002. When he went to request a leave from his unit commander to attend the funeral, he found out that a leave had already been approved and that the commanding officer asked him to deliver his condolences to the rest of the family, too. The Defence Forces had not forgotten Häyhä, and the old soldier was naturally buried with military honours.)
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Hey land, you horrible land,
Let's wipe the soil off the murderer's bones,
Let's rock a little, let's dance a little.
Kauko Röyhkä: Paha maa (1988)
Sacrifice, loss, tragedy. These words have become familiar to us all during the last two decades. This country was broken, its society torn asunder and its future in doubt. But working together, we have faced and overcome countless adversities and we have come through the difficult years that followed the War and the Exchange.
It has been an enormous duty, a struggle that has claimed the lives of countless Finns, men and women, young and old. And sometimes it did look like all hope had vanished, that all light had disappeared from these northern lands. But despite all that, never was the fighting spirit of the Finnish people put out, never was the spark extinguished we all have deep inside us for our Fatherland.
It is fifteen years today from the the War and the Exchange: today, we can proudly say that the Finnish people remains unbowed, its will and resolve intact. Instead of the past we now look to the future, ”towards the shores of a rising Finland”. Much has been done already and a lot more must be achieved in the years ahead. We will not be torn apart, by circumstances, by dissent or by the ill will of outsiders. Together, we will achieve all we strive for.
Work, duty, hope. Those are the words we should all take and hold in our hearts during the years that await us. Those will be our watchwords when we work together as citizens and as soldiers to reclaim, recover and rebuild Finland as we continue to make this a nation worth the name, a nation fit for our children.
From a speech by General Halonen, the Commander of the FNA military and a member of the National Committee for Continuity of Government, 1999.
XXXVII. The Men Without a Future
Fragment 166.
Logged 18.12.2011
HAN
[The following fragment is part of a written description of non-fiction film held by the FNA archives, Lot 23, Reel 11. Despite several requests by the project staff, it has not been possible to secure a copy of the film itself for the Minne Collection.]
The camera slowly pans across a wintery, suburban landscape. There is a group of wooden, two-story houses with gabled roofs to the left and a largish open space to the right. Nothing moves, expect for a gust of wind moving some snow around. Finally the camera settles on a road lined with snow-covered cars. The road has been opened more or less recently.
On the foreground we can see a roadblock of sorts, formed out of a couple of wrecked cars and some wooden beams. A makeshift flag pole stands next to it; we hear the flag snapping in the wind but it is unseen just outside the frame. A MAN (Matti Pellonpää) and a WOMAN (Tiina Pirhonen) stand together next to the roadblock, immobile. They both keep their eyes fixed at the horizon, or, possibly, the part of the road that is not in view. The woman is in her thirties, blond and very pale. Her knit cap says ”LAHTI 78”. The man looks somewhat older. He has a moustache and a scruffy beard.
The woman turns to the man and looks at him seriously.
” - Are you really going to just stand here and stare down the road for the whole day?”
The man remains motionless. After a pause, he gives his answer.
” - I am a sentry. I keep an eye out for movement. That is what a sentry is supposed to do.”
The woman says nothing for a while. Then she turns her head to the man again.
” - What if I told you we have no more food left?”
The man seems unperturbed.
” - Do you think I care about the food running out”, he says, ”when we have had no coffee or cigarettes for whole weeks now?”
The woman's mouth twists mournfully.
” - I thought you wanted to live.”
For the first time during the exchange of words, the man turns his head towards the woman.
” - Why would I want to?”
Hey man, woman and man,
Go get a taxi, go get lost,
Let's rock a little, let's dance a little.
... had just before the war become something of a hub for evacuations of the capital area, by rail and by road. This had been further exarbated by a conventional air attack against the Utti military airfield early on the second day of the war, as it had the effect of forcing the move many of the still ongoing evacuations to Lahti from Kouvola that was now considered to be under the threat of further Soviet air raids also against the local railway station and rail yard.
In the event, several evacuation trains and convoys of buses had arrived to Lahti just before the Exchange, further adding to the confusion in a town that had been in the receiving end of the unplanned and uncontrolled flight of civilians from the Greater Helsinki area for several days. The groups of evacuees and refugees were highly varied in composition. Gaggles of pensioners from hospitals, school classes with disoriented teachers, Salvation Army bands and even a largish film crew found themselves stranded in Lahti without knowing what would wait for them in the coming days. When the sirens went off on the day of the Exchange, almost all of the towns major nuclear shelters were filled to capacity, often even much more so and the number of people left to fend for themselves outside the shelters was not small either.
Apart from the questions arising from the swollen civilian population of the town, Lahti was a major centre for the Finnish military. Not only was the Lahti garrison area (or Hennala garrison) a military training base for infantry, military police and supply formations under the new Häme Regiment formed in the run-up to the war. It was also the home to the 2nd Central Military Hospital, an important part of the Defence Forces' medical organization and its preparedness to treat wartime injuries. The hospital had been expanded during the mobilization.[1]
Just after the first nuclear strikes against Finland orders were received from Helsinki by the commander of the Häme Regiment to temporarily evacuate the whole garrison post-haste to Hartola and Pertunmaa some tens of kilometers to the north. It is unclear who ordered this sudden evacuation, even if it appears it was received through the official channels. There are some indications that also other similar last minute troop movements were ordered, and it has been speculated that this was due to the Defence Forces lacking the plans and a necessary readiness for a comprehensive and coordinated response to a nuclear attack of this scale. The military leadership was improvising; it is likely that this evacuation was caused by the conclusion that Lahti itself would be a target of an imminent nuclear attack. As it is, this all remains just speculation after the apparently wholesale destruction of the military command in the capital.
So as most of Lahti filed into nuclear shelters, hastily organized military convoys were seen leaving the garrison area carrying what was left of the training units, military police and administrative personnel in Hennala after most units in the area had already been ordered into defensive positions east and south in preparation of the ongoing Soviet attack.
That left the military hospital itself. It proved in effect impossible to evacuate the hospital staff, the patients and various necessary equipment and stores in the specified, admittedly unrealistic schedule. There was even too few vehicles available. As the news were received of the nuclear attack against Hämeenlinna, and communications to both the provincial HQ in Kouvola and the highest military command in Helsinki were severed, the ranking medical officer present [2] ordered the hospital's lagging evacuation to be stopped and all under his command to take shelter in the garrison area instead. Only by disobeying direct orders, he...
…called the Pihlajamäki Battalion, even if it was smaller in actual size. The unit was the brainchild of Defence Minister Pihlajamäki, a conservative Centrist, who during the mobilization had conceived the idea of isolating ”malcontents” and ”troublemakers” from the frontline troops, to keep up morale and to have those young men he considered a national liability under observation. The generals agreed, and so ”anti-establishment” figures such as punk rockers, leftist activists, artists and even ex-convicts were picked from various mobilized units and placed in a new outfit that officially was to be called the ”Separate Supply Regiment”. Placed under trustworthy officers and NCOs, this unit would contribute to the war engaged in what amounted to work duty tasks under military discipline. The unit was in the process of being moved from Helsinki to the Hennala garrison when the war broke out, and the train carrying the unit's heterodox personnel had arrived in Lahti on the night of the Exchange, just missing the garrison's evacuation by hours..
Hey, night, join us too,
Let's take Judas down from the tree to party,
Let's rock a little, let's dance a little.
Fragment 166, continued. Reel 3.
The reel opens with a view of a large crowd of people on what looks like a town square. All are in winter clothes, most have their faces covered. It has the effect of muffling the sound of some of them chanting. The snow on the ground is ashen-grey.
Two men stand in front of the camera. The older man (Esko Nikkari) assumes a mock-journalistic pose when he sees the camera is pointed to him. Off-camera, someone holds out a microphone.
” - ...and even though it has been proved by the authorities with scientific means that the people can't possibly be hungry, they still protest for bigger food rations. I am standing here with Pasi Kuikka, the city's Rationist-in-Chief. Mr. Kuikka, would you say I am hungry right now?”
The younger man (Markku Toikka) beside him rolls his eyes to Nikkari, without saying anything. The crowd has started milling around, and the camera is pointed to the front. The cameraman raises it above people's heads.
In front of the crowd a cordon of policemen and Civil Defence personnel is trying to hold back the people. They are not faring very well. A senior policeman in uniform and fur hat is holding up a megaphone.
”...are to disperse immediately by order of the City Council! Fail to comply, and we will use force! According to wartime regulations, you...”
The policeman is hit with something thrown from the crowd. He topples down, dropping his megaphone to the ground. An approving murmur goes through the crowd. The people keep moving forward, now chanting more vocally.
” - WE NEED FOOD! WE NEED FOOD! WE NEED FOOD!”
The police have now taken out truncheons and are using them against the people in front, who are trying to stop but are pushed forward by the sheer mass of the crowd. Cries of pain can now be heard.
” - What the fuck are they doing?”, says a male voice next to the camera, possibly Nikkari.
The view swings to the left, where a ragged line of men in military uniform is approaching the crowd. They are lining up next to the policemen, most of them wielding batons of some sort. Only the NCOs seem to have old rifles.
” - We should move back now or we'll risk getting trampled,” says a voice behind the camera, prompting the view to swing erratically from left to right as the cameraman tries to move backwards.
When we again get a clear view, we can see the recently arrived soldiers stopped next to the police line. Surprisingly, they seem to be fighting each other. Two conscripts are beating an NCO sprawled on the ground. Some men in uniform have joined the crowd in pushing back the police, and one of them is using his baton to break down the windows of a parked police car. A single gunshot is heard, causing the camera to jerk suddenly.
” - Saatana,” says the voice of Nikkari, ”we better get the hell out of here.”
You remind of one of my kinsmen,
You there, the man with the face of a perch.
He combed his hair once with paraffin,
And sang: ”Clear away, all the filth in my head,
Clear away all the filth in my head,
Let the evil thought burn!”
…continued in the weeks after the nuclear attack. Lahti became a destination for refugees from south, west and east, sitting in the middle of several blast areas. The local Civil Defence organization was already working below regulation capabilities for a town of this size [3], owing to prewar difficulties in obtaining qualified personnel, a problem shared with other bigger towns. The availability of emergency equipment was also poor.[4] Now burdened with the incoming refugees too, the city's services started deteriorating fast. Within weeks of the Exchange, the persistent power outages and continuing problems with food distribution, coupled with an increased need for policing of the central parts of the city after several makeshift camps had sprouted up in available spaces (including the ski stadium) started to cause the city organization to start unraveling. The Päijät-Häme Central Hospital serviced the whole province before the war; now in post-nuclear conditions it was becoming impossible to help the increasingly weak and sick population within city limits...
...was not forthcoming. The former Häme Regiment units had now been attached to the Emergency Cabinet's plans for a buffer area that became the Line, some tens of kilometers to the north from Lahti. The biggest surviving city in Finland was left to look after itself; no help from Mikkeli or those military units still in operational condition would be coming to the aid of the embattled...
...with daily disturbances and protests. The police were losing control of the streets, even while patrolling central Lahti in force together with armed Civil Defence volunteers. On March 10th, a fire broke out in the main building of the Päijät-Häme Central Hospital, the main civilian hospital of the region, possibly due to to the candles and gas lanterns used for light during blackouts. Despite the efforts of the fire department, the fire soon became uncontainable and the building burned like a torch, becoming a funeral pyre to hundreds of people crammed in its patient rooms, hallways and supply closets. A group of auxiliary firemen managed to bring out most of the women in the maternity ward before it was engulfed in flames. One young woman gave birth to twins in the back of a fire ambulance on the parking lot next to the blazing hospital – both girls were stillborn.
The Separate Supply Regiment had been moved to the mostly emptied garrison area. Under the circumstances, the decision to arm elements of the regiment with non-lethal weapons to help in restoring public order was...
Hey moon, you old rogue of a moon,
You mangy old eunuch-face,
Let's rock a little, let's dance a little.
Hey land, you free land,
Let's let loose the horse and the llama,
Let's rock a little, let's dance a little.
Fragment 166, continued. Reel 9.
It is dark. There is a bonfire burning next to an old red brick building. It is surrounded by people in various combinations of military and civilian clothing. Many are singing something, a few of the men are playing acoustic guitars. A young man in the remains of a camouflage uniform and a red bandanna walks past with what looks like an antique rifle and flashes the Victory Sign with his right hand.
A long-haired man enters view from the left. He comes close to the camera and looks directly into it.
” - Is this thing on? Are you shooting?”
A voice behind the camera makes noises of agreement.
” - That's fucking great. I mean it.”
The man spreads his hands to indicate the scene around him.
” - Behold, the Lahti Free Area! No lords, no masters and definitely no government! A place to call home in these troubled times.”
The camera pans from left to right. Some of the people are waving to the camera, a couple of girls blowing kisses.
” - I am glad you are here to record all this, for posterity I mean. We need the word to get out that it is possible to live like this.”
Looks towards somewhere left behind the camera.
” -Thank you for doing this, Aki. It is not easy for anyone of us right now, but we have to keep the spirits up to keep things rolling. Great to have you guys here!”
” - You know, Sakke, I wouldn't miss it for the world”, says a voice to the left of the camera.
Behind Sakke Järvenpää a group of men carry what looks like wooden chairs and throw them to the bonfire.
Järvenpää notices something to the right, starts gesturing furiously.
” - Mato, Mato, come here and be immortalized on film!”
Looks disappointed when the other man does not acknowledge him.
” - Well, anyway, tag along with the camera. I hear they're putting together a posse and some cars to go and get some beer and meat for the gang. From the abandoned factories, you know.”
As if on cue, a pickup truck pulls up from the left. Someone has written ”FUCK THE GOVERNMENT” on the side in red block letters. Two guys are sitting in the back, holding an axe and a crowbar.
” - See? All it takes is good will and cooperation. Just wait a moment and we'll get moving.”
Hey man, join us too,
Let's get a bottle of Mexican booze,
Let's rock a little, let's dance a little.
...in April. The City Council remained holed up at the city hall, with what was left of the police and Civil Defence in control of just a part of the city. The food and health situation had spiralled out of the control of the authorities, and it did not help at all that Lahti rea received a lot of fallout from multiple sources. While anarchy reigned and the suburbs were at the mercy of groups of people looting houses to find any food and shelter, the City Hall kept making increasingly desperate pleas for Mikkeli to send help...
… in the old garrison area. The regiment had mutinied pretty much entirely and stopped following the orders of its officers, some of whom got killed in fights, others were locked up if they did not happen to approve of the new order. Or disorder, as some might say. The garrison area became the center of what came to be known as the Lahti Free Area, an Anarchist commune of sorts that was both a cause and a result of the breakdown of public order in Lahti. A semblance of organized society was maintained here, with the Anarchists and Socialists formerly in the special regiment and locals who gravitated towards the area setting up a communal kitchen, forage parties and incorporating the military hospital into their domain. The Medical Major in charge did not like this, but he had no means to stop the crowd that broke into the hospital buildings and thus decided to save the lives of his staff by cooperating with the leaders of the Free Area. Who those leaders in fact were is still a matter of some controversy. In theory there was a leading body, the ironically named ”Workers' Revolutionary Council”, though it has been very hard to ascertain who at any given time even tried to give orders and if those orders were in fact followed.
In any case, the garrison area was surrounded by roadblocks and barricades, with sentries along the perimeter. As to order and justice, the area seems to have been only a marginally safer place to be than most of the city outside the shrinking domain of the City Hall: fights and even rapes seem to have happened periodically, and any ”justice” there was seems to have taken the form of back-alley beatings and some lynchings, that were considered...
That girl was murdered years ago,
And raped, of course.
Sometimes she hitch-hiked into cars,
And started to cry – of Jesus she cries,
And scream, oh Jesus, how she screams,
Like when it happened.
...can be looked at from several points of view. The military leadership working under the Emergency Cabinet needed the exercise for such large-scale operations to keep its troops cohesive, operational and, above all, busy. Under the circumstances, allowing large groups of armed men to stand idle was a very risky proposition. The troops under Eastern Command were being slowly downsized by disarming and moving uniformed men and reassigning them to essentially civilian tasks. But some readiness had to be maintained, not least because of there still being armed Soviet units on officially Finnish soil.
If that part of southern Finland not currently under state control was to be retaken in the future, the process had to be started somewhere. Lahti was the obvious choice for the first official reclamation operation. The preparations in mid-to-late May included repositioning and rearming units that had been kept in reserve in the Mikkeli area, to make them ready for a push south. The units were cherry-picked to include all the healthiest men and best-preserved vehicles in the areas under the control of the Emergency Cabinet. Aircraft, including two helicopters were kept in readiness to provide aerial recon and support. The operation got truly underway on May 28th, when...
Fragment 166, continued. Reel 13.
A thin, bearded man in worn clothes stands in front of a makeshift barricade addressing the camera. A black flag with the Anarchist symbol in white flutters in the flagpole behind him.The snow on the ground seems to have started to melt. The sun is shining on an almost clear sky, though like behind a veil.
” - It is late May already, and we are still here to make this documentary. We have come through the winter together with the men and women here at the Lahti Free Area. It has not been easy, in fact it has been hellishly tough, but there are still a lot of us alive to see the summer arrive. By working together, the people here have managed to get the food and other necessary things to last so far, if only barely. And that is no thanks to the Finnish authorities, who seem to have abandoned the people. Like others here, we hope what has been accomplished by this small group of people has also been done by other similar groups, providing hope and continuity for the world despite what this city, this country and many nations have seen this past winter.
I am Aki Kaurismäki, behind the camera is my brother Mika, and before we run out of film we would like...
The man stops in mid-sentence and turns around. There is a slowly growing, roaring sound in the air. The camera turns a bit and zooms in a small dot in the horizon growing slowly.
” - Is that... a helicopter?”, says the man in front of the camera.
” - It certainly is about time someone would be sendind help.”
...repeat: all necessary precautions must be undertaken to protect the men from radioactive contamination. Anyone of you failing in that will answer to me personally.
And remember: this is essentially a police operation. You are not up against Soviet units - except in a few specific areas later during the planned campaign, but that is not a subject we will cover in this briefing. The object of this operation is to return the specified area under the control of legitimate authorities. You will move in, secure strategic locations, take control of the sites listed in your orders and start setting up defensive positions. Keep this in mind: while you will be expected to work in cooperation with any surviving civilian authorities, the military has the final jurisdiction in the area of operations south of the Line.
You will make it clear through your actions that you are working for the lawful government, and that means you will identify yourselves clearly. All lead units are to fly a regulation-size state flag and will be provided with bullhorns and portable loudspeaker units if possible. All officers and NCOs down to the squad leaders are to have as recognizable uniforms as possible, with ranks highly visible. When approaching non-hostile civilians, all are to identify the unit and the mission specifically for anyone who wants the information. Written and signed orders will be provided for verification purposes. Misunderstandings must be minimized.
Know this: you will be dealing with ordinary civilians, mostly. Most will be happy to see you. But you will encounter deserters, looters and those who have otherwise taken arms against the lawful order. With those individuals you will deal with appropriate, deadly force. Military and civilian courts with the power to enforce the death penalty will be established in the reclaimed areas, but during the operation itself you have the authority and the responsibility to consider all those who raise a weapon against you as an enemy soldier or a citizen guilty of high treason.The national leadership expects you to act accordingly and decisively, to protect ourself, your unit and the legitimate government. Forces or individuals working against the Finnish state must not be tolerated.
An excerpt from a briefing by General Halonen, given in Mikkeli to Eastern Command officers prior to the first so-called reclamation operations in south-eastern Finland, May 1984.
As the booze sloshes in your rat-brain,
You are back among your own people.
As you wake up chopped up in the well on the yard
Sing: "Clear away all the filth in my head,
Clear away all the filth in my head!"
Bad land, bad, bad land!
Notes:
[1] The projected wartime staff has been given as 160, including 15 doctors. The planned bed capacity was 450. It has been suggested that about half of the staff was evacuated and the rest left behind.
[2] The Major in question was the Defence Forces' recently appointed Chief Radiologist, whose last main project before the mobilization had been the modernization of the x-ray equipment used in Finnish military hospitals.
[3] The town's population was about 94 000 in 1983, putting it easily within the top 10 of Finnish towns prewar.
[4] There had been suspicions about a group of city officials colluding with local businessmen to embezzle money from the city funds allocated for buying emergency supplies during late 1983. Investigations to the matter were terminated due to the war.
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...
So goes on the icy night
But I can't stop it
Even if the wolves continue their feast
And when you look straight to the eyes
In the face so pale
I know, a night closer to death
And when you are too proud
You can't give up
You'll have to keep on until the very end
Maybe one of these nights everything becomes clear
When your eyes start to see
In this darkness
...
Sir Elwoodin hiljaiset värit: Hämärän taa (1995)
XXXVIII. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Doctor
Interview nr. 206, 10.08.2009. FFA.
Subject: Man, circa 75 (M203)
Occupation in 1984: Military doctor
Location: [REDACTED], Southern FNA.
[The subject is a silver-haired man of about 75 years of age. He wears a pre-war pattern military uniform, worn but clean, his collar open. He has the rank tabs of a medical captain. The man uses a wooden cane to steady himself as he moves.]
[Now that we are sitting down, sir, are you ready to start the interview?]
[Subject looks around himself inquisitively.]
So it is just you, then? I was expecting more people, like a military chaperone or something. Well, better this way. Go ahead, young man.
[I have understood that you are a survivor of the Lahti Free Area, sir. Is that right?]
I'd rather say a survivor of the 2nd Central Military Hospital. I had nothing to do with running the so-called Free Area. I believe that is why I am still here to tell you about it. But after we were abandoned like we were, and those... kids took over the garrison area, we had to work with them one way or the other. We – I mean the Hospital personnel - were outnumbered, we didn't have what you could call fighting form, and I sure as hell did not want to get locked up in a freezing basement like some of the Supply Regiment's officers were.
What I did during those days... Now, I have worked as a doctor all my life. That was what I did, though it was very tough. We did run out of supplies really soon, and it didn't help that some of those people kept raiding my cabinets for anything they could get their head messed upwith. Not that I can blame them, I guess. Desperate times and desperate measures. We tried to help the people with serious radiation poisoning, though all we could do really was to ease their pain until they would inevitably die. We helped soldiers – deserters, mostly, and civilians, after the Päijät-Häme Central Hospital burned down. Those weeks are really a blur to me, I think I might have slept a couple of hours per night, at maximum.
By the time the garrison was, well, liberated, I was so out of it it barely registered. I was taking part in a surgical operation, a tough one, one of many, in candle light. And suddenly there's this NCO bursting in, waving his rifle and ordering us out. I had to leave the patient bleeding on the table; I am pretty sure the NCO would have shot me right there if I didn't comply. Now, come to think of it, I had heard some shooting from the outside, and something like the noise of an airplane or a helicopter, before. But like I said, the state I was in...
Oh, and please drop the ”sir”, would you. Just call me [REDACTED].
[Will do. What happened after the garrison was retaken by the Defence Forces?]
We were all brough out to the parade ground, made to stand to attention. There were bodies around, mostly mutineers and their collaborators. My bloody doctor's apron got some well-deserved attention. Some men who could not walk were dragged across the muddy ground by the soldiers. Those who had the most ”Anarchist” or ”Punk” look to them were often badly abused. I saw some dragged around by a truck, still alive, others tied to lamp posts and savagely beaten. I think there might have even been unauthorized executions – I didn't see that first hand.
[Looks to the floor mournfully for a while, then raises his chin to continue the story.]
But that was only for the first couple of days. Then it was stopped abruptly – I think strict orders from above. After that, we were put to work to make some of the garrison buildings into a holding camp for ourselves. All the while we could see military convoys rolling south on the roads next to the garrison. And then started the legal proceedings.
[What do you mean?]
The powers that be had put together a military court to specifically address the events at the garrison, the mutiny of the Supply Regiment and what happened in the Free Area. So the garrison gym hall was turned into a courtroom, a few desks and chairs at the front for the members of the court, simple wooden benches for the suspects... Or maybe ”suspect” isn't the right word at all. After all, it was clear from the get-go that we all were guilty of something. That was the prevailing mood. It was just up to the court to find the suitable sentences for us.
[What were the suitable sentences?]
There were those who would have said firing squad at dawn, for all of us. It didn't turn out quite like that though.
[What stopped them?]
Damned if I know, but I have my theories... Now, my trial was among the first groups. Each... detainee got his very own trial, but we were taken to the courtroom in groups of about twenty people. To save time and effort, I guess, the sentences seemed to be handed out pretty swiftly. So, this morning they come to the barracks where we were held, names are read out – some were hospital personnel, some others from the Supply Regiment - and we are marched to the gym with military police keeping a close eye on us. In the hall itself, we stand to attention until the members of the court, three men in military uniform, have taken there places. The court is called to order and we're given the que to sit down.
Now, they had put some effort to the court composition. The chairman of the court, the military judge if you may, had been a long-time civilian judge in the Varkaus district court, or so I heard. Despite his officer's uniform, there was really nothing ”military” about him. And when he opened his mouth, what came out was so heavily accented in Savonian it was hard to take him seriously. But still nobody dared to laugh.
Just after we were allowed to sit down, there was a pause as the chairman looked down and went through his papers, apparently trying to decipher who to start with. All was quiet. Until one man stood up near the centre of the room, cleared his throat and addressed the chairman in measured tones. He was wearing a private's uniform, dirty but properly buttoned up.
The MP's on the sides started moving towards him, and the court clerk – a Staff Sergeant – ordered him to sit back down, commenting loudly on how ”irregular” the man's action was.
The chairman looked at the man, and quite relaxedly gestured for the MP's and the clerk to settle down.
” - Let 'im speak,” he said nodding slightly to the standing man.
One might have heard a pin drop.
The man was slightly build, thirtyish but seemingly balding. He had heavy-rimmed glasses fixed with duct tape. I had seen the man, he was some sort of an anti-war artist-type from the Regiment, one of the more quiet ones. I could remember him helping out at the hospital.
” - Mr Chairman,” he said, looking direcly at the members of the court. His voice carried that slightly nasal sound of the Helsinki dialect.
” - What is highly irregular is this court and these proceedings themselves. Mr. Chairman, the Military Criminal Code of 1919 was overturned by the parliament in 1983, after several amendments had been made to it in the 50s, 60s and 70s...”
He rattled off a number of points like reading from a book of law. Several of the detainees turned their eyes nervously towards him.
”... and the current laws that give a court like this one jurisdiction, namely 1889/39 or the Finnish Criminal Code and 1983/326 or the Law on Military Trials, are in grave danger of being violated, as are the laws we consider the Finnish constitution. What I am specifically talking about is the possiblity of the accused of being sentenced to death. Even under a State of War, legally declared by the President of the Republic and approved by the parliament in early February 1984 and consecutively still in effect, and in an area of military operations as the surroundings of Lahti have been declared by the Acting Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Defence Forces, the capital punishment is out of bounds in this instance under 1972/343 or the Law for the Removal of the Capital Punisment.
We have been told that the rump parliament in Seinäjoki, consisting solely of the 50 or so members from the Social Democratic Party, has in May 1984 reinstated the capital punishment. I do contest, however that this rump parliament is indeed both technically and legally qualified to legislate on the matter according, inter alia, to the Parliament Act of 1928 and I want to gravely question if all the appropriate measures have been used to make sure this drastic step in Finnish legal tradition is the product of sound legal judgement and not merely caused by lust for retribution and blood."
" - Furthermore, given that for the most part the alleged crimes of the people standing as accused in these proceedings have in fact allegedly taken place prior to contested reinstatement of the capital punishment, even in the case that law will be accepted as a part of the Finnish legal canon, the application of this law to said activities is a perfect example of ex post facto law, incompatible with the Finnish and Nordic legal tradition. "
" - Mr. Chairman, I therefore petition this court to postpone these proceedings until the the time the question of the technical legality of the capital punishment has been brought into the attention of the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Chancellor of Justice and resumed only after the highest arbiters of legal issues in the land have given their rulings on the matter.”
This is how I remember him speaking – I am afraid my legalese is a bit rusty for me to do justice to his petition in toto.
[The subject smiles slightly.]
After the private stopped it was again very quiet in the hall, apart from the sound of the clerk scribbling furiously to capture the gist of the man's argument.
The chairman stared ahead lost in thought. Then he opened his mouth again.
” - Your petition has been noted, Private...?”
The private corrected the position of his glasses.
” - Nurmio, Mr. Chairman.”
” - Private Nurmio. We shall now consider the petition. You may sit down.”
He talked a while with the other members of the court in hushed tones.
[What happened next? Were the proceedings postponed?]
Like hell they were. The judge threw out the petition on a technicality, and the court started its work in earnest. But hear me out when I say this: during the next days, the court gave out surprisingly few death sentences. And even of those, the majority were later commuted to long sentences in prison or hard labour. Given what they made those people do, clearing roads and railways, cleaning contaminated areas, heavy farm and industrial work and so on, I believe a straight-up bullet to the brain would have often been more merciful a sentence.
Now I can't say whether Private Nurmio's little talk had the effect of making the court more lenient. Or whether the courts at large were being pressured into this by Mikkeli – there was much more need for workers than dead bodies, what with the start of the farm work of the spring and the summer and so on. Or maybe it was the chairman feeling a tinge in his conscience. Be it as it may, many people who I thought were dead for sure would survive for some time longer at least.
[What about you, then? What was your sentence?]
I was sentenced to eight years of hard labour for desertion; they found no grounds to charge me with treason. And I was busted down several ranks. In reality, though, after two weeks of hauling building materials on my back I was sent back to the hospital to do the work of a doctor, still as a prisoner under guard of course. Medical doctors were a rare commodity in the spring of 1984 – like they still are in this country. I think they would have put Arvo Ylppö[1] performing amputations if they managed to dig him up from under the rubble... Thing is, I was too valuable to be slowly exhausted in simple manual labour.
I know I am lucky. Since then, I have been able to do what I always wanted to do in my life, more or less. Others were not so lucky. Remember, for example, Matti Nykänen, the famed ski-jumper? Masa the Mouse they used to call him. A slight and somewhat fragile man, when he was sober, he had been called up by the Häme Regiment to join a recon unit in January – a unit that was then evacuated from the garrison during the Exchange. After the mutiny of the Supply Regiment they found the man hiding in the linen storage – he had missed the evuacuation and had been trying to hide from the new order since. He became something of a protegé of some of the Free Area activists – never doing anything especially nasty but being a regular guest of their parties as long as there was stolen booze to be had. He was sentenced to life, and the last I heard he had been ordered to a penal unit taking part in the clean up of the irradiated surroundings of Lappeenranta. Perished due the radiation and disease, in the end.
I could tell you numerous similar stories.
Eventually, I lost mys status as an enemy of the state, and since then they have even promoted me a couple of times. Some bureacratic snafu, surely.
[You are still in uniform. Are you in service at that age?]
[Subject assumes the look of mock-indignation.]
So you think I am too old? Why, young man...
[His face melts into a congenial smile.]
I am not officially in service anymore... I think. I have just grown used to wear this uniform and to work at the hospital. I don't want to ”retire”. I can still do a lot of things the younger doctors and medics can't, and besides I have taken a habit if fixing things around here. I mend and sometimes make new clothes, too. This uniform looks pretty spiffy, doesn't it?
This all keeps me well occupied. I like fixing stuff.
[What kinds of stuff?]
Hospital machinery, say. The X-ray machines and other gadgets. Radios. I also dabble in motor cars. You saw the ambulances we have up front, the two Ford Transits and the Volkswagen van?
[I think I saw them, yes.]
They wouldn't be running anymore without me. Not since 1995 or so they couldn't have. We don't get much new cars here, you see. Most in use now are still pre-war models. The new Swedish cars are usually prohibitively expensive, and the Czecho-Slovak vehicles are produced in too small quantities to reach the Finnish market, for the most part. So we make do.
[Subject looks directly into my eyes.]
You have to understand that this here country has in many ways reverted back to master-journeyman systems. They do have a University[2], such as it is, and even those three Polytechnics[3], bless them. But for the most part the kids now learn from their elders, how to fix things, how to build things. I have trained many doctors and orderlies and even a few bona fide mechanics in my time in this hospital. It has been up to us old-timers to bring forward the torch of technical civilization, more often than not. For all the government talks about rebuilding and focusing on the future I think they are forgetting the need to preserve things, the good things in our society.
[Subject looks at me meaningfully and lowers his voice.]
And I am not talking just about things and machines too, understand. I am talking about compassion, caring and mercy. Of justice and the power of the people.
[The subject springs to his feet, as if remembering something.]
I'd like to give you an example of what I do here. I recently rigged up an old marine engine for a back-up auxiliary generator, as it were. The power cuts are a persistent problem during summer storms and in cold winters. What I got is a Swedish Penta engine from the 1930s, no less. A right beauty: you might be interested too. Right this way, young man...
Notes:
[1] Arvo Ylppö (1887-1984) was a highly respected Finnish doctor, an accomplished pediatrician who at the top of the Finnish medical profession carried the title of archiater since 1952. He is presumed lost in Helsinki during the Exchange.
[2] The Mikkeli University or the ”Finnish State University”. For the most part trains professionals and functionaries for the FNA state organizations and bureaucracy.
[3] In Joensuu, Varkaus and Seinäjoki.
So goes on the icy night
But I can't stop it
Even if the wolves continue their feast
And when you look straight to the eyes
In the face so pale
I know, a night closer to death
And when you are too proud
You can't give up
You'll have to keep on until the very end
Maybe one of these nights everything becomes clear
When your eyes start to see
In this darkness
...
Sir Elwoodin hiljaiset värit: Hämärän taa (1995)
XXXVIII. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Doctor
Interview nr. 206, 10.08.2009. FFA.
Subject: Man, circa 75 (M203)
Occupation in 1984: Military doctor
Location: [REDACTED], Southern FNA.
[The subject is a silver-haired man of about 75 years of age. He wears a pre-war pattern military uniform, worn but clean, his collar open. He has the rank tabs of a medical captain. The man uses a wooden cane to steady himself as he moves.]
[Now that we are sitting down, sir, are you ready to start the interview?]
[Subject looks around himself inquisitively.]
So it is just you, then? I was expecting more people, like a military chaperone or something. Well, better this way. Go ahead, young man.
[I have understood that you are a survivor of the Lahti Free Area, sir. Is that right?]
I'd rather say a survivor of the 2nd Central Military Hospital. I had nothing to do with running the so-called Free Area. I believe that is why I am still here to tell you about it. But after we were abandoned like we were, and those... kids took over the garrison area, we had to work with them one way or the other. We – I mean the Hospital personnel - were outnumbered, we didn't have what you could call fighting form, and I sure as hell did not want to get locked up in a freezing basement like some of the Supply Regiment's officers were.
What I did during those days... Now, I have worked as a doctor all my life. That was what I did, though it was very tough. We did run out of supplies really soon, and it didn't help that some of those people kept raiding my cabinets for anything they could get their head messed upwith. Not that I can blame them, I guess. Desperate times and desperate measures. We tried to help the people with serious radiation poisoning, though all we could do really was to ease their pain until they would inevitably die. We helped soldiers – deserters, mostly, and civilians, after the Päijät-Häme Central Hospital burned down. Those weeks are really a blur to me, I think I might have slept a couple of hours per night, at maximum.
By the time the garrison was, well, liberated, I was so out of it it barely registered. I was taking part in a surgical operation, a tough one, one of many, in candle light. And suddenly there's this NCO bursting in, waving his rifle and ordering us out. I had to leave the patient bleeding on the table; I am pretty sure the NCO would have shot me right there if I didn't comply. Now, come to think of it, I had heard some shooting from the outside, and something like the noise of an airplane or a helicopter, before. But like I said, the state I was in...
Oh, and please drop the ”sir”, would you. Just call me [REDACTED].
[Will do. What happened after the garrison was retaken by the Defence Forces?]
We were all brough out to the parade ground, made to stand to attention. There were bodies around, mostly mutineers and their collaborators. My bloody doctor's apron got some well-deserved attention. Some men who could not walk were dragged across the muddy ground by the soldiers. Those who had the most ”Anarchist” or ”Punk” look to them were often badly abused. I saw some dragged around by a truck, still alive, others tied to lamp posts and savagely beaten. I think there might have even been unauthorized executions – I didn't see that first hand.
[Looks to the floor mournfully for a while, then raises his chin to continue the story.]
But that was only for the first couple of days. Then it was stopped abruptly – I think strict orders from above. After that, we were put to work to make some of the garrison buildings into a holding camp for ourselves. All the while we could see military convoys rolling south on the roads next to the garrison. And then started the legal proceedings.
[What do you mean?]
The powers that be had put together a military court to specifically address the events at the garrison, the mutiny of the Supply Regiment and what happened in the Free Area. So the garrison gym hall was turned into a courtroom, a few desks and chairs at the front for the members of the court, simple wooden benches for the suspects... Or maybe ”suspect” isn't the right word at all. After all, it was clear from the get-go that we all were guilty of something. That was the prevailing mood. It was just up to the court to find the suitable sentences for us.
[What were the suitable sentences?]
There were those who would have said firing squad at dawn, for all of us. It didn't turn out quite like that though.
[What stopped them?]
Damned if I know, but I have my theories... Now, my trial was among the first groups. Each... detainee got his very own trial, but we were taken to the courtroom in groups of about twenty people. To save time and effort, I guess, the sentences seemed to be handed out pretty swiftly. So, this morning they come to the barracks where we were held, names are read out – some were hospital personnel, some others from the Supply Regiment - and we are marched to the gym with military police keeping a close eye on us. In the hall itself, we stand to attention until the members of the court, three men in military uniform, have taken there places. The court is called to order and we're given the que to sit down.
Now, they had put some effort to the court composition. The chairman of the court, the military judge if you may, had been a long-time civilian judge in the Varkaus district court, or so I heard. Despite his officer's uniform, there was really nothing ”military” about him. And when he opened his mouth, what came out was so heavily accented in Savonian it was hard to take him seriously. But still nobody dared to laugh.
Just after we were allowed to sit down, there was a pause as the chairman looked down and went through his papers, apparently trying to decipher who to start with. All was quiet. Until one man stood up near the centre of the room, cleared his throat and addressed the chairman in measured tones. He was wearing a private's uniform, dirty but properly buttoned up.
The MP's on the sides started moving towards him, and the court clerk – a Staff Sergeant – ordered him to sit back down, commenting loudly on how ”irregular” the man's action was.
The chairman looked at the man, and quite relaxedly gestured for the MP's and the clerk to settle down.
” - Let 'im speak,” he said nodding slightly to the standing man.
One might have heard a pin drop.
The man was slightly build, thirtyish but seemingly balding. He had heavy-rimmed glasses fixed with duct tape. I had seen the man, he was some sort of an anti-war artist-type from the Regiment, one of the more quiet ones. I could remember him helping out at the hospital.
” - Mr Chairman,” he said, looking direcly at the members of the court. His voice carried that slightly nasal sound of the Helsinki dialect.
” - What is highly irregular is this court and these proceedings themselves. Mr. Chairman, the Military Criminal Code of 1919 was overturned by the parliament in 1983, after several amendments had been made to it in the 50s, 60s and 70s...”
He rattled off a number of points like reading from a book of law. Several of the detainees turned their eyes nervously towards him.
”... and the current laws that give a court like this one jurisdiction, namely 1889/39 or the Finnish Criminal Code and 1983/326 or the Law on Military Trials, are in grave danger of being violated, as are the laws we consider the Finnish constitution. What I am specifically talking about is the possiblity of the accused of being sentenced to death. Even under a State of War, legally declared by the President of the Republic and approved by the parliament in early February 1984 and consecutively still in effect, and in an area of military operations as the surroundings of Lahti have been declared by the Acting Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Defence Forces, the capital punishment is out of bounds in this instance under 1972/343 or the Law for the Removal of the Capital Punisment.
We have been told that the rump parliament in Seinäjoki, consisting solely of the 50 or so members from the Social Democratic Party, has in May 1984 reinstated the capital punishment. I do contest, however that this rump parliament is indeed both technically and legally qualified to legislate on the matter according, inter alia, to the Parliament Act of 1928 and I want to gravely question if all the appropriate measures have been used to make sure this drastic step in Finnish legal tradition is the product of sound legal judgement and not merely caused by lust for retribution and blood."
" - Furthermore, given that for the most part the alleged crimes of the people standing as accused in these proceedings have in fact allegedly taken place prior to contested reinstatement of the capital punishment, even in the case that law will be accepted as a part of the Finnish legal canon, the application of this law to said activities is a perfect example of ex post facto law, incompatible with the Finnish and Nordic legal tradition. "
" - Mr. Chairman, I therefore petition this court to postpone these proceedings until the the time the question of the technical legality of the capital punishment has been brought into the attention of the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Chancellor of Justice and resumed only after the highest arbiters of legal issues in the land have given their rulings on the matter.”
This is how I remember him speaking – I am afraid my legalese is a bit rusty for me to do justice to his petition in toto.
[The subject smiles slightly.]
After the private stopped it was again very quiet in the hall, apart from the sound of the clerk scribbling furiously to capture the gist of the man's argument.
The chairman stared ahead lost in thought. Then he opened his mouth again.
” - Your petition has been noted, Private...?”
The private corrected the position of his glasses.
” - Nurmio, Mr. Chairman.”
” - Private Nurmio. We shall now consider the petition. You may sit down.”
He talked a while with the other members of the court in hushed tones.
[What happened next? Were the proceedings postponed?]
Like hell they were. The judge threw out the petition on a technicality, and the court started its work in earnest. But hear me out when I say this: during the next days, the court gave out surprisingly few death sentences. And even of those, the majority were later commuted to long sentences in prison or hard labour. Given what they made those people do, clearing roads and railways, cleaning contaminated areas, heavy farm and industrial work and so on, I believe a straight-up bullet to the brain would have often been more merciful a sentence.
Now I can't say whether Private Nurmio's little talk had the effect of making the court more lenient. Or whether the courts at large were being pressured into this by Mikkeli – there was much more need for workers than dead bodies, what with the start of the farm work of the spring and the summer and so on. Or maybe it was the chairman feeling a tinge in his conscience. Be it as it may, many people who I thought were dead for sure would survive for some time longer at least.
[What about you, then? What was your sentence?]
I was sentenced to eight years of hard labour for desertion; they found no grounds to charge me with treason. And I was busted down several ranks. In reality, though, after two weeks of hauling building materials on my back I was sent back to the hospital to do the work of a doctor, still as a prisoner under guard of course. Medical doctors were a rare commodity in the spring of 1984 – like they still are in this country. I think they would have put Arvo Ylppö[1] performing amputations if they managed to dig him up from under the rubble... Thing is, I was too valuable to be slowly exhausted in simple manual labour.
I know I am lucky. Since then, I have been able to do what I always wanted to do in my life, more or less. Others were not so lucky. Remember, for example, Matti Nykänen, the famed ski-jumper? Masa the Mouse they used to call him. A slight and somewhat fragile man, when he was sober, he had been called up by the Häme Regiment to join a recon unit in January – a unit that was then evacuated from the garrison during the Exchange. After the mutiny of the Supply Regiment they found the man hiding in the linen storage – he had missed the evuacuation and had been trying to hide from the new order since. He became something of a protegé of some of the Free Area activists – never doing anything especially nasty but being a regular guest of their parties as long as there was stolen booze to be had. He was sentenced to life, and the last I heard he had been ordered to a penal unit taking part in the clean up of the irradiated surroundings of Lappeenranta. Perished due the radiation and disease, in the end.
I could tell you numerous similar stories.
Eventually, I lost mys status as an enemy of the state, and since then they have even promoted me a couple of times. Some bureacratic snafu, surely.
[You are still in uniform. Are you in service at that age?]
[Subject assumes the look of mock-indignation.]
So you think I am too old? Why, young man...
[His face melts into a congenial smile.]
I am not officially in service anymore... I think. I have just grown used to wear this uniform and to work at the hospital. I don't want to ”retire”. I can still do a lot of things the younger doctors and medics can't, and besides I have taken a habit if fixing things around here. I mend and sometimes make new clothes, too. This uniform looks pretty spiffy, doesn't it?
This all keeps me well occupied. I like fixing stuff.
[What kinds of stuff?]
Hospital machinery, say. The X-ray machines and other gadgets. Radios. I also dabble in motor cars. You saw the ambulances we have up front, the two Ford Transits and the Volkswagen van?
[I think I saw them, yes.]
They wouldn't be running anymore without me. Not since 1995 or so they couldn't have. We don't get much new cars here, you see. Most in use now are still pre-war models. The new Swedish cars are usually prohibitively expensive, and the Czecho-Slovak vehicles are produced in too small quantities to reach the Finnish market, for the most part. So we make do.
[Subject looks directly into my eyes.]
You have to understand that this here country has in many ways reverted back to master-journeyman systems. They do have a University[2], such as it is, and even those three Polytechnics[3], bless them. But for the most part the kids now learn from their elders, how to fix things, how to build things. I have trained many doctors and orderlies and even a few bona fide mechanics in my time in this hospital. It has been up to us old-timers to bring forward the torch of technical civilization, more often than not. For all the government talks about rebuilding and focusing on the future I think they are forgetting the need to preserve things, the good things in our society.
[Subject looks at me meaningfully and lowers his voice.]
And I am not talking just about things and machines too, understand. I am talking about compassion, caring and mercy. Of justice and the power of the people.
[The subject springs to his feet, as if remembering something.]
I'd like to give you an example of what I do here. I recently rigged up an old marine engine for a back-up auxiliary generator, as it were. The power cuts are a persistent problem during summer storms and in cold winters. What I got is a Swedish Penta engine from the 1930s, no less. A right beauty: you might be interested too. Right this way, young man...
Notes:
[1] Arvo Ylppö (1887-1984) was a highly respected Finnish doctor, an accomplished pediatrician who at the top of the Finnish medical profession carried the title of archiater since 1952. He is presumed lost in Helsinki during the Exchange.
[2] The Mikkeli University or the ”Finnish State University”. For the most part trains professionals and functionaries for the FNA state organizations and bureaucracy.
[3] In Joensuu, Varkaus and Seinäjoki.
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Thank you. I'm sure I'll be up and about in a few days, it seems to be just a feisty flu bug. The timing is just brilliant: I have a few days off from work, and what would be a better way to spend them than sitting at home all woozy, with a runny nose and an annoying cough...
A note: just a small update to bump the thread. I have been writing this while running a fever of around 39 Celsius and so forgive me for any problems with the text.
I plan to continue with a couple of longer updates in the next weeks or so, my health permitting.
Seconded!
This update is very important because it shows the tech level in Finland and other nations by 2009.
It seems that Sweden and Czechoslovakia have returned to a semi-recovery, but Finland's education system was set back a century or so.
Jumalauta, I remember feeling a slight tinge when you mentioned the Guards Jaeger Regiment in one of your earlier posts, since it was my National Service unit. Then this bit about Hennala comes out, centring on the military hospital. I was there for a month getting medic training and became quite familiar with both the old hospital building and the rest of the barracks.
I also enjoyed the celebrity name dropping.
I also enjoyed the celebrity name dropping.
I'm glad I could strike a chord, so to speak.
As you know the place and the surroundings (probably a lot better than I do), you might be interested to know that the military doctor in the last posts is very closely modelled on a real person I know, one who actually worked as a leading medical officer in Hennala for the last decades of his career before retiring. I do that a bit too much, don't I? I promise to cut back some in the future...