AFVOA Newsletter 03 of 2020

Section 5 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 03 / 2020 Page 109 of 167 11 Men Will Be Men Wg Cdr C Ravishankar Genre: Life In The Forces ad Joseph Heller, the celebrated author of the classic ‘Catch 22’, visited my second Unit of posting between 1979 and 1981, he would have found a perfect setting for filming his plot without spending a single Dollar! For, the allied forces camp in north Italy during WW II was faithfully reproduced, quite unwittingly though, with some of the notorious characters just walking out of the book in flesh and blood, contributing live to crazier and quixotic events! Even as I reminisce decades later, Joe Heller must be turning in his grave! One such event is here. Late one lazy afternoon during Aug 1979, the Senior Signals Officer (SSO) of my Unit, informally alerted me that I stand posted to an FBSU in J & K, which news I would have had to wait till the next morning to be formally communicated by the Adjutant. What was unusual though was that I was given just 7 days to clear and report to the new Station. I had already heard stories of how tough life would be in such field units and with much apprehension and trepidation, I went through the motions mechanically. Even the traditional “Jolly good fellow” dining out routine when my colleagues threw me in the air did not cheer me up enough! When an AN 12 dropped me at the dispersal area of my new Unit lock, stock and barrel, on a cloudy Sunday afternoon, I felt very desolate, lonely and forlorn. I cheered up a bit when the DSC Guard pointed to a H