When people reach middle age, they have no choice but to recall the first Spring Festival spent in the army!
I was twenty-three years old that year, specially recruited for half a year, and served in a military health team at the junction of Yu'e and Hubei, and that was my first year of spending the New Year alone outside.
My unit was in a small town, and the barracks had red brick bungalows built in 1972 and three or two-story buildings built in the early nineties. Our health team is a two-story building in the deepest part of the camp, the second floor is inhabited, and the first floor is used for outpatient clinics, pharmacies, duty rooms, and the size of a village health center. Three medics, six hygienists. One of the oldest military doctors, Captain Song, decided to change careers at the end of the year. Old Song was a Native of Shandong, with the rank of Colonel of Professional Technology, and at that time he did not have the right choice of employment, either to change careers or to take money to demobilize, for us in Shandong, Henan, a stable and decent job is of course the first choice.
Old Song is gone, there are still two of me and Dr. Qin, Dr. Qin is married and started a family at the station, and has a son of two or three years old, so I have been designated as the temporary person in charge after working for half a year. I was not happy to obey the order! In fact, I want to go home for the New Year, but the duty of a soldier is to obey orders! Since that day, I have been the leader of the temporary health team, responsible for the health protection tasks of the officers and men of the regiment during the Spring Festival. Fortunately, this unit is mainly for intensive training, there are not so many training tasks before and after the Spring Festival, and there are only a few hundred people stationed in the camp area, and some of them go home for vacation for the New Year.
Because there were only two people left in the team, Dr. Qin and I were on duty during the day, and I was responsible for meetings and reporting on work during the day. Busy work masked my homesickness.
Chinese New Year's Eve afternoon, all the emergency plans were ready, and I asked Dr. Qin to go home early for the New Year, telling him that he would not use it for a few days, unless there were special circumstances that I could not call him again. Dr. Qin happily went home, and there were only four hygienists left in the team (the other two went home for the Chinese New Year), and several people got together to watch TV and set off firecrackers. It's also quite lively. It's just that after eleven o'clock in the evening, twenty-three-year-old me was lying alone in bed a little hard to sleep!
On the first day of the Chinese New Year, I first ran to the front of the organ building to hold a morning meeting, and when I came back, I went to the patrol, the company was full of lights, much more lively than we were there, after the round, I returned to the health team, left a duty hygienist, and let the other few go out to have fun with the comrades of the company!
I looked for a book, read it all morning, and slept at noon. There was a security meeting in the afternoon, and the day passed and the new year began.
