Keyvan Nayyeri

It’s a calm day, when my military service ended officially (though I’ve been off for the past few weeks)! For me it’s difficult indeed to believe twenty months of trouble and pain are gone, and I’m free to continue my life.

Today is marked as the official end of my mandatory military service and it means that I’m free even though according to local laws I’m still preserved for any possible conflict until I become 40. However, this doesn’t put any restrictions on my life like those that were affecting it to now!

Doubtlessly this service has affected my life thoroughly and I’ll carry its side-effects for a very long time, and I’m sure that twenty months is long enough to not be erased from my memory anytime but I think that more attempts and better planning can abate its disadvantages to high extent.

In 2002 I entered to National University of Semnan, a dry city in a desert with low population where was an asylum for refugees until 20-30 years ago. Spending best years of life (18-22) in such a city without any entertainment and many restrictions was a bad experience which followed by serving in armies. In June 2006 I could graduate in Applied Mathematics when half of my classmates were not able to complete their courses yet but as always, I was in hurry to do things sooner!

Seven months later I started my mandatory military service by entering into the military training. Two months later I came out with a Second Lieutenant rank to serve in a semi-military organization. Since the early days things were aggravating until 2-3 months ago, and I gave regular updates of my service every two months. Honestly, time didn’t go fast especially at service but now it’s all gone! There is nothing remained except some experiences that in my honest opinion were not worth the difficulties and pains.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I spent much time doing paperwork to complete my service and get my military certificate. Although I finished the paperwork, I can’t get the certificate until next week. Not having this military certificate has put some main restrictions on my life such as inability to get my passport and leave the country, inability to get my university transcripts, and inability to sell or buy anything officially. I know that such laws suck, and I had written many paragraphs in spite of the laws that I eliminated intentionally before publishing but what I can do is, trying to reduce its side-effects as much as I can. I never can be 22 again, and I never can recover my energy and morale but there is no other option for someone who doesn’t want to exhibit aggressive manners and stay against the society.

Viewing from a positive side, I can tell a story that I read somewhere recently: the man had sat under a tree watching a monarch butterfly scarcely trying to get out of the cocoon. He could not resist seeing this and helped the butterfly to cut the cocoon, and finally that butterfly could get out but never could fly too far from the place. That man didn’t know that those attempts had a reason to form the wings of the monarch butterfly to be able to fly high and far!

Extending the story to myself, I believe that I’ve had many difficulties in my life since the beginning that evidently many others guys at my age never had but all these phenomena helped me understand the value of life and time, so I’ve achieved much more than those who didn’t have these troubles.

However, service is gone and I’m free to build a new life because I’m 24 and it’s not impossible to revitalize. The only thing that I hope is that this country, especially this government and its stupid laws, don’t put any obscure into my way. I have a threshold of patience that already have passed it!

Speaking of future life, as always I have an agenda for the upcoming nine months but I’d prefer to talk about that when everything is certain. However, I guess that 2009 is a busy year with some news coming consequently. By the way, at the moment I’m busy with studying for two exams, and I’ll take the first one Sunday.

As of this blog and other community activities, I’d return to active days before the service within 2-3 months after taking these exams and completing some crucial tasks in my life.

In the end, I would thank everybody who helped me in pre-service era and during it by giving advices and mental assistantship, friends who kindly tried to encourage me be patient. I was going to cite their names here but I thought there is a high chance that I miss some names in the huge list.