Each situation is very individual. There is no universal model of behavior. But maybe my advice will be useful to someone. It was easier for me - everyone in my family served. Now there are families where there are no men who served. If you know such recruits - give them these tips. They may not be perfect, but they are better than nothing.
1. Don't be afraid. Your main enemy is not demobilization, not difficult conditions of service, not an idiot foreman. Your fear makes you vulnerable to them.
2. Don't arise. Don't swing the law, don't wave the laws. Do not look for logic and justice in the army. Smarter, stronger and more erudite people were looking for them before you. The system is stronger, it ate them, it will eat you too. Just clench your ass and bear with it.
3. Do not stand out from the crowd. If EVERYONE was told to do something humiliating, do it too. If something humiliating was ordered to be done to you alone - DO NOT. Say so - I'm like everyone else. Perhaps you will be beaten for this. Nothing. It’s better than getting you chucked below the baseboard.
4. Don't be a rat. Do not steal, do not knock, do not eat parcels at night under the covers. It is rats in 99% of cases that are subjected to the maximum humiliation and beatings. If you are not like that, if you are a normal kid, you have nothing to be afraid of. Analyze - do you have any problems in the team now, before the army? For what you are not loved, not respected, for what you are beaten in civilian life - do not hesitate - for the same you will be humiliated and beaten in the army.
5. Faced with outright monsters and sadists - save yourself. Run away from the unit, go to your military registration and enlistment office, to the police, to the military prosecutor's office, tell us how it was, why you ran away. You won't get anything for it. I have seen dozens of such cases - no one was imprisoned for desertion if a soldier ran away because of bullying.
6. Prepare yourself for the army physically. Start running cross-country in the morning. In the army, you will run 3 km every morning. If you are the last to come running, you will be beaten and slaughtered. Start running now. Run 300 m today. 500 tomorrow. Then a kilometer, two, and three. In two weeks you will learn how to calmly run 3 km and in the army it will not be a problem for you.
7. Try as quickly as possible to make friends in the army in your unit. At least one friend. Better five. Hold on to each other, stand up for each other. If the grandfathers begin to nightmare one of you, all the rest will come right there. The worst thing is to be alone against a group of grandfathers.
The problem for the Russians is that we rarely stand up for each other in the army. Representatives of other peoples (Caucasians, Tatars, Bashkirs) will immediately fall into such groups and will not be touched.
8. (Caution! This advice is not for everyone!) If you see that your grandfather will hit you anyway, hit it first. In the jaw below, under the chin. From a blow to this place, a person falls. It looks impressive - laid it down with one blow. ("I did this a hundred times" (c), hehe). In the end, you will still be beaten, but most likely in the future they will be left behind. They lagged behind me.
9. Don't be stupid. The worst in the army is for those who do not know how to do anything. If you are an expert in anything (understand engines, draw well, play the guitar, drive well, know a foreign language, you can fix your TV, you cook well) then you will be respected for that.
10. And again - don't be afraid. Do not be afraid of pain - and you will not be scared by the threat of beating. Do not be afraid of physical activity - and you will not be scared by them. The less you are afraid of something, the less opportunities others have to manipulate you.
And remember - do not strive to be Batman, who … turned all demobels. These are only in the movies. In any case, you will receive your share of beatings, humiliation and stress. I would really like to say that not a single grandfather hit me. But this is not so, in the first weeks I made mistakes (ate at night, avoided work, was afraid) - and for this I was beaten several times. And - for the cause, I myself behaved incorrectly. But I drew conclusions, learned from my mistakes, and those beatings in the first weeks were the last. You will have your mistakes. Correct them in a timely manner and everything will be fine with you.
