Diary of a Soldier in the Egyptian Military: A Peek Inside the Egyptian Army

By Nubar Aroyan

This book is the diary of an Egyptian soldier of Armenian descent who served the Egyptian Army during the critical years 1968 through 1972, when Egypt was making preparations for the 1973 war with Israel. The book relates the details of his compulsory draft, his various unforgettable experiences, and after serving more than four years with no end in sight, his daring escape from the Army and the country.

The story is the Authors first-hand description of daily life in the Egyptian Army, his trials and tribulations with a variety of circumstances and characters and close calls with Israeli planes at the Suez Canal.

Finally it relates the nail-biting journey the Author took to freedom, to safely arrive, with Gods merciful intervention, in the Promised Land, America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449735876

Nubar Aroyan

Mr. Aroyan was born in Cairo, Egypt, toward the end of World War II in an Armenian Christian family. After graduating from the Architecture Department of Cairo University in 1967, he was drafted into the Egyptian Army. Entering his fifth year of compulsory military service and being in total desperation, he succeeded in fleeing from the Army and the country and arriving in America to join his brother. He presently lives in Pasadena, California, has his own architectural practice and serves as an elder in the local Armenian Church.

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Growing Up in Egypt

I was born in Cairo toward the end of World War II in a middle class Armenian Christian family, the second of four children. My early childhood recollections about the country of my birth were mostly concerned with what went on in and around our third-story apartment in Shubra, a suburb of Cairo. I remember the fava bean (foole) seller roaming the streets with his cart in early morning, waiting to fill the order of my mother, who would lower an empty bowl in a basket to buy steaming hot fava bean soup. The price was one piaster (about fifty cents). The soup was then pulled up and seasoned with salt, lemon juice and cottonseed oil, and with the help of fresh delicious ‘eish baladi (country bread), it was consumed by the family with sincere appreciation. Then there was the milk merchant who came to our door daily to sell us fresh whole milk that, after boiling and cooling, produced a thick layer of cream, which was then consumed mixed with honey or strawberry jam, eliciting heavenly delight. The ironing shop across the street was a busy place. Massoud, the ironing man (makwagi), was perpetually grinning due to the water stored in his mouth, ready to spray whenever the clothing being ironed needed moisture. There was also Ahmad the barber, Zaki the egg merchant, and Kamal the general store man who had the only public telephone in the neighborhood. The street population included the vegetable and fruit merchants hawking their produce, the occasional fire blower who amazed the children, the laterna man who earned a modest living by spinning a handle on his music box, and the roba bekia man pushing his cart, trying to purchase used clothing from locals for next to nothing. (Roba Bekia is roba vecchia, which means old robe in Italian). There were also housewives who cleaned their rugs by hanging them on the balcony rail and beating them with a special bamboo paddle. Occasional funeral processions were also part of the street scene, following a band playing Chopin’s Marche Funebre. On several occasions enormous clouds of locusts darkened the sky for days on end. At home my favorite pastimes were reading, playing with my Meccano erector set and Lionel brand electric trains.

Belonging to a minority ethnic group that guarded its unique identity outside its ancestral homeland, I was brought up in an entirely Armenian environment, attending Armenian schools and churches. At school I was a quiet and studious student who consistently held on to the position of the second best student in the class. The best student was Zaven A., a virtual genius, who later became a much admired professor of physics in a top Canadian university.

After graduating from an Armenian middle school in Cairo, I attended St. George’s College (a high school) in Heliopolis, which offered my first chance to have daily contact with non-Armenians. St. George’s was a Catholic mission school run by Irish fathers, renowned for its excellent curriculum of English language and literature, where the official language of communication was English, not Arabic. After graduating from high school with reasonably good grades, I applied and was admitted to the Architecture Department of Cairo University. The Architecture Department was headed by a highly articulate and a very strict academic, Dr. Nasry Kamel, who did not hesitate to use strong language to shock his students and prod them to work harder. The language of instruction was strictly Arabic, which I had difficulty mastering. I was constantly reminded of my Armenian roots by being labeled Khawaga (foreign Christian) by faculty and students. The architectural curriculum lasted five years. I endeavored and succeeded in maintaining above average grades and finally graduated in June of 1967 with Very Good (Gayyed Geddan) distinction.

The Senior Trip

It was April 1967 when thirty of us soon-to-be-graduating students of Cairo University’s Architecture Department landed in Beirut, Lebanon. It was a celebratory trip to Lebanon and Syria three months before graduation.

During the trip I was able to visit many Armenian friends who were in Beirut en route from Egypt to other parts of the world. The Armenian community in Egypt, which numbered about forty thousand in the late fifties, had dwindled to less than six thousand during the previous ten years. Armenians who had come to Egypt fleeing the Armenian Genocide of 1915 were being uprooted again, primarily due to Nasser’s policy of nationalizing their businesses and his fierce pursuit of Arab nationalism.

The trip was an enjoyable experience and repeatedly many Armenian friends in Beirut advised me to bail out of the tour and stay in Lebanon as an asylum seeker. In the absence of any compelling reason to bail out, I rejected the idea, arguing that there were only three months left until my graduation as an architect in June of that year. Moreover there were no restrictions to depart Egypt after graduation. Emigration was actively encouraged by the government as a pressure relief valve for millions of underemployed graduates.

On the way to the airport, my good friend Edward K. and I trailed the tour bus in his Fiat. He advised me once again to defect. I refused to listen. I boarded the plane with my university classmates, and Dr. Hosni, who was a strict academic-turned-affable tour leader, was noticeably comforted seeing me safely settled in my seat, ready to fly back to Egypt with the rest of his charge.

The Start of My Personal Odyssey

Monday, June 6, 1967—We were in the last days of our final examinations at the Department of Architecture, Cairo University, and graduating that summer. For a week everyone in the country sensed that something spectacular was about to happen—something was about to explode. The streets were full of banners stretched across from balcony to balcony, declaring among other things that the time had come to fight and crush the enemy, invade Tel Aviv, and expel the Jews from Palestine.

What joy, what glorious exuberance did I witness that Monday morning riding the bus to the university. Radios were turned on full blast everywhere, and a feverishly excited voice was announcing that heroic Egyptian armies had started the fight against Israel and were advancing unopposed toward the enemy’s capital. Among other boastful pronouncements I remember was his describing the Sixth Fleet sailing in the Mediterranean as nothing more than a piece of sheet metal (hettat safeeh). The entire city of Cairo cheered when the military reporter periodically gave the latest number of downed enemy planes.

Upon reaching the university I saw Sheemy the custodian painting the windows cobalt blue in order to block out the light in anticipation of air attacks. My fellow students were at their desks working on their projects while listening to the news. Some of them were skeptical, but others were clearly overjoyed with the reported progress of the war. One student, Mohammad Serafy, nicknamed El Tarabeeshi (tarboush maker) felt guilty not being able to contribute in any way to the war effort. He declared that everyone needed to participate. For example, Sheemy the custodian, he said, was at least painting the windows. Soon he came up with an idea of participating. He decided to keep a running count of downed enemy planes by pinning a tablet of blank sheets on the chalkboard and writing on the top sheet the latest tally of downed planes. As fresh reports kept coming in, the count kept going higher and higher at an incredible rate. At each announcement he trashed the old sheet and wrote the new total on the next blank sheet. Eighteen became twenty-four, twenty-four became thirty-two, then thirty-eight, then fifty. By noon over eighty Israeli planes were claimed to have been shot down. Mohammad was jubilant, while others thought the whole thing was just another Abu Lam’aa (a famous comedian) joke.

No one knew the disastrous truth until five days later. On Friday, June 10, President Nasser took to the airwaves to reveal the shameful conclusion of the Six-Day War, calling it el Naksa (which means great disaster of catastrophic proportions) and announced his own resignation. Instead of entering Tel Aviv in a few hours, the Egyptian Army was pushed back by the Israeli Army all the way to the western bank of the Suez Canal, totally crushed. The Israelis’ celebration could be heard on the Israeli radio singing Psalm 83:

See how your enemies growl, how your foes rear their heads.

With cunning they conspire against your people; they plot against those you cherish . . .

Come, they say, "let us destroy them as a nation, so that Israel’s name is remembered no more . . ."

Do to them as you did to Midian, as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the river Kishon . . .

Make them like tumbleweed, my God, like chaff before the wind . . .

Cover their faces with shame, LORD, so that they will seek your name. May they ever be ashamed and dismayed; may they perish in disgrace.

But Nasser’s resignation was rejected by the masses who poured into the streets shouting la tatanahha ya Gamal (Do not resign, O Gamal).

Nasser changed his mind and did not resign, but the army commander-in-chief Field Marshal Abdel Hakim ‘Amer committed suicide and was buried in his hometown of Astal, in Upper Egypt, a fitting end for a person who was widely rumored to be mastool (meaning druggie and also a play on the name of his hometown Astal).

When news of the defeat came the country was struck as if by a powerful thunderbolt. The general feeling during the first days was that Israel was invincible. Outrageous scare rumors began spreading—that Israelis had dropped floating bombs in the Nile, that tourists near the Pyramids were in reality disguised Israeli paratroopers, that flashy sparkling boxes were left in villages to explode when touched, that Israelis had photographed and knew everything about the country. Their aerial feats were exaggerated—it was reported that they flew their planes through Egyptian Air Force hangars entering one end and exiting the other. There was a deep respect for the enemy. It was rumored that Nasser was informed that Israelis had used many war tactics mentioned in the Old Testament and that he was curious to know them. He was quoted as saying that he regretted allowing Egyptian Jews, fluent in Egyptian Arabic, to leave the country, who then fought in the Israeli army against Egypt. And generally Palestine was blamed as the root of all problems. The name Palestine (Falasteen in Arabic) was bisected into Falas/Teen, (Bankruptcy/mud). The most common expression of bitterness being Awwelha falas, akherha teen. (Starts with bankruptcy, ends with mud).

But Nasser decided to immediately rebuild his shattered army in preparation for the next war with Israel.

*     *     *

At the university our finals were over and we graduated that summer without any fanfare or festivities. All we received from the university was a certificate of good conduct. Nothing else. There was no need for anything else. There were no jobs for us except working for the government. Graduates were assigned various government jobs to fulfill a two-year compulsory employment (called Amr Takleef) as a repayment for their free education, and thereafter pursue their careers in private businesses. Based on my high grades I was employed in Cairo; low grades meant jobs in faraway cities or oases in the desert. On November 1, 1967, I started my new job in the Facilities Department of Cairo University and was placed in charge of the construction administration of various projects around campus.

But in those turbulent times nothing was for certain. Ominous rumors started circulating that a general draft would soon take place with no postponements or exceptions whatsoever. I was scared of serving in the army due to my painfully inadequate mastery of the Arabic language. At the same time I did not expect to be drafted, having Armenian ancestors, which according to then-current law was grounds for exemption from military service. The law provided, presumably for security reasons, that a young man with a non-Egyptian father or grandfather could not be drafted. But in those uncertain times it was imperative to have a document in my hand officially authenticating my exemption. A jeweler friend of my father, Mr. Alex A., proposed to help me quickly secure the exemption document by seeing an officer friend who could facilitate the issuing of that document through his internal connections. Assuming that the officer’s help would be a sure way to acquire it, I decided to follow his advice in lieu of going through the normal channels. On January 20, 1968, I filled out the relevant application forms and went to meet Captain Ali in his office. He was pleased to hear I was a friend of the jeweler and reassured me that he would quickly help me receive my exemption certificate. Another Armenian young man by the name of Hovsep C. was there too for the same reason. Captain Ali asked us to wait a few days for the exemption certificate to arrive in the mail.

My wait lasted four months and ended heartbreakingly when I received a letter from the military stating that they had reviewed my application, but unfortunately the subject law had been withdrawn. (Years later I was informed that Hovsep C. had received his exemption on time through Captain Ali’s effort and another Armenian friend Ara A. had submitted his papers the normal way on the very same day I gave mine to Captain Ali and had received his exemption on the spot). The jeweler friend informed me later apologetically that Captain Ali had dropped my application in his drawer and had forgotten about it. By the time he had realized his irresponsibility and had it turned in, the law had already been terminated.

Captain Ali’s recklessness cost me more than four years in the Egyptian Army, the best years of my youth.

But I comforted myself with the thought that even if I was drafted, the term of my draft as a college graduate, by the then-current laws, would be only one year. Additionally I had an automatic postponement of two years, until the end of 1969, due to my compulsory two-year government employment, during which time I thought I could get an immigrant visa and leave the