Glorious Nest

(I will continue to share the same article every year until military high schools be opened and fulfill their mission).

"It has been 42 years exactly. 

August 28th, 1980. 

Universities, teachers, police officers and even the military are politically divided. 

All high schools are in turmoil. Politics had entered even secondary schools, and there were days when there were no fights, no noise, no conflicts, no bombs, no gunfire, no day went by, and there was a longing for peace and security.

In these troubled days, a 14-year-old boy, who had passed the exam and was on his way to enroll in the school he had won, arrived in Istanbul. 

As he was crossing the Bosphorus bridge to go to school with his brother-in-law, born and raised in Istanbul and the general manager of a well-known company, the boy asked:

"Where is the school?" 

The man replies:

"Over there". 

The boy looks into that direction of the school and sees a huge building, looking as if to say, "I am the ruler of this Bosphorus. It is a majestic building, as if saying, "The sea is mine, the land is mine, the sky is mine". The child thinks of this huge building as a palace or a hotel. The majesty of this building does not fit the schools he knows, the high schools he has seen. The boy asks again:

"Where can't I see it?" The man gets a little angry: "Son, can't you see the big school?

"What do you mean, that huge building with the towers?" says the boy. 

The boy's admiration for the school starts with that answer. For 4 years, Kuleli, a glorious and honorable home with commanders and teachers he loved like family elders, and friends he loved like brothers and sisters, became his home. 

He is still very young, he misses his family, his home, his village, his neighborhood, but he doesn't show it to anyone, even if he wants to cry, he cries in the toilet. He realizes he is not alone when he hears the sobs in the next restroom.

There he begins to learn about humanity, helping and receiving, being a man, patriotism, Atatürk, friendship, mathematics, geography, Turkish, English, writing, reading, learning, understanding life.

The child lives there, learns there, grows up there, to be intelligent, agile and moral athletes, to engage in art, one of the lifeblood of the nation, to play an instrument, to make his bed, to iron his bed, to shine his shoes.

The child grows up, but his soul always remains in that childhood, in that beauty.

On the 42nd anniversary of my entry into the glorious home of Kuleli, I commemorate my esteemed commanders and precious instructors who have passed away with mercy, and those who are still alive with gratitude and thanksgiving, and I look forward to the upcoming day when my school will be reopened and its students will be raised as generations free of intellect, wisdom and conscience under the leadership of reason and science."