Blog
What to know when your partner is doing military service
At the bus station there are drums and a zurna, a double-reed horn you can hear three streets away. Somebody shouts "En büyük asker bizim asker!", roughly "our soldier is the greatest", and the young man who's leaving gets tossed in the air once or twice. Then the bus pulls out, the crowd thins, you go home, and your phone goes very quiet.
Military service is compulsory for men in Turkey, and for a lot of Turkish couples it's their first taste of long distance. It lasts six months for privates and twelve for reserve officers (the law). It doesn't work like ordinary long distance, though. You don't decide when you get to talk, and the distance between you is measured less in kilometers than in rules.
The first weeks are the quietest
It's completely normal for the first days to be both the hardest and the ones you hear least about. Basic training runs on a tight schedule, phone time is limited, and exhaustion beats everything else. When the call doesn't come, every bad scenario in your head is far less likely than the obvious one: he's asleep on his feet somewhere.
What helps most in this stretch is not taking the silence personally. Talk about it before he goes. Having heard "I might not be able to call much in the first weeks" in advance makes those weeks a lot lighter.
At the end of basic training there's an oath ceremony, and families can attend. After those first weeks apart, it tends to be an emotional day.
Phone hours aren't your hours
Phone use in the army depends on the unit and is usually limited. Since 2023, conscripts have been able to use their own phone lines in the barracks (news report, in Turkish), but only as restricted lines. Turkcell's soldier line, for example, has no mobile data, can only call certain numbers, and blocks calls during weekday duty hours (the terms, in Turkish). The details vary by operator and unit, so look into it together before he leaves.
Tie the relationship to calls at exact hours and every hiccup turns into a disappointment. Habits that don't depend on the clock hold up better. A few lines you write during the day, waiting for him when he gets his phone. A small signal only the two of you know, like saying goodnight with the same word every night.
It also means apps that need the internet, Tomurcuk included, usually can't be used during service. Here's an idea for the one who waits instead: keep a notebook of the questions you want to ask him. Open it together when he's back, and you'll have months of conversation saved up.
Letters still work
A letter on paper fits in a pocket and goes everywhere, which no phone screen can do. In the dorm, on watch, before sleep, it gets read again and again. Ask for his unit's address on the first call.
It doesn't have to be long. Write about what's going on in the neighborhood, what your mother cooked yesterday, something funny you saw in the street. The ordinary details of life outside tend to land best with someone in uniform. Keep the drama to a minimum, and don't be shy about saying you miss him.
The one who waits has a life too
"Do you think you'll wait?" is a question most people in this situation have heard. Comments from relatives, friends' well-meant but badly timed jokes... They can make the waiting partner feel alone.
The one who waits doesn't have to put their life on a shelf. Seeing friends, getting on with your own work, learning something new: none of it is a betrayal of the relationship. It also means you have something to tell him when the phone finally rings. When one of two people stops their life completely, the calls slowly turn into listening to only one person's troubles.
When he comes back
Someone who comes back from service has often changed a little. His sleep, his patience, how he handles crowds... If you don't find your old rhythm straight away in the first weeks, don't panic. Being in the same city again after a long separation is an adjustment of its own, and we wrote a little about that in our long-distance post.
The night before he leaves
There's a question in the Tomurcuk bank that names military service outright: "The first time school, work or military service took you away from the people you love, what did you miss most?" Ask it the night before he goes. If you've never been apart before, the answer might surprise you. Then write him a letter, slip it into his bag, and let him read it on the first night.