Let $q$ be a positive integer, $\chi $ denote any Dirichlet character $\mod q$. For any integer $m$ with $(m, q)=1$, we define a sum $C(\chi, k, m; q)$ analogous to high-dimensional Kloosterman sums as follows: $$ C(\chi, k, m; q)=\sum _{a_1=1}^{q}{}' \sum _{a_2=1}^{q}{}' \cdots \sum _{a_k=1}^{q}{}' \chi (a_1+a_2+\cdots +a_k+m\overline {a_1a_2\cdots a_k}), $$ where $a\cdot \overline {a}\equiv 1\bmod q$. The main purpose of this paper is to use elementary methods and properties of Gauss sums to study the computational problem of the absolute value $|C(\chi, k, m; q)|$, and give two interesting identities for it.
Te study focusses on generational transformations in the perception of military service in the period from 1968 through 2004, as an important social phenomenon. Major attention is paid to oral-historical interviews with four contemporaries, or more precisely to the ways of (re)constructing their narrative reflections associated with military service in particular historical decades beginning with the 1970s with the overlap to the new millennium (meaning from the beginning of “normalization” after 1968 to the abolishment of military service in 2004). Besides the importance
of military service, the text focusses on the identification of potential topics from military everyday life and culture of military service soldiers in the context of the conversion from the socialist army to the democratic one, and at the level of constructing the individual and the group identities.