As the lowest life form …

From afar you could always tell apart the cadets by their incriminating white bars and the inevitable association with the months of tekan and unfair hardships. Though it is debatable whether the three white bars make us the lowest life, I think that being a cadet for a year has been humbling in many ways beyond just the punishments and shouting we must bear. I’ve heard of people saying that they hate being a cadet and can’t wait to go straight to a black rank. There is something understandable about that, I guess, but I feel that it is an essential experience to shape us to be better and more understanding leaders. My prolonged cadet life was painful, but now that it is coming to an end soon I cannot help but be a little nostalgic and grateful for it. It allowed me a good long look at the most ground level realities of this organisation I belong to.

Being a cadet did not strike me as meaningful when living in the moment, especially when running into an endless sleep debt and being so tired all the time. It was only until my 4 months lull period did I get the time and space to consider why we are being subjected to the experiences we have had. The lull period had initially seemed pointless to me: why am I wasting my life learning things I could learn again when I could be doing valuable things like internship or projects. Put into the larger backdrop of other scholars who are in the midst of their university life or professional training, it made me anxious that I was losing out on time. However, I realise that in this liminal space governed by no rules (since we were cadets but with no course to belong to) I had time to think. Looking at it now, it gave me a once in a lifetime opportunity to interact with our instructors beyond the strict formalities in our actual course and it will be the only time to be so relatable and candid with superiors. We exercised with them, talked to them about their hopes and plans for the future – felt more like talking to a friend than anything – and even joked around testing the “line” with how far we could get for a blessed order-in, pushing the lights out timings, watching late night movies with them. Also, we had basically the best possible classroom ratio. So many liberties were given to us, and it all lead me to a pretty happy and well-rested 4 months (though at times that idleness made me think too much and get overwhelmed by angst). Coupled with the actual on course life, I think I have seen a lot from this same place. It’s like looking at a same object from different angles and discovering the way it catches light or glints from each perspective.

And this view on life is what I’ve been missing out. Beyond all the higher policy level things I was promised and enticed with to sign on initially, this is what the day to day is looks like and is what keeps the organisation functioning. This is what most people would see in their NS experience, and this should be the way to assess the quality of their time here, not by the high highs and low lows. In small ways I’ve seen how mishaps could affect an overall NS experience – rations that have not been indented, an unreasonable punishment, lashing out in anger, delayed dispersal of information like timings – all these are things that have affected my daily life as cadet and are things most soldiers would hold close to their hearts. It’s a reminder for myself that to work hard not just for the lofty things that I believe in, but also to improve the quality of the daily lives with the decisions that might not seem that important to me when I am occupied by the air-conditioned rooms and reports and what not. I have experienced the final effects of many throwaway decisions and I hope that has left a deeper impression on me.

I had to really think about what it means to be a follower during this period too. There is more to being a good follower than the conventional wisdom of “one must learn to obey before commanding so that you are empathetic in leading”. We are under the illusion that once we commission, or leave the army, we will finally be a master of our own seas, but in the chain of command or in any workplace we are all followers at some point. We should learn to be good followers not for the sake of being better leaders, but to be better followers simply because we will always be someone’s subordinate at any point and it is a necessary skill valuable in itself.

So, it got me thinking about the conflicting standards of a good follower. It seemed that as a cadet we are held to very petty and superficial standards that testifies for our ability to carry out instructions but says nothing about being a good follower. A good follower should be someone who is courageous enough to challenge and resist an instruction when it is wrong to push the standards and keep the leaders in check; who is mature enough to know when to simply compromise and go along with the instruction regardless of personal stance; who can decipher and grasp the core intent of the superior who gave the instruction and modify or adapt to fulfil that intent. It is not about how quick we drop to face the floor, or how much we standardise our items, or how well we do things that were long expected of us (area cleaning, filling bottles to the brim, sending arms…). Worst of all, it should not be about how well we learn to just suck it up. If I were to say something a little cynical: that isn’t a benchmark for a follower, but rather a benchmark of being an adult. I think we can cultivate this idea of being good followers during our cadet days much more meaningfully than simply performing those superficial tasks.

The next point is coming from a place of absolute bias since I have only been on the ground/going to be a ground commander, but I stand by my point that the biggest changes are made through command and personal influence rather than policy writing and structural changes. In all honesty, just one good outstanding instructor, or an inspirational meaningful engagement would have made the cadet life a lot better than wide-spread policies such as RAC, or long-lasting ones like the restructuring of our curriculum. Not to say the latter ones are unimportant (because they are meant for you to ensure your influence outlives your effective tenure), but I am recognising how the higher up one is the less say one has in the proper execution of the plan. Many times, it doesn’t take a good plan, but a solid execution to drive home the message. As a cadet I appreciated a good commander more because they made the difference in keeping my faith/making me lose some hope in this organisation.

There are many things to be said about the downsides of being the “lowest life form”, but there’s also many fleeting benefits I will never ever get a taste of again: forgoing the responsibilities of organising and commanding people, enjoying peer leadership and showing my goofy side to people my age, being vulnerable and relating to people in my immediate circle… They aren’t always bad things. More and more I am thankful that I could act my age and have the guts to do whatever I want, to not think about the consequences of immature mistakes. I could be childish and emotional and forgive myself for it. I could make friends and connect with people around me. If the rest of my journey is going to be a lonely one, I will take my time and enjoy the company now. I think I had so much fun (and I am just realising with a bit of shock as I am writing it: I am still having lots of fun).

Now that my cadet days are finally coming to an end, I am simultaneously a little reluctant to let go of the experiences I have had and excited to meet the challenge of being responsible for the quality of someone else’s cadet life. I’m sure I have learnt a lot more than I am able to articulate, but the most important thing was how close to the ground I have felt during these months (metaphorically I had my cheeks pressed to the soil and am listening to the petty and endearing concerns of daily life). Getting the black bar will be like cutting the thread to a bunch of helium balloons, and floating higher and higher will mean getting caught up in different things. I hope I never lose sight of the ground. I have only one promise to myself: to become a good commander and stay a good commander no matter how far I go.