Training in the Tropics

Conscription is an interesting phenomenon that still exists today, where young men (and sometimes women) are called to sacrifice time (and sometimes their lives) for their country. The media portrays horror stories of young Russian men being called to the Ukranian conflict. Mandatory conscription of some form exists in more than 70 countries, sometimes in the form of civilian or non-combatant service. After going through such training myself, I think there is a strong argument for conscription in some shape of form because it helps create growth, but also as it strengthens social ethos and camaraderie.

Discipline and routine

From my own experience going through military training in a hot tropical nation, I think I’ve learnt a few ways to build on self-discipline and fortitude. Training was sometimes physically tough—sweltering heat, a lack of sleep, and carrying significant loads on long marches took a toll on the body, but the mental barrier is often what gives. In retrospect, this is why I think completing military training has historically been seen as a rite-of-passage that turns boys into men, as the discomfort is linked to personal growth. In a country with conscription, the same still applies.

Life as a fresh graduate in the 21st century seems tough, with a long grind awaiting many of us in the search for jobs. I was in conversation with a friend recently who was deep in the midst of it, popping off application after application. Young people have always been stereotyped as mentally weak, entitled, and blamed for not being willing to ‘work hard enough’. While such allegations seem offensive, they might contain an element of truth. Children of immigrant and working class parents definitely would have heard stories of the back-breaking work and hours our forefathers put in—and cracking under the pressure of university deadlines and 60-hour work weeks sometimes does make us seem meek in comparison. To stereotype an entire generation based on a few people however, is unfair, and I have also seen individuals who are paragons of grit in their own right; working part-time jobs, supporting their families while managing the copious workload of their degrees.

In many ways, life in basic military training was straightforward. You have your ‘reveille’ (morning call) at 0530 and immediately start your day with a run or some exercise. Then came breakfast and area cleaning, bunk inspections, before more varied training activity for the rest of the day. Dinner was usually at a set time, and we’d spend the evenings preparing our equipment for training the next day. Bedtime would be enforced (no watching Tiktok’s till 3am), and the cycle continues the next morning. Even during free time in the evenings, a routine helped—calling parents/loved ones at a fixed time, extra gym sessions on a particular evening. Following a routine helped overcome some inertia in doing uncomfortable things. Starting my day early in the morning with a 2-kilometre run might have felt unfathomable while at university, but since I was used to doing the same thing day-in day-out, lots of the inertia was removed. There even came mornings where not completing the run felt a bit strange.

Such a lifestyle seems mundane, but in retrospect, inculcated a level of discipline that might do many of us well in other phases of life. To misappropriate a Lao Tzu quote, “Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character”—the smallest of things done in repetition become second nature. Undergoing military training thus also allowed me to better appreciate the naggings that my parents, especially my father (who had completed his conscription decades earlier), sometimes dished out. I previously thought that chaos in my daily routine was fine as long as I found ways to achieve what I needed to do, but after being subjected to a routine I found that I was able to complete much more in a day.

Resilience within the populace

Another way I think we grew was by learning how to ‘embrace the suck’. A term made popular by the US Navy Seals (and thus repeated by instructors across the world), ‘embracing the suck’ meant that there are sometimes unavoidable moments that are incredibly uncomfortable—that sucked. Rather than complain and try to pointlessly avoid the situation, the easiest way to get past them is to accept the reality of the situation and work through it, thus ‘embracing it’.

There are sometimes good reasons not to do something we don’t like. More often, there are bad reasons we come up with to not do something we don’t like. As human beings, we are ill-equipped at discerning the two, and having a second party do so for you might be wise. When that party takes the form of an irritated drill sergeant or instructor, you quickly learn that most reasons fall into the latter, and come to terms with how to accept discomfort. The task at hand could be challenging, exhausting, downright uncomfortable. Crawling in mud whilst operating on little sleep was certainly that; but only once you strip away the rational/irrational reasons not to do something when ‘no’ isn’t an option, do you realise that your ability and resilience lie way beyond where you perceive them to be.

A vivid example would be when we were completing jungle training in a small section (about 7 people), each of us carrying our own weight in equipment and supplies and we had to trek to our next training objective a few kilometres away through hilly terrain. The weather was hot (>30 degrees) and humid (as tropical rainforests tend to be), we were hungry and tired after being in the field for a couple of days. There was no way to quit—there simply were no roads—the only way out was to walk. 

One reason our generation might be considered ‘weak’ by those older than us is that in some ways, the reasons against not doing something are less fatal. If you had to support a large family on an hourly wage working odd jobs, missing a day of work means less food on the table. This unfortunately remains a reality for many people around us, but for most people in this country increased job security and labour protections make things less life-and-death. This is a good thing, no doubt; but it could definitely have come at the cost of general resilience for younger generations.

Don’t get me wrong—mental health and wellbeing is important, and I don’t advocate working ourselves to the bone. What I am saying is that being stretched can often be a good thing—a mental muscle, if you will—requiring effort under tension and some miniscule amounts of damage, with rest in order to recover. However, getting into a habit of excuses often gets in the way of that. Set rules as to what excuses you think are tolerable and discuss these with a friend. A recent example for me was something as trivial as meeting essay deadlines at university. When a deadline was approaching and I felt like asking for an extension, I began to really scrutinise the reasons. If poor time management is the cause, the first extension subconsciously makes the deadline seem less strict, meaning you might be poor with time management the next time round. If insufficient sleep the night before going to the gym is the reason you decide to skip leg day, then subconsciously, you start to think your bedtime isn’t as important. These small things add up. As mentioned, however, we are often bad at judging the strength of reasons ourselves.

A shared social ethos

During military training, I quickly learnt that I was not alone. As a group, you might sometimes get punished for the mistakes of someone else; or your peers get punished for yours. This can feel downright unfair (and it sometimes is), but it is often not irrational. In the military, every action of yours has significant repercussions for those around you. If you forget to pack (or charge!) the extra battery pack for the platoon’s radio set, the whole group might lose communication. If you are not strong enough to carry your load, someone else will have to carry more than their fair share. Some of these mistakes could have far more threatening consequences—which in a real combat situation could lead to serious injury or death. Going through these experiences was certainly eye-opening for me because sometimes being selfish was a lot easier—and seeing that occasional selfish streak was a brutal discovery of a trait I disliked in myself, and one that I sought to work on. 

I wonder whether there might be a wider effect on other societies, were a significant proportion of the population to undergo conscription of some kind—would that newfound empathy for the group manifest itself in a social ethos? This might occur, I think, in two broad ways.

Firstly, as highlighted earlier, one’s worldview can easily mature, realising that in a society we all are only one small moving cog, and that our decisions affect others. Being more cognizant of that fact might indeed build some form of social empathy that could benefit us all. Experiences of area cleaning of our barracks for instance, subconsciously made me more aware of appreciating the cleanliness of my own neighbourhood, and not littering or carrying out other antisocial behaviour.

Secondly, conscription might help build a form of common identity. In many parts of the world, the question of what forms a national identity is still up in the air, especially given the remnants of the colonialism that sometimes dominated our histories prior to the 20th century. In any encounter with my male countrymen, our conscripted days are easy conversation starters that allow us to form some innate connection, knowing that we share a similar key memory. More than that, they also signal a form of sacrifice (in terms of the time-cost as well as blood, sweat and tears) for the society we come from—which to me and my peers represents my family, friends and loved ones.

Conscription definitely comes with its costs—within many military circles, issues of hazing and mistreatment of conscripts exist as a byproduct of a strict hierarchical system. There might also be the ethical question of using conscripts in expansionist wars. The time and financial cost to individual citizens (ranging from a few months to years) is also significant. These are issues that I acknowledge and might not have adequately responded to in this article. However, I do think that for the majority of peacetime armies, conscription does accrue significant benefits to local populaces. For me at least, it was a time of significant personal growth and one that brought me closer to peers of all backgrounds.