A Military Metamorphosis

A metamorphosis from student to soldier

Text: Kristine Lyckander

You were 18 years old when you went to the military selection session. You were sceptical at first. One year in the army to prepare for a potential future war? You surely had other options than that. You enter the doors excited to leave again when you see the first screen. A bunch of teenagers in camouflage military uniforms standing side by side, smiling towards you. You see another screen covered with bold letters stating the military’s core values: Human dignity. Freedom. Democracy.

Perhaps you were too quick to judge? You were also taught to uphold these principles. You enter the interview, confused by your own thoughts. You hear yourself saying “I want to go to university”, and the interviewee responding, “you can study after one year of compulsory military service”. You are assigned to serve one year in the navy, starting after you graduate highschool, at the end of the summer break.  

You wake up at 05.30, make your bed without a wrinkle, polish your shoes, fix your hair. You go outside, find a spot in the line-up and look around. You see identical copies of yourself staring straight ahead. No. There is one person who did not shave their beard properly. A commander, only differentiated from the rest by a distinct insigna symbol on his uniform - a thick, red line beneath the “Navy” symbol we all wore, orders you to hold a plank until the person fixes his beard. There. Now he is identical too. Your individualistic values are slowly fading away, replaced with a collectivist mentality. Here you are no individual, no better or worse than the person beside you. A small voice inside your head asks “was collective punishment necessary to achieve obedience?” as the commander stops at your position, stating that your shoelaces are untied. He orders everyone to hold the plank and you fix it in an instant, your terrified heartbeats silencing the small voice in your head. You have no time to consider how a thick, red line sewed on a uniform can assign power to one individual over all the rest. You follow orders.

You have been here for six months now. You have learnt to cope with everyday tasks, and with the punishments given for failing them. You work harder each day to avoid the anxiety you get from failing and from disappointing others. Meanwhile, you have made great friends and you have become stronger than you ever imagined to be. You have free food on your plate everyday. You are more secure in yourself and you have found strength to believe in yourself. Even a military base can become a home.

You have become incredibly precise in shooting practices, finally achieving recognition from the commander who told you to fix your shoelaces on the first day. The compliments make you feel a way you have never felt. You are seen for your strengths by a person whose job it is to punish you for your weaknesses. You want to chase that feeling and you train harder than you ever have. A small voice in your head says “wasn’t this the guy with a different insigna on his uniform who humiliated you for your untied shoelaces and punished the others for your mistake?” You ignore it. You no longer question his power to correct you. You question how you can metamorphose into his position next. How good must it feel to be the one giving orders instead of the one being ordered?

You finish your one year service, but are offered another year due to your exemplary progress. You have figured it out now. The more loyal you are, the higher you can rise. The higher you can rise, the more power you have. You walk around the new students, freshly born soldiers, and see them looking nervously towards you and the red line assigning superiority placed comfortably on your chest. You smile. Finally, it is your turn to teach them unquestioned discipline and hierarchical respect through collective punishment. The cost is high for human dignity and freedom.

You have spent 8 years in the military. The day you have trained for is finally here. War has come. You stand with your weapon, your closest friend in battle, your tool for survival, whose only purpose is to kill. Suddenly, you see a foreign soldier ahead of you, scoping for a hiding place. You lift your gun, pointed precisely at her heart, ready to fire the shot you have been complimented for time and time again in practice sessions. 

But the soldier turns around and sees you. Your limbs become numb. A young soldier, looking no older than 18, stares into your eyes, terrified of what's to follow. In her expression, you see the reflection of your own face when you were 18, insecure and afraid of what you were becoming a part of: a state turning teenagers into weapons to maintain their own wealth and secure position in a society where war has become another way to make money. Where the weapon you hold, which has been made to kill another human like yourself, was created so that someone could profit from selling that weapon. Now you stand here, prepared to kill a young soldier, from a country you have no relationship to, whose individuality is stripped, whose friends, family and identity is invisible to your own eyes. You look down at yourself, your uniform, your insigna, your weapon, and you hear a small voice you haven’t heard in a long time, say “perhaps you are the inhumanity you have been told to save the world from?”

Two shots. You fire two shots in the teenager’s heart, forever silencing the soldier and that small voice in your head. You would rather be tributed as a hero than accept that the life you chose is built on institutional values slowly turning teenagers into loyal, unquestioning soldiers no matter the harm it can cause.