a reconstruction

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the
flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof
falleth away.

       "Until you earn your berets, all of you are shit," the man boomed. To set the tone, it is called. His voice, those words, have been echoing in our heads ever since.


       "But it is just a hat," is what I would say, and have been saying. It is just a hat. The others say they know that, but I do not think they do. They still worship it. From the way they endearingly tend to their berets, don them, adjust them while looking intensely into the mirror, it is so obvious. It is (literally) their rose-tinted ideal. They choose to materialize their dreams and what nationalistic pride they can muster by pinning them onto that lump of red cloth like a golden button. Or is it a trophy, a symbol of their triumph. Over what? it is hard to say.

I say it really is wearable ego. They like glorifying it because they can glorify themselves too. Our berets are empty hats, not to be filled with bloodsweat, nor aspirations, but the largeness of our own heads. Their heads.

Maybe when the novelty wears off, they will understand.


       It was during one of the nights of our first eight days outfield. Tekong, it was. There was a confidence walk, one hundred meters through the night jungle, alone. It probably sounds a lot worse than you think. For starters, the night sky there never went pitch black; there was moon, if not Singapore's light pollution; the vegetation was far from thick, with the occasional cylume stick hanging off some branch to idiot-proof the route. Staff Sergeant Chay, if I remember correctly, did the dispatching of individuals for my group. When it came to my turn, he put his hand on my shoulder to hold me back. "So, before you go, tell me: Why do you deserve to be a commando?"

I paused. I would have rather not answered him. It was a stupid question. I would have attacked his assumptions right away and started a debate had he not been a higher authority. But that question demanded verbal slapping anyhow. I chose to be honest, and to deliver my response as bluntly as possible. The military always preferred statements over questions.

"Staff, I did not choose to be here. I was chosen to be here."

For a moment he was hesitant too. "What?" he asked, nearly choked by his surprise.

"I did not choose to be here," I forced back in an attempt to speak up. "I was chosen to be here."

After that he was no longer sure how to react. With his left hand, he then pointed the bearing I was to take while tapping my shoulder twice with his right. "Okay, go," he started again. I looked back at him once more, then began my journey into the darkness.


       We spent many hours walking. Most of the time, it was either up- or downhill. We tend to only remember the ascents. My then detachment commander's choice verb for our upward movement was "fight". "We have to fight up the slope again," he would say. But it was not just the hills. We had to fight against the weight of our own packs pulling us down, fight the currents of the same river three times, fight the fatigue, fight the heat, fight in the sogginess of our boots as well. Afterwhich we all emerged from the forests as heroes — mud on our faces; uniforms torn; skin beaded with insect bites; footrot. It was nothing like a real war, though, as much as we would like to think it.

There was only one real battle, and that was in our heads. None of us wanted to be there. The conditions were too unfavourable: the sun too hot, the jungle too dense, the hills to steep, the insects too strange, the nights too dark. The rumours too frightening. If you can remember what it felt like when your mother made you do chores — that sticky, heavy, guttural choking in the chest — that is what our fight felt like. We went against our true will. And as such we constantly flitted through moments of self defeat and denial. In our minds we fought an inner war of wills — to concede and suffer, or to fight back, and probably suffer more. The outcome was obvious. We are cowards fighting a lonesome war against the self.


       "It goes against our instincts," the instructor began.

"It is not natural for a man step out of a plane a thousand feet in the air. That's why it is very normal to feel uncomfortable."

So they know what this feels like too.