The Walk Out

I’m not sure how to boil down 10 years of military service. People usually ask me - how was the Army? Formulating an answer was like skipping through a movie to find the best parts, the ones that hold truth and meaning to me while also being informative and entertaining.

While the scenes I like play through in my mind, I skip past the hours of doing sentry, or waiting for trucks to pick us up. The part where I shat my running shorts half way through an 18 Kilometer run. The part where I’m lying in my sleeping bag smoking a cigarette, looking up at the Milky Way. The part where I cried in a hotel room in Amsterdam for 3 hours. The part where I got an STD and tried to kill it with Malaria pills. After all, people who ask a vague question like that want a pleasant, interesting and compelling distillation. Like a craft beer. They don’t want my whole life story, they want 10 years boiled down into one paragraph. That paragraph needs to be right, because I’m telling myself that story as well.

The parts that resonate the most with me don’t always make sense to the kind of person who asks that question. The parts that will impress or inspire someone else are often the subtleties that no longer hold any clout with me. The parts that do, aren’t ones the ones that I even want to talk about. I certainly don’t want to engage in a story that attracts pity or causes any emotional reactions, I just wanted to get it right. An apt description.

It’s not as intangible to me now as it once was - the concept of ‘how it all was’ retrospectively. We go through everything for a reason.

I came to the conclusion that my military service, to me, was about learning and experiencing what it’s like to be a soldier. The skills, the lifestyle, the friends and good stories. Simple and elegant.

The life you’re going to go have after the military needs to have a reason as well. Without a reason, a perpetual mission, life is almost meaningless.

I want to write about getting out of the military because there’s no handbook on it. I’d read a few articles written by veterans which made sense and it certainly helped me avoid a few obstacles and navigate in the direction of happiness. I felt like it might be the sheer momentum gained from leaving that anyone out there didn’t have the time to sit down and write about it. Like it was purely a ‘find your own path’ type of thing, or the ultimate in naivety - there’s nothing different about being out.

I come from the generation of soldiers that are the in-betweeners for everything. The kids born in the 80’s. We had the last of the classic screaming and punching section commanders and seargents. We were the last basic training to be issued Vietnam era steel helmets. The last generation where you could be called a faggot in front of your parents at your march out ceremony. The last generation to have to stand and face a Military Policeman with your pants around your ankles while they watch you pull back your foreskin and piss into a cup for your 3am surprise drug test. Not to degrade anyone’s experience but you simply don’t see any of the ridiculous shit that we did if you joined in the 2010’s. Alas, every generation bears it’s own burdens.

It’s the primal drive for leaving in the first place - escape from the insane asylum. But is that what I want to call the military? Brand thousands of people and 10 years of my existence? Of course not. I wouldn’t have stayed that long if I didn’t enjoy it, and I got to witness and be part of the Army transitioning into a cutting edge military and adopt massive human and technological advancement. I left because I wanted to experience things the Army could not facilitate. I wanted to start again with the skills and confidence I had acquired.

The mission statement you write for yourself when you’re getting out needs to be a long term vision, not an end state. You need to think about what’s going to make YOU happy.

The military issues you a lot of equipment that you’re going to have to give back. The uniform, the pack, the body armour, and the ego. That ego that your wear on your face and in your heart - that ego is for soldiers, not civilians. You may argue that and say that the military pride, strength, spirit and moral compass is part of who you are, but you don’t need to be a soldier to have those things.

What I’m talking about is using your ego as a shield. We’re taught to conceal our weaknesses from those who would harm us. The soldiers ego is to keep you strong and resilient and stoic in battle. It’s to create a soldier who is proud alert obedient and form the basis of teamwork… all that. When you get out, you are not on a battlefield. You are not out to fight and kill anyone. You are not going to be surrounded by people who understand or give a shit about any of that. That mentality needs to stop because it’s going to alienate you. It’s going to keep all of your pain bottled up inside. It’s going to destroy you… like it nearly destroyed me.

You won’t move towards your future if you’re chained to your past. The things like your ability to teach others, work hard, be meticulous, be professional and presentable are some the character traits that you’re going to bring out with you that people want to be influenced by.

If your only trade skills are: being good at Infantry Warfare, you need to throw yourself directly into training. You’re back to competing with 17 year olds again, so it’s time to swallow that pride and get some Unit Standards under your belt.

It’s not all doom and gloom. It’s exhilarating. There’s nothing like telling a boss to get fucked when they deserve it. You don’t have to take shit from some punk bitch baby officer who doesn’t know arsehole from breakfast, or some crusty warrant officer that doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together and make a third. There’s certainly no prison time for speaking your mind anymore either.

If you’re a soldier and you haven’t heard of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, that’s because the New Zealand Defence Force is the only organisation that has exemption from it, being that the military has its own safety and discipline regulations. This is your new prime reference, all laid out clear and simple. Learn what you’re entitled to and what the rules are, otherwise you could go into your next job and be taken advantage of. The terrible employers dream is a person with just enough intelligence to work the machines and do the paperwork for a minimum wage who won’t complain or question anything. You’re not on a salary anymore, and you’re not going to get a pay rise unless you ask. You need to say no if you’re being put at risk, doing stupid things that will get you hurt or killed because there is no glory in it.

It just takes a little bit of time and a lot of adjusting. I’m happier than I’ve ever been now, but I was suicidal at my lowest points. I realised I didn’t have a mission. I was in a very very bad relationship and I didn’t know who I was anymore. I decided that I want to live and that in order to live I needed to acknowledge my fears, confront them, set a new bearing, and march towards it.

My mission for the last year now has been helping people find out who they are and where their path to happiness lies, since I’ve found mine.

The walk out isn’t easy. Thankfully, I learnt how to walk with the best.