The Army is a great teacher. I’m not merely referring to the way the service trains a man to fire weapons or arm landmines, or the way the Army might teach a soldier never to drink Afghan moonshine. (A valuable lesson. Just trust me on that one.) I’m referring to the life lessons the military offers. One enlistment benefit they never put on the recruitment posters is the way the Army offers a soldier a better understanding of himself and his capabilities.
The first skill the Army taught me was an improved ability to remain calm in intense situations. Drill sergeants immediately screaming in my face were very helpful. Furious, tough, experienced soldiers shouted at me, staring death into my eyes while I had to stand at attention and reply only, “Yes, Sergeant!” After that, an angry boss or an irritated parent, mad about my teaching method, didn’t seem that bad. Complain all you want, Karen. You’ve got nothing on Sgt. Rodriguez.
In fact, the Army was the absolute best training for my time teaching high school English. My university’s college of education mostly lectured us teacher trainees about diversity and made us reflect on our feelings. We kept waiting for the part when they actually told us how to do the job. That part never came. But the Army taught me how to be clear and direct about expectations. “You will use complete sentences to answer every question!” My desk rows were the straightest in the school. Remembering standing at attention in neat lines in Army formations, I would order my students, “On your feet! Dress right, dress! Take seats.” Crooked desk lines were perfectly ordered in seconds. Every student deserves a clean, orderly room with clear expectations and procedures. Thanks, Army.
The military taught me how little sleep a man actually needs. Back in high school, I thought I was tired if I went to bed at 10 o’clock. In college, I pulled some all-nighters, writing papers and crashing right after turning them in. But with the Army in Afghanistan, my fellow soldiers and I pulled an overnight guard shift, then worked all day in the blazing desert sun, and then covered the next night’s guard shift, and kept going into the next morning. I was tired to the point of hallucination — momentarily seeing a phantom plate of spaghetti — but still effective. Later, when I was tired while teaching or during long writing hours on deadline, I drew strength by reminding myself that the Army had forced me to realize that exhaustion was a myth.
TRENT REEDY: A REMINDER THAT MILITARY SERVICE IS ALWAYS INTENSE
Despite commercials featuring soldiers running through mud, in combat, or through grueling obstacle courses, I never expected the Army to bless me with a new sense of how hard I could push my body. In the Army, I realized I could do more push-ups and sit-ups than I had previously thought. And I was forced to learn I could run faster and farther than I ever thought I would. I learned to never fall out of a run formation to walk. The lesson was simple. A tough drill sergeant would rush up to anyone slowing down, screaming, “You will run faster, or I will kill you!” That simple concept has helped me tackle long runs again and again. And now my young daughter has enjoyed some success in cross-country simply by sticking to the Army’s one running rule: never fall out.
I enlisted for college money and accepted the war obligation that came with that choice. My recruiter made the benefits and duties clear. But there are so many lifelong benefits to the service that they don’t tell you about. Our company operations sergeant once said to a group of us newly enlisted buck privates, “The service will change you.” I did not know then just how right he was. The Army’s old recruiting slogan, “Be all you can be,” might just as well be, “Be better than you ever thought you could be.”
Trent Reedy, author of several books including Enduring Freedom, served as a combat engineer in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan. *Some names and call signs in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns.