By Abdulillah

* "For this I am sorry, while others in the world prepare their young for the countries defense, we would rather not. Maybe my Sargent was right, maybe his fear was well founded. I guess it will take another humiliation to wake us up. I hope and pray not."

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As a young man in high school, as part of the educational curriculum in Jordan at that time, it was mandatory for graduation that all male students were to undergo a class on military training.

In my particular school (all male), this class was viewed by many of us as a major annoyance and a distraction in the middle of our busy day. We were obliged with many other studies, to attend this class, pass a physical examination and a final exam on what was taught to us in this class. This we all found particularly offensive in the fact that all of us students felt military training was only going to put more pressure on us to study more subjects with an already full load, and wanted nothing to do with what we felt at the time was more burden than we could carry.

The class in my school was taught by a career sergeant of the Jordan Arab Army, who afterwards, I was to find out had been in the army for over 20 years. He was a gruff man from the south of Jordan, spoke colloquial Arabic, and was pretty much all military and insisted we call him “Seedee” or “Sir” in English at all times. He also seemed annoyed by the fact that he had to teach a bunch of do nothing - privileged brats that never worked a hard day in their lives, something that he knew we were not interested in, nor wanted to be a part of, as many of us told him so to his face on many occasions. Yet this man persevered every day to haul himself out of his barracks (I was later to find out that he had to take two buses and a service taxi to get to school) to teach us what he was ordered to do.

Part of this class was learning the military code, ranks, weaponry types and ammunition, and physics of rifle trajectories and rifle marksmanship, etc… Also part of this class was to be able to pass a physical endurance training course, which was almost 50% of our class grade, that entailed a grueling obstacle course and conditioning drills every-day.

Our final exam for this part of the class was to be taken to the nearby army base and made to run the base training course used to train new army recruits. The written exam on the class curriculum followed later.

This part of the class was always hated by us students as it always was done almost at the end of a long day in classes, when all we wanted to do was go home or go hang-out nearby the girls school, of course trying to look out best. This was very hard to do because we invariably were always too sweaty or our clothes dirty from getting soiled during the running of the on campus obstacle course.

This just made us more angry with the entire class and being forced to do this, that we became more intransigent and hostile in class towards this man and the military as whole, and swore openly that we would never join or be part of such an organization.
This class went on for an entire year and although I was angry, I could see the benefits of this class physically on my body, and my ability to hit targets with a weapon from quite a distance, and how I became more familiar with the weaponry and tactics.

However; this did not alter my opinion of how much I really disliked this class and for that matter the teacher, until the time of our final exam, worth 50% of our grade to be held at the nearby army base obstacle course came. We were told if we did not pass, we were required to attend a summer class reporting to the army base each day until such time we passed this portion, and I can tell you frankly, this none of us wanted to do. So each and every weekend for the last three months of the school year I would go to my school and train on our small obstacle course just so I could at least pass this portion of the course.

On the day of the endurance portion of the class test, we piled into a bus and driven to the obstacle course at the nearby army base. As we formed into one line we were told that we must run the course in a certain time and that all obstacles must be crossed with points taken off for time and failing to cross obstacles. The starter gun went off and I along with the others ran. I ran and crossed each and every obstacle coming in second place out of my entire class and was extremely happy with what I believed at the time to be a high achievement, as inwardly I congratulated myself and as my friends who also passed did the same.

As I sat tired and satisfied with what I had done, my Sargent and teacher sat beside me and smiled, almost a fatherly smile, he then bent over and whispered in my ear. You did well, but always remember you could have done better and that “second place was the first loser”. I was immediately dejected and angry at him for not seeing my achievement and how hard I tried, and just wanted to get away from him, however he continued. He related to me that this was probably going to be his last year in the military service after 20 years in the defense of his country. He told me about his fear that the country in a few years was not going to have a national force of willing and educated recruits who were ready or willing to stand and fight when called upon. Or that in the next war that because we did not have an educated strong military, we were again going to suffer a humiliating defeat.

As tears welled in his eyes he related to me his feelings of regret and humiliation he felt after the 1967 war and of the losses to many of his brothers, friends and countrymen. He told me that although at first he hated the fact that he was assigned to training and teaching us privileged, unappreciative bunch, he knew this was the only way he could do his part in making sure this humiliation never occur in the future. That as far as he was concerned, we were going to be prepared this time, or at least he hoped that he could rest knowing he did his part. I knew than that what he said to me earlier was his way of telling me I could always do better for myself and my country, and never to accept second place as a victory or an end.

Today; we neither have military training for high-school students or a required conscription for military service. Our young men today are left to wander the streets and malls after school, smoking and hitting on girls and creating mischief. The military and country service is so far removed from their brains that the only concern they have is who is going to give me a job so I can make money and get married.

The parents are at fault here as well, because many feel that only the uneducated or poor should be the ones that need to consider military service, not their privileged kids that they spend lots of money educating. They even resist the type of in school training that we were forced to do earlier. I guess they feel that for their sons and girls, this would be too much of a distraction from their more worthwhile studies.

For this I am sorry, while others in the world prepare their young for the countries defense, we would rather not. Maybe my Sargent was right, maybe his fear was well founded. I guess it will take another humiliation to wake us up. I hope and pray not.
As a minimum maybe we can support our military servicemen, not by looking down on them, but appreciating that they have chosen a career in the defense of our homeland; that we provide them with the best equipment and training, and hopefully as a minimum, train our own children in school the basics of military tactics and physical training. Maybe it will keep them out of trouble and mischief.

God Bless Jordan and it People