A few weeks ago, I gave a talk at a conference of other Fulbright Scholars and Teachers on my experience at the military school in Moravská Třebová. What follows is a distillation of that talk and a draft of a post that Fulbright has asked I write for their own blog. I wanted to share it with you all to give you a sense of what I’ve learned here, but also to ask for help. If you would like to share your thoughts or suggestions on how I might improve this piece, and make it more broadly appealing to those who read Fulbright’s blog, please comment below. I really value your feedback and your continued readership. Ramble on!
There is a certain kind of person who goes away to Europe in order to “find himself” He asks such navel-gazing questions as “what do I want from this life?” Or, “how can I become the best version of myself?” His post-graduate fellowship or Fulbright experience are thus playgrounds of ideas and identity where he can experiment with “saying yes.” To be sure, there is nothing particularly wrong with this kind of self-exploration; finding one’s self can be a meaningful, even vital, undertaking. However, in trying to answer the questions we ask ourselves can often drown out deeper, more profound questions which life asks of us. In order to answer this call, we have to set aside our personal trifles and attend to things like community and collective duty, a lesson I have learned over and over while teaching at the Military High School of the Ministry of Defense (Vojenská střední škola Ministerstva Obrany).
In truth, I was very much the self-exploring type when I arrived in the Czech Republic. A bit lost and looking for direction with only Bachelors in Literature for a map, I was hoping Fulbright might lead the way, or at least make me more appealing to potential graduate schools. If you asked this younger version of me for reasons why he might simply deflect and ask “why not?” My reasons were personal and self-serving and I was so committed to this radical individualism that it came as a shock when I was informed that I would be placed in the country’s only military school. You see, I am not much of a leader and, unfortunately, I’m a pretty bad follower too. Loner is more accurate. When I was named captain of my college cross-country team, I flinched at the thought of lending advice or conducting practice. Similarly, when I got news of my placement I began to worry that maybe I wasn’t cut out for Fulbright after all.
Yet, as I learned leading my team on the cross country course, it is more often than not that we are called to be an example for others not by our own volition and then measured by how we answer the call. Leadership chooses us, not the other way around. In fact, I have always been wary of the kind of leader who professes such self-certainty (recall a certain presidential candidate claiming “I alone can fix it.”) These lessons in leadership and service are what I will take away from my time here because they are lived out on a daily basis by the inspiring young men and women I get to teach at the Military High School. They have taught me that a life of mere self-exploration can often be shallow and that it is the commitment to something larger than ourselves that strengthens and transforms us into people we didn’t know we could be.
The Meaning(s) of Service
When I talk to my students about the public’s perception of the military service I am shocked to hear that many still harbor some degree of resentment towards soldiers, a vestigial attitude left over from the communist regime. Many of an older generation see soldiers as unthinking apparatchiks who get into the service for the bureaucratic advantages. In contrast, my students list commitment, sacrifice, family support, and, yes, action as their reasons for signing up.
The evidence that attitudes are changing is apparent in how my students talk, but does it extend beyond the school’s walls? From what I can tell, it does. If NATO has been a force for good it is because it has allowed smaller powers to step up and prove themselves on a world stage, giving them license to shrug off the legacy of communism and rebuff the looming threat of Russia. NATO relied heavily on the Czech forces in Afghanistan and is again considering its strategic importance with regard to the war in Ukraine. So, when one of my fourth-year students came to me speaking of intentions to join the foreign legions in the war against Russia, I knew for certain he was serious.
Now, this was all a lot for me to take in. Indeed, consider for a moment the prospect of your students risking their lives in the name of some romantic higher ideals. There is still a part of me that wants to yell at them “live your own life, while you still can!” But, as I have said, it is through serving in a collective spirit that one truly comes to appreciate what it means to be an individual. Freedom and the personal liberty to live however you choose are not the same things. In many ways, unchecked liberty can actually limit our freedom. Consider Štepan, a fourth-year in platoon C4B. He told me, “the people you are growing with…they extract the best out of you.” Štepan believes that the real power of military service is that your peers “are trying to make you the best person you can be.” You might discount this individual testimony as the clear-eyed idealism of one pre-selected teenager, but I am not exaggerating when I say that his attitude is the norm among my students.
To be sure, there are many practical reasons that my students also include, such as job security and material support for themselves and their families. However, one thing you do not hear about is the desire to blow things up or wage war on enemies. My students are keen on history, mechanics, and psychology, and maybe listen to too much heavy metal for my liking. But they have upended all of my preconceived ideas of the soldier as warrior, as aggressive and violent. Instead of taking the easy way out, as many assumed about the communist soldiers of regimes past, my students see service as a worthy challenge they undertake as a way of becoming stronger. Josef, one of my first-year students, said he was looking for a “bigger challenge” and that when his parents told him the school was “one of the most difficult…in the country” he decided to sign up.
Notably, there is much they do not expect upon signing up, and more they could have no way of knowing before arriving. Without the foreknowledge of military life, my students cannot reason that this is the kind of person they are or want to be. What they are doing instead, it is my claim, is responding to this call to sacrifice some of their personal preferences for the opportunity to grow along with other like-minded young men and women. Taking this leap is not easy and indeed many often complain about the 5:30 AM reveille or the endless hours of marching, but when ask why they don’t quit or give up, it is taken as a given that they are stronger because of what they have endured.
Similarly, there were times when I considered walking away from it all. First covid and then the war in Ukraine; I had to remind myself that I had responsibilities to people other than myself in order to stick it out. I still feel a bit like the odd one out in this environment and have no intentions of changing my path toward military service, but I have come to realize the importance of sharing a commitment to a cause. Not since college athletics have I been gripped by such a spirit of camaraderie. For this and so many other reasons, I am thankful to have answered Fulbright’s call.