It was the winter of 1967, in south-west Africa.
We were at a military school in wartime. New recruits arrived that day, fresh off the enlistment process.
The clarion cut through the dim light of the morning.
Little by little, the barracks woke up, activity replacing the stillness of the night. Other chimes determined the routine of a new day. The raising of the flag, the raising of the barracks, and one more chime to signal the beginning of work.
Six hundred men passed through the main gate. From the luggage they were carrying, you could tell a little about their origins.
There were men from the countryside, with their bundles or bags hanging down, walking awkwardly. There were those from the city, with suitcases in their hands. These showed less balance, as they were used to walking on shoes. There were also the clever, ungainly scoundrels, with all their swagger. Among all those men, from a distance you could notice the odd wealthy child, with well-trimmed hair and designer clothes, encumbered with a second suitcase, with an expression of fear and suspicion.
There we had everything a society could offer.
Rich and poor, fat and thin, believers and unbelievers, hard workers and vagabonds. All they had in common was their age and, deep down, a mixed feeling of anguish and fear, stemming from the certainty of the risks they would be taking. No motivation, no will, only conformity.
Already lined up, they are then taken to the barracks, where they leave their belongings. Then they receive their uniforms, which are given out with little concern for size or comfort. In fact, comfort is the first noun to be discarded as they enter the barracks.
We would train soldiers out of those imperfect men and their vices, procrastinations, and insecurities. With those men, we would fight in the war that we had been fighting since 1961.
Often, after an exhausting day, I would lie down and think. How nice it would be if I could specifically pick, among all those men, the ones who would make up my combat squad.
Criteria for picking them? That would be easy. Firstly, those who learnt to cut cheese into thin slices, always on the same side, those who got up early, made their beds, hung up their clothes, went to school on time, and soaked in every word spoken by their teachers.
Those who knew the names of all their friends, their parents, and their friends’ friends.
Next, those who, despite their wealth, worked, delivered, and displayed humility. They would learn from the gardener and have lunch with the chauffeur’s son.
Or those who picked up paper in the streets in winter and carried stones to help their neighbour build their house. Those who had calluses in their souls from experiencing plenty of failure and persistence.
Then I would wake up from all this dreaming of paradise, almost always jolted awake by the sound of the clarion call, which insisted on not letting itself be put to silence.
This time, night exercises beckoned. There I was, with unfinished thoughts, sending home vandals and vagabonds, the irresponsible and the arrogant, the squanderers and the addicted.
This is how it was.
I put my uniform back on and headed for the parade ground. Six hundred men in their positions, sergeants and officers making the final line-ups. The orders gradually disappeared. Everyone was still, everyone was silent. We could hear the moaning of an icy winter wind and, underneath it, the children. The Children of the Wind.
We cannot choose, we cannot give up. We must win the war with those people, who would be transformed into noble warriors in the 180 days that would follow. That was the mission.
The next day
Five o’clock in the morning, the sharp sound of the clarion rips through the silence with the chime of dawn. In the barracks, the hustle and bustle of another day’s activity gradually begins. The recruits get up, still confused about what to do, exchanging ideas with the more farsighted peers who previously sought information from those who had already been there. They rush to the showers, where they hesitate between having a cold shower or just washing their faces and shaving. Then they make their beds and tidy up the cupboards as they see fit.
Still not understanding what has happened in their lives, they leave the barracks for the first of many graduations, which would happen several times over the next four years. They meet the officers and sergeants, their instructors and monitors, all of them impeccably uniformed, with well-trimmed hair and beards and clean uniforms, in a posture that emanates energy. With short, clear orders, they organise the platoons in three rows, side by side, from shortest to tallest. This is followed by the roll call. By now, everyone knows that, in the army, soldiers have numbers—only sergeants and officers are known by name. The officer says his name and the names of the sergeants, asks if anyone knows why they are there and what is expected of them. He chooses someone to answer—usually the one who seems the shyest. No demonstrations of any kind are allowed. Here they begin to be trained in discipline and respect. The officer, in a vigorous tone, explains that winning the war is their purpose and they will learn to achieve this without casualties. He goes on to say that only those who make mistakes die, and that they will be trained not to make mistakes. He then says that the demanded standards will be high before, during, and after entry into combat.
This is followed by an inspection in which all the mistakes are emphasised, in terms of posture, hygiene, and uniform. No-one explains how to shave, tidy up the bed or the wardrobe, let alone how to polish the boots. One simply states what must be done and sets the threshold of excellence.
This is where the school of feeling begins: no-one explains why things are the way they are, because they do not know it themselves. Everyone ends up finding that it works, and that is enough.
School of war
In an organisation based on honour, one leads by example. No instructor or supervisor will order any exercise or task that they are unable to exemplify, no matter how much effort it takes. Everyone is constantly reminded that no order shall be questioned, regardless of their correctness. Failure to comply guarantees punishment, which is equal for all. What about everyone’s creativity and imagination? They are used to solve the problems that will arise, to perform each of the unexplained tasks. For example: the beds must be tidy, stretched out without wrinkles, the boots must be shiny. There are many ways to achieve this, and the less experienced will exchange ideas with each other, adapting these ideas to their own ways of doing things. And so the team spirit is gradually strengthened.
Each trainee’s creativity and imagination are used to develop all the virtues and skills needed for any mission: discipline, focus, resolve, resilience, courage, among others. The details of the mission—as well the plan, the strategy or the tactics to carry it out—require automatic execution, with no mistakes or questioning, with those virtues and skills, the lack of which leads to shame.
It is not up to the protagonists of a war to discuss how to manufacture a weapon. They are supposed to use it as they have been trained to do. It is not up to a soldier to discuss strategy or tactics. They are supposed to execute them in a disciplined manner. This makes it very clear that getting it done is more important than knowledge.
The structure of any warrior, or any victorious life, requires attitudes resulting from behavioural habits suited to performing purpose-driven tasks.
These attitudes arise from the commitment to constant training, in order to achieve high levels of trust, resolve, overcoming, discipline, persistence, courage. Training methods use action, focus and imagination in order to convert everything that is necessary to fulfil the purpose, in the manner of habits and routines.
The process of training someone for war aims to provide physical and emotional stability in extreme conditions, ensuring the appropriate response to each case.
The art of building the impossible
A trained warrior can be recognised by the set of attitudes he displays. These attitudes reflect the habits of behaviour that are appropriate to the purpose that guides this warrior.
In order to achieve results in a very short time, one needs:
- A quick breakout from the comfort zone.
- An unequivocal acceptance of the institution’s codes, respect for hierarchy and leadership, regardless of value judgements.
- Leadership by example, which creates a bond with each of the instructors, turning them into people who inspire trust.
- Work that is consistent, intense, gradual, but quick, beginning with simple actions that cannot be put off, such as organising the spaces where one lives and works. This strengthens the mind and creates habits.
- Physical conditioning that gradually increases the thresholds of overcoming, whenever one finds themselves in the most difficult and stressful environments.
A school of war is a true school of emotional intelligence, where one learns:
The art of constructing the impossible by “doing” whatever is necessary through conditioned responses (triggers). The orders are clear and the actions are triggered, by loudly spoken syllables, or a high-pitched note of the clarion.
When a threat arises, the reaction is to confront it, to go for it, there is no room for retreat or inertia. Any possibility other than taking action is eliminated.
Whatever is started has to be concluded, at all costs. The reward is not in the salary, but in the thrill of breaking through seemingly impossible obstacles. The pride of feeling like a superman.
Due to their unusual and unexpected nature, each of the practices teaches one to shift focus, forces one to live with focus on the present, and bolsters attentive listening.
There is no room for thoughts based on past experiences and limiting beliefs.
In just a few days, arrogance turns into humility, silencing the need to be right and making it the foundation of all virtues.
The certainty of a positive outcome is consolidated by developing and keeping a confident but humble attitude, as well as physical aptitude for high performance, to be trained in environments worse than combat ones, and with sufficient intensity to reach states of “flow”.
The development of kinaesthetic capacity and acuity of the senses, when trained in tactical situations, turns uncertainty into known scenarios.
By using surprise in a wide variety of situations, it is possible to trigger emotions and, based on them, to train the shifting of focus towards solutions that lead to the results that matter. This activates the thalamus, it bolsters attention and motivation, giving pleasure and strengthening confidence.
The pride afforded by being capable educates the inner voice. Everyone works continuously and creatively on their own, improving strategies to reduce the efforts of each task.
Continuous improvement is supported by repeating the actions necessary to achieve the tactical objectives, until they become habits, as well as reviewing events, mistakes and successes. This also ensures that enough energy is conserved for situations that demand high performance.
Confidence arises from the unmistakable perception of the quality of the obtained results.
Ninety days later
That day marked the end of the first phase of training for yet another battalion of warriors.
Once again, the clarion made its sound and, as if by magic, the barracks began to dispense dozens of men. There was more than the usual commotion; you could feel an atmosphere in the air that foretold a great event.
There was a breeze in the air that carried the scent of confidence. The jumpy soldiers wanted to demonstrate the skills they had acquired in a mere three months of training. Their heads upright, their chests thrust out, with firm steps and voices, symbolic of the pride that they felt, a manifestation of the superman that was born in each of them. They were headed for graduation.
This time, fathers and mothers, wives and girlfriends, relatives and friends passed through the gates—a mixture of emotional people, alternating between fear and pride, feelings stemming from the uncertainty of the outcome of that war. They were connected to a potential hero and harboured the hope that their loved one could and would survive.
The warriors laid in wait, in their positions. Now they had experience in knowing how to get it done. Guided by a code of honour and purpose, they found the reason to fight.
They have new stories for their lives, they believe in them and they invest in them. They get better every day, in a campaign against weakness, temptation, and laziness. They know how to exchange immediate and ephemeral pleasures for meaningful ones in the future.
They are committed to action, guided by ethics and values. They keep their word and feel ashamed if they fail to do so. They know how to live with the discomfort and pain of change, but they refuse to suffer.
They know no limits. When they are exhausted, weak, sad, or afraid, they overcome themselves, and if they need to rest, they put it off until the next day. They compete against themselves.
They built discipline from small actions. They developed habits, and so the difficult things turned into easy things. They learnt to control their lives by controlling their focus.
They are capable of finding within themselves the answers they need to create a positive state of mind, which feeds the “inner voice” and saves life.
They know how to achieve the impossible by breaking it down into small steps; they know how to change feelings by changing the way they see the situation; they know how to turn challenges into games. And they play to win.
I looked at them from afar, comparing the image of that moment with the one from three months earlier. It was as if a miracle had been performed—the transformation was such that the recruits were unrecognisable.