THE PRICE OF SHORTCUTS: WHY MILITARY TRADITION IS NOT A LUXURY The commissioning ceremony of the Quartermaster (Q) Officer Cadets at the Military Training Establishment of Zambia (MILTEZ) in Kabwe should have been a day of unqualified national pride. Instead, it has left a bitter taste in the mouths of those who understand the sacred […]

THE PRICE OF SHORTCUTS: WHY MILITARY TRADITION IS NOT A LUXURY

The commissioning ceremony of the Quartermaster (Q) Officer Cadets at the Military Training Establishment of Zambia (MILTEZ) in Kabwe should have been a day of unqualified national pride.

Instead, it has left a bitter taste in the mouths of those who understand the sacred traditions of the Zambia Army. Reports emerging from the Reid Hall ceremony indicate that our newest officers were graduated in an indoor, church-like fashion a glaring departure from the time-honoured outdoor pass-out parade that defines military prestige.

To the untrained civilian eye, a change of venue might seem trivial. An air-conditioned hall or a sheltered roof can look like a modern convenience.

But to a soldier, and particularly to the seasoned former Warrant Officers who earned their commissions yesterday, the outdoor parade is everything. It is a rite of passage. It is the moment they march under the open sky, before their peers and their families, to receive the ultimate honour: the President’s Commission.

To compress this lifelong milestone into a quick indoor routine, seemingly as a shortcut, does a profound disservice to the men and women who form the logistical backbone of our defence forces.

Commanding professionalism, as Lieutenant General Geoffrey Choongo Zyeele rightly demanded in his address, is a two-way street. A command cannot expect self-calibrating, problem-solving officers if the command itself chooses the path of least resistance in executing the military’s most sacred rituals.

Tradition is the glue that holds discipline together. When you erode tradition, you erode morale. When morale falls among the Quartermaster commissioned officers the men and women who move, feed, equip and sustain every soldier in the field the structural integrity of the entire army is compromised

A defence force also relies on candid advice travelling upward as reliably as orders travel downward. That is what hierarchy is for. Where senior staff are not heard, or do not speak, decisions drift away from the rank and file and no commander is well served by that..

If there was a sound operational reason for holding this ceremony indoors, let it be stated plainly, and let this criticism be withdrawn just as plainly. What must not happen is for a shortcut to pass unremarked and quietly become the standard.

Mr Hakainde Hichilema, as Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Force, must take note. True military loyalty is built on mutual respect and unwavering adherence to the standards of the uniform.

Two things are open to him, and neither is difficult..

He can issue a formal defence circular instructing all services to adhere strictly to standard military protocols and ceremonial traditions, so that shortcuts do not become the norm.

And he can ask, through the Minister of Defence, for an account of the logistical and operational reasons behind the indoor ceremony at MILTEZ establishing whether the deviation was justified or was a lapse.

A direct Commander-in-Chief commendation to this graduating class would cost the Treasury nothing and would restore a great deal.

Shortcuts in protocol eventually lead to shortcomings in the field. For the sake of our national security and the pride of our men and women in uniform, the Zambia Army must return to the high, uncompromising standards of its founding traditions.

The boots must remain on the parade square, where they belong.

Fred M’membe
SP President