Urgent!
Life Lessons from the Army
(That You Didn’t Know You’d Keep Using)
I spent most of my working life in the armed forces as a regular.
I lived through the era before computers and the internet. When work was done on heavy, noisy typewriters. When information was kept on index cards, the kind you used to see in drawers at the National Library. Nothing was instant. Everything took effort.
I was also an instructor for the first batch of recruits in Tekong.
One of my most satisfying memories did not come from an exercise or a parade. It came from a mother who thanked me for taking good care of her son. That stayed with me longer than any rank or appointment.
The army teaches many lessons, but one of the most enduring is this.
In the army, everything is urgent.
Urgent means the sergeant will say, “Don’t take your own bloody sweet time.”
Urgent means soldiers don’t walk. They run.
They don’t chew their food. They swallow.
Do it now.
Do it fast.
That habit never left me.
I like to get work done as soon as possible. Finish it within twenty four hours if I can. Clear the in tray by the end of the day. Speed became part of how I operate, not because I rush, but because unfinished work weighs on the mind.
Today, technology and AI make this way of working possible in ways we could never imagine back then. But the habit did not come from technology.
It came from the army.
And once it’s ingrained, it stays with you for life.
The army did not teach me to be fast because the world was impatient.
It taught me to be decisive because time and attention are limited.
Years have passed. The uniform is gone. The systems have changed.
But the lessons remain.
So I’m curious.
What are the life lessons you learned from the armed forces that still ring true for you today?
