The unkempt World Rank 38

The 38th-ranking military in the world, the most sacrificing military, the one its neighbours were afraid of, etc. were the words I keep hearing since I got into the military till leaving it for CDM.
It was intimidating if you didn’t know the truth about it. I was proud to be a soldier because of such propaganda. I even thanked them for saving the country from disaster in 1958 and 1962 not knowing they are propaganda.

It was that after getting into the military I found out the reality. My respects for soldiers vanish into thin air. Thanks to the development of social networks, I learnt about the military of other countries and found out that they are better because our military is built on lies of superiors deceiving their followers into thinking that they are doing us a favour. “World rank 38, No.4 in ASEAN”, such numbers would intimidate you but if you know the reality, you would be very suspicious about the actual capabilities. To prove my point, I want to tell you about what happened differently from the abstract numbers.

In 2019, I was in a battalion on the outskirts of Pyin Oo Lwin. Not long after we arrived there, on August 15, TNLA, AA, and MNDA alliance fired short-range artillery at DSTA. Commanders and captains were shocked that they didn’t see this coming.

To be honest, everyone would. This hasn’t happened in Pyin Oo Lwin before that. It was a safe area because there are lots of forces surrounding the cities and no EAO would come and do this because it would be hard to come in and go back easily. That’s what everybody thought.

When the attack happened, our superiors ordered us in bewilderment, “Find out how they come in and went back.” In the CCTV records, the EAO came right in front of our base. We really could trust our guards. They didn’t know anything. They looked at CCTV records and said, “Aww. They passed in front of our gates,” with defeated faces.

As usual from the military, there was no preparation and just blamed each other after everything happened. At last, the regional commander sent multiple letters of instruction to improve security.
They instructed us to put guards in surrounding areas and increase patrols. The forces stationed at Pyin Oo Lwin haven’t touched their guns in a long time. Of all of them, ours was the worst. We were on the outskirts and we were under the army so we didn’t even do drills. So, we didn’t even get a chance to hold guns before that.

They told us to clear our surroundings every day but there were only mountains and forests around us so we had to use most of our forces to patrol. And we had a problem.

There were two thousand troops at our base but we only had over a hundred guns. And most of the guns were rusted or damaged and such. Even if we knew that our enemies were coming, we won’t be able to fight with those.

Not only our weapons but also our soldiers are useless. Most of them went foreign or just having fun after graduating from the academy. They dropped ammo and magazines during their patrols and they didn’t remove the magazine while clearing a loaded gun. It was a mess. One needs to swear to God when they say the military was world-ranked 38.

You would think it was because they were more of technicians but I don’t think they know their respective fields either. Once a year, we had inspections from the higher-ups about the new weapons research. I don’t know what the superiors think but I already know by heart about the weapons they were going to show because they were the same ones from previous years.

This shambles is not just our force but all across the country. Each force is in its own mess. That’s why some soldiers say, “The military is structurally chaotic.”

These are the true stories of what they call a very capable World Ranking 38th military. Thank you for reading.

Aye Chan Min(CDM Sergeant)

Translated by Eddie