Being a Boy in JLRRA
HOW TO SUCCEED AT BEING A FAILURE
I learned so many serious, important life-lessons when I was a Junior Leader at ages 16–17. Things that stood me in good stead all my life.
In a previous blog concerning ‘Small-Arms-Training’ I mentioned a few:
- The value of ‘total-immersion’ as a means of imparting important stuff. There was no other way I was going to become competent at ‘skill-at-arms’, or learn small-arms safety.
- 1970’s boys clothing fashions were completely dreadful.
- There were any amount of thieving-bastards out there, only-too-ready to rip me off.
- Regardless of my own views or opinions, there is always going to be a much more important set of values that I need to learn to understand and defend.
I guess that last one is probably the most important one on that list. It is important to me. It means that I can look at other people’s views and not just disregard them. I can give them some consideration. I just wish some other people would learn to do the same thing.
The other seriously important thing I learned in Junior Leaders was how to cope with failure.
Let’s just think about that for a minute.
Junior Leaders was all about success. It was a training programme to develop us youngsters to become a cadre of professional NCOs for the army.
There were great rewards for those kids who managed it with ease. They got promotion and privileges. They got to ‘Lord-it’ over the rest of us. And, being kids, didn’t they love it.

Us kids who didn’t manage it with ease learned a different set of skills. Skills that the successful kids would never learn.
- Showing fear will only make it worse.
- Suppress your natural eccentricity. Always appear to be mainstream. (Building-up-problems-for-the-future alert.)
- If you show any sympathy to someone who is suffering, you will also suffer. Learn to be distant and aloof. (Becoming a Complete-Bastard alert)
- Don’t be afraid of failure. Embrace it. Learn how to deal with it.
For those of us in JLRRA with ‘other-strengths’, failure was an almost daily companion. Speaking for myself, I probably failed at something-or-other on a daily basis. I struggled. I struggled with it all.
- Drill and turnout
- Typing
- Bulling me boots
- Team sports
- Getting on with people
- Swimming
Accordingly:
- When it was time for block-cleaning, I would be nominated for one of the top shitty jobs. I dealt with it.
- When it was time to rake up the leaves, I would be the one to be handed a threadbare mop. I dealt with it.
On the other hand, it wasn’t completely about failure. I loved adventure-training. I was reasonably fit. I was good at orienteering. I was a good runner.
My one big success, the one time I competed for the Battery and won the 1000 metres, I was completely bowled over by the experience. I couldn’t begin to describe how I felt. I’d never won anything before. I didn’t know what that emotion was. That was very unfamiliar. Is this how all those successful kids felt all the time?
Despite that unique (for me) success, I was not showered with garlands. I had won a race for the Battery and was, essentially, ignored. That was familiar, at least.
Later, I experienced a number of serious life failures.
Professionally, I had started getting it together.
At age 22 I was a Bombardier. I had been a Battery Clerk. I had run the Documentation Office. Modest success, I grant you. I was at the top of my trade. I had passed the Crew Commander’s Course (first go).
Personally, it was a whole other matter.
On four different occasions in my life I suffered serious personal failure issues to such a high degree that it’s a wonder I survived. So, thank goodness I had got used to dealing with it in the relatively safe environment of Bramcote.
Accordingly, you can say, I am used to life-failure. So much so, that I am an old-sweat when it comes to dealing with that sort of thing. I can handle it.
I don’t like it, but I can deal with it.
Do not mistake me, I am not casual about it. When it hits, I am as devastated as anyone can ever be. As ever I was. But, I know what to do and how to deal with it.
My time in JLRRA prepared me for any amount of disappointments. These were all important life-lessons.
Nowadays, when I see the way some of my professional colleagues handle failure and frustration, I chuckle inside myself. I learned the skills of dealing with failure over four decades ago.
This may be the second-most important thing I learned in JLRRA.
So, all you ex-Junior BSMs out there, I can only say, ‘Suck-it-up you winners’
Suck it.
CODA:
I was surprised to see that some private, fee-paying schools have started including the ‘Learning how to deal with failure’ as a module in their curriculum.
