Htun Zaw Myat | Sergeant | ယခုဆောင်းပါးကို မြန်မာဘာသာဖြင့် ဖတ်ရှုရန် ဤနေရာတွင် နှိပ်ပါ

Cite as: 
Htun Zaw Myat. (2025). Control Over the Lives of Soldiers and Their Families. Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship, 5. https://ijbs.online/?page_id=5274

Abstract

Being part of the military institution means being firmly under its control. The way you are controlled depends on whether you are a single, married, high or low ranked soldier, or a spouse or family member of a soldier. The culture inside military bases creates an atmosphere of obedience and occasionally, even hostility, with peers fighting over their rations and as little as a single egg. Over time, corruption and control come to be normalized and even define soldiers’ lives. They become proud of being dominated by the military and lose all empathy for others, including the property and very lives of civilians.

Married Soldiers and Their Families

There are many challenges for married couples and the family members of soldiers living in military barracks. A woman marrying a soldier must immediately move to live in the barracks with her new husband; from there, the woman’s professional life and opinions are suppressed, and she is locked into living her life as a soldier’s wife¹. These marital homes are substandard—there are almost no living quarters in decent livable condition provided by the military. Roofs and doors are pockmarked with holes, and they are all barely uninhabitable. Nevertheless, these newly married women need to move into such accommodations because they have married soldiers.

Receiving Rations

In terms of livelihoods, every soldier is supposed to be provided with the same rations, whether they are an officer or a foot soldier, and whether they are married or not. Each month, all officers and soldiers receive 10 pyi and two cups of rice, 65 kyattha of cooking oil, one pyi of chickpeas, two cups of sugar, two cans of condensed milk, a packet of Shwe Phyi Oo brand pickled tea leaves, and two small packets of ground chilis. (The measuring cup used for issuing rations is a used tin originally for condensed milk. One pyi is equivalent to eight tins’ worth and 65 kyattha is approximately 1.06 kilograms.) Officers are generally satisfied with the provided rations, but soldiers are not—especially married soldiers and single lower-ranked soldiers. This is because the rations actually provided to non-officers do not correspond to the amounts prescribed. Even the two essentials of rice and cooking oil are withheld and underserved, but soldiers have no choice and must take whatever is provided.

The soldiers responsible for handing out rations have their own measuring cups and pyi baskets—both of which they have custom made in workshops to whatever size they like. When superior officers come to check on the provision of rations, these soldiers will switch the measuring vessels back to the authorized measuring cups and baskets, but only for the day when they are under scrutiny. After the rations provision process has been checked, the altered measuring cups and undersized baskets return, and only the soldier in charge of rations gets the due amount; everybody else receives less than the amount that they are due to be given.

Corruption

It is common knowledge to junior logistics officers and commanders of respective bases that soldiers in charge of providing rations are underserving them. They know this but are forced to ignore the injustice. At the end of every month, after all the rations for the base are distributed, the soldier in charge will send a bag of paw san hmwe (a good quality variety of rice) and good quality peanut cooking oil to the base commander’s house. To put a finer point on it: not only do soldiers in charge of rations underserve the base soldiers, but the junior logistics officers and base commanders are also complicit and benefit from the theft.

With that said, there are some other provisions married soldiers’ families are entitled to, such as an extra 10 eggs per week. However, these eggs never reach their recipients in full, as they are distributed only once a month, instead of the four times they should be. In the first week of the month, rations officers ask clerks to take multiple photos of the ‘egg-giving act’ from different angles—these pictures are then sent every week to the superior officers as ‘proof’ of distribution. So, despite the fact that families are entitled to eggs every week, they receive eggs only once a month, and fake photos are sent to the superior officers the other weeks instead. Another entitlement for families is that they are provided with extra rice if they have children. However, this is also chronically underserved.

This so-called support contributes to soldiers’ wives inability to achieve an ideal life—in any way, shape, or form. This is why there are occasionally arguments between soldiers’ wives over even just a single egg. The women will sometimes get into physical fights over the borrowing of rice or cooking oil. There would be no such issues if the military provided soldiers’ wives with enough resources. Compounding this, the military disapproves of wives going outside of the base to earn money to make up for their husbands’ inadequate salary and rations. They also forbid soldiers’ wives from living outside military bases and keeping jobs. The main purpose of all of this is to keep everyone under military influence and control.

While wives cannot work outside, they are required to contribute manual labor on the base. For example, soldiers’ wives must clean the whole barracks weekly, with their work inspected by the wives of the officers. Furthermore, as part of the idea of internal unity, soldiers’ wives are regularly summoned to the base hall to hold and engage in meetings. They are asked to read the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta at the base’s Dhamma hall. Soldiers’ wives are even told to wear their husband’s uniform and put on parades. As such, the military ensures that soldiers’ wives do not have any spare time, as they are busy participating in the above-mentioned military-related activities; it is impossible for a soldier’s wife to go out to work even if she is starving. The military does such things on purpose, to mold and shape the mindset and attitudes of the soldiers’ wives as they like.

So, as time goes by, the soldier’s wives start to believe the propaganda that the military feeds them, and their personal attitudes change to believing that the military is a necessity and the best part of their lives. In reality, the minds of military spouses are filled with problematic ideas, knowledge, and attitudes far removed from those of average civilians and Burmese people outside of the barracks. If a wife’s husband achieves a high rank, they will then use lower-ranked soldiers’ wives as their maids, asking them to do chores such as cooking, washing, and so on. Military spouses who are asked to do such things often do not think they are being used—instead, they consider themselves to be a trusted person of such-and-such officer and will do everything they are asked quite happily. One other reason why lower-ranked soldiers’ wives are happy to do such things is to curry favor: their husbands might be considered for promotion, or transferred to a better department at the base by the superiors they are working for.

Control of Educated Spouses

There are some soldiers who are married to educated women and teachers. These women are asked to work as teachers at the kindergarten or primary school at the military base for minimal pay. These soldiers’ wives could get paid much more if they worked at other schools outside of the military base, but they must work in the military schools on this minimal pay because their husbands are soldiers. The military controls these people in this way because the more educated wives could bring in ‘outside’ ideas and attitudes whereby soldiers could learn more about external societal norms and the differences in working conditions between civilian and military life. To prevent that, these educated women are tied to the military via their assignments at the base schools—only then can they be deceived into believing that whatever the military says is correct.

Education of Military Children

It is almost impossible for the children who study at military-controlled schools to excel. The main reason is that the teachers who work at those schools have already been completely brainwashed by the military. Therefore, when passing on their knowledge to these children, they always say that whatever the military does is correct, that all the military does is for the sake of the country, and that soldiers risk their lives for this cause. Children who do not know the difference between right and wrong would believe whatever the teachers tell them, and thus the miseducation continues. Due to this, almost none of the many soldiers’ children are successful in their educational lives. Even for the matriculation exams, it is difficult for even one in 10 military children to pass, let alone receive distinctions.

Another reason for these military children not performing well academically is that the military gives these youngsters pocket money to do odd jobs within the military. For boys, they work with a base or mess cook at the officers’ quarters, cooking for the officers and doing other chores. For girls, they either work as a library assistant at the base library or as assistants in military shops. All children of soldiers born and raised in the military have exactly the same ideas and mindset as the rest of the military, because throughout their entire formal education, they have been continuously brainwashed with military propaganda. Because of this, it is almost impossible for them to succeed in standard formal education.

Attitudes of Officers and Soldiers

Officers and soldiers in the military think that because they are risking their lives for the country, they should have benefits and more opportunities and privileges. For example, when they go to any place, they usually tell the other party that they are an officer or soldier from such-and-such base, wielding their power to accomplish whatever they are doing. When they engage in arguments with civilians or other public servants (e.g., the police), they always say something along those lines to establish authority over the other party. Such attitudes have been in the minds of the soldiers and officers for a long time.

The children of officers also carry on these attitudes when they move to high schools outside of the military after completing military middle school. They often proclaim things like, “We’re children of soldiers!”—“My father is this rank at this base!”—“My father is a captain!” and bully others at school. In the evenings after school, when they return to their base, they also often demean lower-ranked soldiers. They will say things such as, “You are a private, my father is a warrant officer.” The privates tolerate these children because they are the children of their superiors. In the end, some junior officers will befriend the children and they will go to karaoke and massage parlors together. When comparing military children with civilian children, not only is there a gap between their mindsets and attitudes, but their respect for elders is also hugely dissimilar. Due to the development of bad attitudes from living in the military, parents can often barely manage to keep their children from going down the wrong path, let alone hope for them to succeed in their education; in the end, many of these children later wind up back in the military themselves. I also believe that the current military leader is enslaving generations of military personnel by allowing these children to participate in military training and parades during the current political situation.

Unmarried Soldiers and New Recruits

Very few unmarried soldiers know how many rations they should be receiving. The same goes for their salaries—there is almost no one able to accurately calculate the exact amount of salary these soldiers should be receiving after taxes and deductions. They do not know what fees are being deducted from their salaries. Myanma Economic Holdings Limited (MEHL) Investment takes a portion, and the life insurance company also takes its share, but there is probably no unmarried soldier who knows exactly how much these amounts are, when he will get any of this money back, how much the MEHL interest rate is per year, or when he will get his life insurance premiums back. They just take whatever amount is given to them. The worst part is they do not know where the salaries, benefits, and rations they receive come from or how the military is able to fund these. All they know is that the military is the one providing for them. There is a saying among unmarried soldiers: “Whenever we go anywhere, we have food and money accompanying us.”Because the military provides them with food and money, these men do not even think about any consequences for their actions, and they just act thoughtlessly under the guise of “following orders.”

The military embeds a lot of false information and propaganda into the minds of the soldiers since the very first day of basic military training. Lines like “The military is the one feeding you and providing for you,” and “This is why you must be loyal to the military and follow orders from your superiors even when your lives are at stake” are continuously repeated by military superiors from the first day that new recruits step into a basic training camp. All soldiers are taught something called “hierarchical respect”—this is accomplished by splitting all recruits into ‘juniors’ and ‘seniors.’ It is not wrong to say that this is a type of divide and conquer by the military. Because of this hierarchical respect concept, soldiers must follow orders and do what they are asked without question, as well as fear other soldiers who have more service years under their belt—this is true even among the lower-ranked soldiers. Additionally, there are also other restrictions the military places on unmarried soldiers.

According to the rules, all military personnel are entitled to 10 days of leave every three months; they are also entitled to one block of 30 days’ annual leave every year. In reality, military authorities never approve applications for this amount of leave, as they do not trust unmarried soldiers to return to the base. Unmarried and newer recruits rarely get permission to leave the base even for quick visits or important reasons, like seeing family members suffering illnesses, and are much less likely to get leave approval than married soldiers. Military leaders claim they cannot approve such leave requests due to ‘military requirements,’ but in reality, superior officers do not issue these approvals because of their own needs. Officers know that the military has less soldiers than it needs and that unity is very low. They suspect new soldiers will abscond.

Officers are aware that few in the military enlist because they love the army. People join up for various coincidental or unavoidable reasons. There are soldiers who were forcibly recruited, others who were essentially ‘bought’ like a product, others who committed crimes such as murder and theft and could no longer evade the police, so they joined the military as a last resort to escape prosecution. None of these new recruits joined with an ideological or patriotic mindset and they do indeed look for ways to go “absent without official leave” (AWOL). Military superiors know this and publish various military rules to control and keep soldiers from going AWOL. But as this special issue attests, many soldiers do manage to escape.

Soldiers’ Lack of Empathy

Over time, soldiers in the barracks, who live off what the military provides them, become proud of being a part of the military institution. They do not think about the fact that they will never actually own anything for their entire lives. For example, it is impossible for soldiers to own a house when serving in the military. The military purposely refrains from giving any benefits to its soldiers, to ensure that its personnel wind up in this property-less situation. Even if a soldier leaves the military because they have reached retirement age, it is still impossible for these individuals to live in their own house outside of the military. The pension benefit that the military provides is so meager that it is impossible to start a business and become financially independent in the outside world. Soldiers serving under the military—who do not personally own houses, plots of land, or businesses, live in the barracks and have been following orders for their whole lives—then actively burn civilian houses, possessions, and businesses under the excuse of “following orders”—especially during this current period of political turmoil. They feel no remorse from doing such things, because they have never owned or lived in their own houses or run their own businesses; they do not know what it feels like to lose any of those things. Since the very day they became soldiers, these individuals have been following orders, and therefore, “when an order is given, we need to follow” is the only concept they keep in their minds. The average person’s ability to think about whether their actions are right or wrong is absent for soldiers, removed by the military—instead, soldiers’ heads are filled with lies and faulty knowledge, as well as ideas shaped by corrupted orders, authorities, and genuine fear.

Endnotes

¹ In the Myanmar military, a soldier’s wife is commonly referred to as yeh may which literally means female police officer.