The strength does not lie in the uniform. Indian military veterans must realise this truth.

Former  Major League Baseball player and the NYT columnist, Douglas Glanville talks about the life beyond the uniform for a top baseball player. It has huge parallels for military veterans who find it extremely difficult to adjust to a life without uniform. As the traditional social and political structures have changed in India, this transition from an uniformed life within a military garrison to one in civvies outside has become troublesome for many.

…I enjoy a tradition of watching one of our favorite movies: “A Few Good Men,” starring Jack Nicholson, Kevin Bacon, Tom Cruise and Demi Moore. Its most famous line is Col. Jessup’s “You can’t handle the truth!” But the one that always sticks with me is Lt. Kaffee’s parting words to one of the defendants, Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson: “You don’t need a patch on your arm to have honor.”

Our uniform is our patch on the arm, a badge that becomes our ticket to social acceptance, fame, financial security (maybe) and admission to an elite club of “success.” But it’s also a ticket into the theater of self-doubt. A doubt that turns most players into awkward Clark Kents without their Superman costumes. Or Col. Jessup in his “civvies.”

Because with that uniform comes the responsibility of representing cities, towns, family names, team legacies and even your own childhood hopes. And all that can confuse your sense of where the uniform ends and your real self begins.

In the end, I had to find honor outside the game — or, more specifically, outside the uniform — and I had to find it in areas where I’d had little exposure. I could no longer just flash my “badge” and watch the rest unfold automatically.

It takes a lot of introspection to avoid this Superman effect, of feeling heroic and powerful in uniform and ungainly and lost outside of it.

The exhortation is just right when we see the many veterans cling on to create ludicrous designations like Lieutenant General (Emeritus). Other veterans try very hard to usurp the role of spokespersons for those serving in uniform. As seen recently during the SCPC fracas, it only vitiates the environment, polarises the debate on civil-military relations and creates ugliness among various stakeholders in the defence setup.

Unless one is a Field Marshal and thus uniformed for life, other veterans have to deliberately resist the lure of associating with uniform after hanging their own. The excuse of tradition to perpetuate this association sounds hollow when viewed in light of the changes in polity, society and economy of the nation and the culture of the defence services themselves. Veterans must find their own individual roles out of uniform (it would be based on skills and experience picked up while in uniform) while allowing the defence services the freedom to charter their own paths in a new environment, unencumbered by the past linkages. The conclusion of Doug Glanville is thus bang on target for Indian military veterans to ponder over.

Eventually, many players find honor outside of the uniform… But it takes a lot of work. I had to fight for it and to trust it. I had to understand that the things that made me excel in a professional baseball uniform could help me in other environments, too. But it takes time to truly understand that while there is a history and a legacy behind every baseball uniform, each player who wears it adds something to that history — something that was there inside them long before they ever put on a uniform. And that this same “something” can be found again when the uniform is put away.

So I carry on, as many do, without the pinstripes or the M.L.B. logo on my hat. Lt. Kaffee was on point: you don’t have to wear a patch on your arm to have honor. But I don’t think he really understood how hard it could be, or how long it might take, to really feel it to your core. If ever.

Remember, one doesn’t have to wear a patch on his arm (or on her shoulders in our case) to have honour and power. The earlier a majority of military veterans in India realise this, the better it will be for them, the defence services and the nation.