Romanticizing and romancing national military service: when officer training is taught as a labour of love

ABSTRACT

How do sexual difference and gender identity play out in interpersonal relationships within a military context such as national service training, where participants are part-time soldiers and part-time civilians, as it were? These questions are explored in this autobiographical narrative non-fiction essay. The author reflects on the way military service training was romanticized as a calling, where the organization, the work and study, and the relationships between soldiers in training, were endowed with emotional significance; it was not merely a matter of technical up-skilling. This work will be useful for scholars, writers, and artists interested in embodiment in everyday military spaces, young women officers, performativity, feminist and queer approaches to military studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Military labour
• embodiment
• performativity
• queer military studies
• feminist military studies
• military bodies