The Salute.
Once appointed as an officer in the armed forces, every rank junior salutes and calls you ‘Sir’.
For most officers that is humbling and slightly awkward. You know you’ve done nothing to earn that respect and you know that they know you know. It’s almost as if each salute is accompanied by a knowing wink.
For some officers, that is the natural state of affairs and they never grow in response. Those officers give commissioned ranks a bad name.
For the rest of us, the first salute began us on our path to earn and be worthy of the institutional respect.
Each crisp salute and curt ‘Sir!’ a reminder of our unearned status and our need to keep trying to earn it.
To get better.
To serve.
Returning salutes never made me feel superior. Decades since my first, it remains humbling.
Then you get promoted and there’s another layer of saluters below you.
Then another.
One day we leave full time Defence and go out into the rank-less, salute-less, Sir-less, corporate world.
No more knowing what courses the person above and below us has passed to reach their place in the outfit, nor the pay they receive.
No days punctuated by salutes given and returned.
Nudging us to remember we serve something higher than ourselves.