Growing Up As a Barrack Boy

My dad served at 149 Battalion Ojo Cantonment in Lagos before we transited to Taraba state.

I was a bit free at the barracks. My dad was not always around, and my mom allowed us to mingle. At an early age, I started seeing how soldiers are highly disciplined. We began to experience good and painful memories. The painful ones were the times my friends and I mistook some soldiers’ discipline for hate, not knowing that their upbringing would be the required tool for our fulfilling days and future greatness.

I must say, sometimes when I think back on my doings at the barracks, I don’t feel too proud of myself. This event, however, has made me learn lessons in life that I can teach to the young ones growing up.

The name we will always be called “barrack boy”, a name that some of us love and some hate, but in the long run, those of us who hate it come to adore it. Barrack Boy has been planted in so many heads as something related to failure and mediocrity. It is associated with criminal behavior and flippancy. Stubbornness and bad manners are the terms that replace barrack boys.

Many of us had seemingly different experiences at the barracks. Some of us grew up on the more comfortable side of the military barracks called “officers’ quarters.” Not people like us that cohabitated in the privates and sergeant quarters where there is all the gra gra as some of us like to call it (bk boys can relate more). Nevertheless, some of these guys living in officers’ quarters still had their fair share of hard experience, probably because of the not-so-good treatment that soldiers give their wives and sometimes extend to their kids, or seemingly the negative reactions they receive themselves at work from their superiors, or maybe it is just their nature.

It was always nice when one’s father had been decorated with a new rank. Those were moments of joy and pride. For some reason, I hated being called a barrack boy. I didn’t cherish my legacy, but as I started exploring life and having exposure, it dawned on me how these experiences have changed me personally. Now, I am happy that I went through these experiences.

I urge every barrack boy to make an effort to go back to the barracks to do something significant to empower both the barrack boys and soldiers as a way of giving back to the community that raised them.