Sean McAneny is an English Teaching Assistant 
at the only Military High School in the Czech Republic, located in Moravská Třebová. As a former captain of the SUNY Geneseo track & field team, a tutor at his university writing center and with two life-long passions for literature and sports, Sean was placed at this unique high school that prepares young students for future studies at military colleges and careers in the Czech Army. The school has about 350 students, about 75 per cent are males. It is a boarding school with a strict schedule and a strong emphasis on athletics. During a Fulbright visit in November 2021, one of Sean's colleagues noted: "We are teaching future officers and commanders, and this year-long experience with Sean helps us to not only motivate our students to improve their communication skills in English, but it to strengthen their critical thinking."
There is a certain kind of person who goes away to Europe in order to “find himself.” He asks such navel-gazing questions as “what do I want from this life?” Or, “how can I become the best version of myself?” His post-graduate fellowship or Fulbright experience are thus playgrounds of ideas and identity where he can experiment with “saying yes.” To be sure, there is nothing particularly wrong with this kind of self-exploration; finding one’s self can be a meaningful, even vital, undertaking. However, in trying to answer the questions we ask ourselves we often drown out deeper, more profound questions which life asks of us. In order to answer this call, we have to set aside our personal trifles and attend to things like community and collective duty, a lesson I have learned over and over while teaching at the Military High School of the Ministry of Defense (Vojenská střední škola Ministerstva Obrany) in Moravská Třebová.
In truth, I was very much the self-exploring type when I arrived in the Czech Republic. A bit lost and looking for direction with only bachelor’s in literature for a map, I was hoping Fulbright might lead the way, or at least make me more appealing to potential graduate programs. If you asked this younger version of me for reasons why, he might simply deflect and ask “why not?” My reasons were personal and self-serving and I was so committed to this radical individualism that it came as a shock when I was informed that I would be placed in the country’s only military school. You see, I am not much of a leader and, unfortunately, I’m a pretty bad follower too. Loner is more accurate. When I was named captain of my college cross-country team, I flinched at the thought of lending advice or conducting practice. Similarly, when I got news of my placement I began to worry that maybe I wasn’t cut out for Fulbright after all.
Yet, as I learned leading my team on the cross country course, it is more often than not that we are called to be an example for others not by our own volition and then measured by how we answer the call. Leadership chooses us, not the other way around. In fact, I have always been wary of the kind of leader who professes such self-certainty (recall a certain presidential candidate claiming “I alone can fix it.”) These lessons in leadership and service are what I will take away from my time here because they are lived out on a daily basis by the inspiring young men and women I get to teach at the Military High School. They have taught me that a life of mere self-exploration can often be shallow and that it is the commitment to something larger than ourselves that strengthens and transforms us into people we didn’t know we could be.
When I talk to my students about the public’s perception of the military I am shocked to hear that many still harbor some degree of resentment towards soldiers, a vestigial attitude of the communist regime. Many of an older generation see soldiers as unthinking apparatchiks who get into the service for the bureaucratic advantages. In contrast, my students list commitment, sacrifice, family support, and, yes, action as their reasons for signing up.
The evidence that attitudes are changing is apparent in how my students talk, but does it extend beyond the school’s walls? From what I can tell, it does. If NATO has been a force for good it is because it has allowed smaller powers to step up and prove themselves on a world stage, giving them license to shrug off the legacy of communism and rebuff the looming threat of Russia. NATO relied heavily on the Czech forces in Afghanistan and is again considering its strategic importance with regards to the war in Ukraine. So, when one of my fourth-year students came to me speaking of intentions to join the foreign legions in the war against Russia, I knew for certain he was serious.
Sean practices conversation with his students, discussing intrinsic versus extrinsic happiness, November 2021, Moravská Třebová. Now, this was all a lot for me to take in. Indeed, consider for a moment the prospect of your students risking their lives in the name of some Romantic higher ideals. There is still a part of me that wants to yell at them “live your own life, while you still can!” But, as I have said, it is in serving in a collective spirit that one truly comes to appreciate what it means to be individual. Freedom and the personal liberty to live however you choose are not the same thing. In many ways unchecked liberty can actually limit our freedom. Consider Štepan, a fourth year in platoon C4B. He told me, “the people you are growing with…they extract the best out of you.” Štepan believes that the real power of military service is that your peers “are trying to make you the best person you can be.” You might discount this individual testimony as the clear-eyed idealism of one pre-selected teenager, but I am not exaggerating when I say that his attitude is the norm among my students.
To be sure, there are many practical reasons that my students also include, such as job security and material support for themselves and their families. However, one thing you do not hear about is the desire to blow things up or wage war on enemies. My students are keen on history, mechanics, psychology, and maybe they listen to too much heavy metal for my liking. But they have upended all of my preconceived ideas of the soldier as warrior, as aggressive and violent. Instead of taking the easy way out, as many assumed about the communist soldiers of regimes past, my students see service as a worthy challenge they undertake as a way of becoming stronger. Josef, one of my first year students, said he was looking for a “bigger challenge” and that when his parents told him the school was “one of the most difficult…in the country” he decided to sign up.
Sean and his mentor Hana Oyelakin Ferlíková, November 2021, Moravská Třebová.
Notably, there is much they do not expect upon signing up and more they could have no way of knowing before arriving. Without the foreknowledge of a military life, my students cannot reason that this is the kind of person they are or want to be. What they are doing instead, it is my claim, is responding to this call to sacrifice some of their personal preferences for the opportunity to grow along with other like-minded young men and women. Taking this leap is not easy and indeed many often complain about the 5:30 AM reveille or the endless hours of marching, but when asked why they don’t quit or give up, it is taken as a given that they are stronger because of what they have endured.
Similarly, there were times when I considered walking away from it all. First the pandemic and then the war in Ukraine; I had to remind myself that I had responsibilities to people other than me in order to stick it out. I still feel a bit like the odd one out in this environment and have no intentions of changing my path towards military service, but I have come to realize the importance of sharing commitment to a cause. Not since college athletics have I been gripped by such a spirit of camaraderie. It for this and so many other reasons I am thankful to have answered Fulbright’s call.
Sean and his students on a hike, January 2022, Žďárské vrchy.