Attached to the failed certificate was a prestigious award.

It came from the school’s disciplinary committee in honour of my completing six months experience digging out tree roots in front of the administration building.

Do not ask me the reason. It was removed from this story before it went to print.

I graduated with those flying colours and went on to carry out further research on the subject of loitering around the town of Bialla.

This research flourished and was soon rewarded by frequent field trips of the town’s police cell.

I was rough and the streets were sweet and rich with the piquant scent of teenage life.

Bialla was my town, a place where I spent my entire childhood growing fur on various parts of my body.

The folks there like to call it a country town. Everybody knows anybody. And anybody knows everybody.

Months turned to years and my research continued to flourish. My name was frequently published in the local newsletter, the Bialla Police Gazette.

The local members of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary (RPNGC), once inspired by being the subjects of my studies, eventually found it necessary to erase my name from their good books.

At times they escorted me to the station for special and secret briefings behind closed doors where they often asked me to spell 'pain' backwards in my mother tongue.

There were moments of flashing white stars, sporadic coloured lights and screams worthy of the gods whenever truth made holes in buckets of lies.

My status within the community rose as the fragile adolescent frame in which I had concealed myself blossomed into a fully fledged eyesore.

Unfortunately my Grade 10 certificate (failed) thawed to become totally meaningless as, between research expeditions and secret consultations with the RPNGC, I continued seeking something resembling solace, surety and self-worth among scholars of my own particular discipline.

Our philosophy was that, when the colours of the day went to rest, we would emerge to roam about in the blackness of shame.

A suitable analogy would be that we were like leeches that love the beauty of sunset even as it condemns us to shiver in the nakedness of the night.

But, important as it is, that is not what I want to tell you here.

It was during those days of familiarisation with small town life that a rumour drifted around that a PNGDF recruiting team would soon be visiting the provincial capital, Kimbe.

It was big news yet it brought silence to parents and the older town folk.

The Bougainville civil war was into its eighth year and, although peace was on the agenda at every government conference, soldiers were still coming home in coffins from the civil war torn island.

The rumours that reached Bialla had it that every recruit went straight to Bougainville after passing out from Goldie Barracks.

As it is in small towns, rumours continue to spread every day and often they’re the same rumours with more colour and action.

But unlike our silent parents and elders, every mate and onetime friend I knew could talk of nothing other than enlisting.

Our noisy homebrew sessions reconvened as special conferences to discuss obtaining medical reports, securing police clearances and developing methods of appropriately changing the grades on school certificates.

Those late night mystic tales often focussed on deep analyses of guns, helmets, uniforms and tactics, usually based on war films.

Special classes were also offered in how to forge the police commander’s signature.

That was my favourite subject as I’m sure you would understand the difficulties that would stick to my request for an official police clearance. After all, probably mistakenly, my name had been erased from the good books at the police station.

Then a few of my close friends travelled on PMVs to Kimbe under the strict budget of save pes boskru.

Their mission: to find out and bring back news of the war. Daily papers were not that daily in that wild part of the west of New Britain.

We’d also heard but not seen much of and never got to use delayed technology such as print shops, laptops, mobile phones and internets. These were still things of the future.

We awaited the arrival in Bialla of a recruitment team. Accurate information about its timetable and requirements was scarce. So I continued to watch my many friends begin the hard walk to Kimbe to submit their enlistment papers.

The civil war was on but most of them had no proper qualifications.

And how can you bribe a recruiting officer to send you to war? Nobody knew the answer to that.

As for me, my intentions were still not clear.

I saw the opportunity to set aside my research studies and leave behind those periods of meditation in the cell.

Yes, I did want to find respect. Research was too hard.

Anyway, to cut this story short, I never enlisted.

But the Good Lord had plans for he did say in Isaiah 55:8, “My thoughts are not your thoughts and your thoughts are not my thoughts.”

I could not have expressed that better myself.

So let us move forward 17 years to May of 2012 when I walked into Murray Barracks, Port Moresby, and thereafter served the PNGDF honourably as a civilian staff member for 10 years.

Embarrassments, failures and disappointments that pop up in life are not accidents but signals.

Though I never enlisted, I have an important observation I seek to leave here for young people who wish to join the PNGDF.

Choosing a military career is a life-changing decision and should not be taken lightly.

Being accepted to enlist is a calling and not an employment.

Alexander Nara (right) with members of PNGDF Joint Operation Command at Kagamuga airport, Mt Hagen, ready to depart for Porgera in the 2022 national election

It’s a special call from God Almighty to live a life of nobility and leadership, engraved with deep willingness to lay down one’s life for others.

Those who see the military as just another job, and enlist motivated by occupational benefits and incentives, lack the true spirit of a soldier and will not last.

Military is the highest of all the noble professions.

As for me, I’m still a civilian, recently retired and heading home with countless untold stories.

This has been one of them.