I Was A Soldier – kind of
This week, I read two books edited by Ray Land and Jan Meyer on Threshold Concepts: Threshold Concepts in Practice and Overcoming Barriers to Student Learning: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge. The article by Syed Mohamed et al. about soldiers, liminality, ambivalence, and hybridity stood out to me. I want to share a little of my personal story about a time when I lived in liminality and ultimately landed in what Syed Mohamed et al. call ambivalence.
I was a soldier. From 2008 through 2011, I served in the United States Army as an interrogator at the height of the Global War on Terror. I was assigned to a J2X, and our office oversaw all the human intelligence and counterintelligence for our area of operation. Our intelligence showed that money from opium sales out of Afghanistan was being used to buy weapons and women in other places around Asia. My team would travel to and live in these places to investigate people we suspected of supporting terrorist organizations.
For 15 straight months, I would spend a few weeks or a month in place, learning people’s rhythms and drawing out their connections. Then, we would roll through their compounds, doing our soldier thing. I was good at what I did, yet I struggled internally. In hindsight, I was in liminality. I was able to mimic and enact the right skills but never embraced the whole reality of being a soldier. Ray Land says, “All learning affects a change in self…an ontological shift.”[1]
I am a Christian, but I did not grow up that way. I became a believer at 17 during my senior year of high school, and I had already signed a contract to go into the Army that year. I could never shake the reality that God wanted these people to glorify him. The people who died in combat were no longer capable of giving God the glory. That was my ambivalence.
Syed Mohamed et al. define ambivalence as “Simultaneous conflicting reactions, beliefs, or feelings toward knowledge deemed troublesome as a result of previous held beliefs.”[2] I struggled to reconcile the person I was becoming with my previously held beliefs. Land describes this as the troublesomeness of knowledge: “One source of troublesomeness of knowledge is the ontological shift, not the conceptual difficulty. It’s about do I want to become this kind of person where it’s leading me.”[3] While I could operate as an insider, fulfilling the tasks and duties. My prior beliefs as a Christian conflicted with my new knowledge as a soldier. I left the Army as a Conscientious Objector when God called me to the ministry.
Threshold Concepts are “concepts in any discipline that have a particularly transformative effect on student learning.”[4] People become insiders when they go through the liminality and fully embrace the transformative effect of the Threshold Concept.
Because I never crossed the threshold during my time in the Army, I never feel right in the presence of other veterans when serving comes up. I simultaneously feel proud of the accomplishments of the schools I attended and ashamed about how I left the Army. Even now, 14 years later, I feel anxiety writing this as I think about the veterans in this space who will read this. Will they think less of me for being a Conscientious Objector?
Failing to fully embrace the Threshold Learning of being a soldier has also prevented me from fully embracing being a veteran. There’s a point for me for today: if I fail to stay current in this program, then I risk falling behind, missing concepts, and being stuck behind. I want to stay current to avoid the compounding effects of falling behind. I will feel like an imposter during the program – I already have and still sometimes do. I must continue to recognize that I am still in liminality. I haven’t grasped all the concepts yet, but I don’t need to. I’m current with where we are – living in liminality and continuing to grow.
As Salmona et al. say, “…perhaps demonstrating an awareness of being in
liminality and the difficulties of contending with troublesome knowledge associated with the doing and achieving of a doctorate, in itself, is a threshold concept.”[5] I’m glad to recognize my liminality and to cross the threshold of Threshold Learning with all of you now.
Is my Army service less than because of how I got out? Maybe, I don’t think so, but the VA does. Here is a prayer request. I was honorably discharged. Fourteen years ago, the VA certified my benefits, and I used 30 months of the GI Bill to pay for undergrad and seminary. When I applied to use the remaining money for this school year, the VA contacted me and said I should never have received the GI Bill, and they asked me to repay all of my schooling benefits. I’ve appealed this to a law judge in D.C. whose office has previously sided with Conscientious Objectors. I could use prayers for this to come back in my favor.
[1] Ray Land, Ray Land: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge, 2012, 21:07, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR1cXIdWnNU.
[2] Ahmad Thamrini F. Syed Mohamed, Ray Land And Julie Rattray, “Ambivalence, Hybridity And Liminality: The Case Of Military Education,” in Threshold Concepts in Practice, ed. Ray Land, Jan Meyer, and Michael T Flanagan, (Rotterdam: SensePublishers, 2016), 83. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-6300-512-8
[3] Ray Land, Ray Land, 23:05.
[4] Jan Meyer and Ray Land, Overcoming Barriers to Student Understanding: Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge (London: Routledge, 2006), xv, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203966273.
[5]Michelle Salmona, Kaczynski, Dan And Wood, Leigh N. “The Importance Of Liminal Space For Doctoral Success: Exploring Methodological Threshold Concepts” in Threshold Concepts in Practice ed. Land, Meyer, and T Flanagan, 161.
About the Author
Robert Radcliff
Hi! I'm Robert, and I'm seeking to understand who God is calling me to be in my community while helping others do the same. I enjoy reading, training for triathlons, and using exclamation points!3 responses to “I Was A Soldier – kind of”
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Great post, Robert. Curious, thoughtful, intelligent, and vulnerable. I pray that your situation is seen favourably by the legal system.
I think you’re onto something when positing whether awareness of being in a liminal state is part of a self-awareness threshold concept. It sure seems troublesome, sometimes alien, and discoveries are transformative. I find that knowing my own mind and thinking is a significant part of the process!
What do you think or do to live in peace in the liminality and when the cognitive dissonance sets in?
Joff, I’d love to have a brilliant answer to how I live at peace in a liminal space. I don’t think I do this exceptionally well and am prone to anxiety. I’m learning to trust the processes around me—even when I developed them. Things may not be working as fast as I want, but if we’re headed in the right direction, maybe that’s enough.
One of my strengths is rest and sabbath as intentional devotion and recognition that God is ultimately in control. You will likely never see me comment or post on Fridays. I need a day of rest, even from school. I can get the rest of my comments in on Saturday morning. There’s something about recognizing that this will pass and that God is in control that gives me a sense of peace.
Robert,
Personally, I am thankful for your willingness to serve and your willingness to follow your convictions as a Conscientious Objector. I will be praying and trusting the Lord with you as you face this recent unexpected challenge.
I, too, have felt the anxiety of falling behind and the cascading effect that may have. It sounds like you are finding soloists while living at the threshold of your learning journey. I am beginning to see its potential, but not there yet. I do wonder if it’s realistic to have contentment while being in liminality. Or if we will always feel the need for production, forward motion, and accomplishment.