Men in uniform have always fascinated me.
There is an appeal to them that is difficult to explain without sounding terribly cliché.
Perhaps it is the crisp uniform, the discipline it represents, or the quiet confidence of someone trained to remain composed when everyone else would probably panic.
Soldiers, firefighters, pilots, policemen — there is something undeniably compelling about people whose jobs demand courage as part of the description.
But after sitting across from Sarawakian Royal Malaysian Navy (TLDM) special forces member Laskar Kanan PAP (FKL) Michael Coccon Johen this week, I realised that what fascinates me most is not really the uniform at all – it is the person inside it.
By the time I met Coccon in Bau, I already knew the broad outline of his story.
He had been swept away by strong currents during an operation at sea and spent approximately 15 hours alone in the South China Sea before he was eventually found alive.
Fifteen hours. It is easy to type those two words into a news report. It is another thing altogether to sit opposite the person who lived through every single minute of them.
As journalists, we become accustomed to turning extraordinary experiences into neat paragraphs — what happened, when it happened, where, how and why.
We ask questions, take notes and look for the strongest quote.
Occasionally, an interview makes you forget about the story you are supposed to file for a moment because you are simply trying to imagine yourself in that person’s position. This was one of them.
Coccon spoke about swimming towards lights in the distance, believing they would bring him closer to safety.
Some belonged to Pulau Layang-Layang, the island he was supposed to reach. Others came from TLDM vessels searching for him.
Yet no matter how much he swam, the lights seemed impossibly far away.
Imagine seeing what you believe is safety, swimming towards it with whatever strength remains in your body, and feeling as though you are getting nowhere. Then imagine doing that for hours.
There was no dramatic soundtrack and no movie scene where help suddenly appeared just as the hero was about to surrender. There was only the sea, the current, darkness and a man trying to stay alive.
What struck me during the conversation was how matter-of-fact Coccon could be about certain parts of the ordeal. Perhaps that comes with the training.
Members of the special forces are trained for situations most of us will never encounter. Their physical endurance is tested, their mental resilience hardened and their instincts sharpened to function under pressure.
But training does not make someone immune to fear. And that, to me, made Coccon’s story much more remarkable.
Courage is often misunderstood as the absence of fear. I think it is far more interesting when fear exists and someone chooses to keep going anyway.
Coccon knew the danger he was in. He knew how enormous the sea was compared with one human being floating in it. He knew exhaustion was setting in. He knew there was no guarantee that the search vessels would find him.
Still, he kept himself going. As long as he was breathing, there was still a chance. That thought stayed with me long after the interview ended.
We encounter the phrase “fighting for survival” so frequently that it can lose some of its meaning. In Coccon’s case, it was literal.
Survival meant making one decision after another not to surrender. Keep swimming, floating, looking towards the lights, believing somebody is searching and breathing.
Fifteen hours is 900 minutes. When you think of it that way, the magnitude of what he endured becomes even more difficult to comprehend.
But there was another side to those 15 hours that became apparent during the press conference — the hours endured by those waiting for him on land.
Coccon’s wife was there that day, sitting not far from the man whose survival we had all come to hear about.
I had the opportunity to speak to her, and what she told me was simple but perhaps said everything about what the ordeal had been like for his family.
She did not sleep that night after learning what had happened. While Coccon was somewhere out at sea trying to survive, she was on land not knowing what the next phone call would bring.
There is a particular kind of helplessness in waiting for news about someone you love. You cannot swim towards them, you cannot search the darkness yourself and you cannot do anything to change what is happening. You can only wait.
Looking at the two of them together after knowing what each had gone through on opposite sides of that night gave the story another dimension for me. One fought to come home, the other stayed awake waiting and hoping that he would.
The press conference itself had been coordinated by Deputy Minister of Transport (Riverine and Maritime) and Tasik Biru assemblyman Datuk Henry Harry Jinep, who felt that Coccon’s experience was a story that deserved to be told. I am glad he did.
There are stories that make headlines because they are sensational, and then there are stories worth telling because there is something in them that others can carry away.
Henry described Coccon as a role model for young people, particularly for the determination, courage and mental strength he displayed throughout the ordeal.
He also expressed hope that what Coccon had gone through — and the resilience he demonstrated — would earn him due recognition in his service. I hope so too.
Not simply because he survived, but because there is something valuable in what his survival represents.
We often tell young people to be resilient, to persevere and not to give up when circumstances become difficult. These are easy words to say from the comfort of dry land, but Coccon lived them in their most literal form.
Listening to him recount his experience also reminded me why I have always been drawn to interviewing people in uniform.
From the outside, the uniform represents strength. We see the insignia, the rank, the training and the profession.
What we do not always see is the human being underneath all of it. And somewhere nearby, there are families who understand that every time the person they love puts on that uniform and leaves for duty, there are risks that come with it.
The person in uniform can become exhausted, frightened and vulnerable, but has been trained to keep functioning despite all three. That distinction became particularly clear to me during this interview.
Coccon’s survival was undoubtedly aided by his training. His experience as a TLDM special forces member gave him knowledge and endurance that would have been invaluable in those circumstances. But training alone cannot fully explain 15 hours.
Somewhere between the physical exhaustion, the darkness and those distant lights was something far more basic — the human instinct to live.
Perhaps that is where the real appeal of men in uniform has always been for me. The uniform catches your attention, but the stories behind it are what stay with you.
When Coccon eventually emerged from the sea alive, he did not return as some invincible movie hero. He returned as a 27-year-old Sarawakian who had endured something few people could ever fully understand — and to a wife who had spent the night waiting for the news that he was coming home.
Heroism does not always look heroic while it is happening. Sometimes, it is simply a man alone in an enormous sea, exhausted beyond imagination, looking at a light in the distance and deciding to swim towards it one more time. And sometimes, somewhere on land, it is someone who loves him staying awake through the night, waiting for that light to bring him home.
DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at sarahhafizahchandra@gmail.com.
