Thursday, January 13, 2005
Allow me to bitch:
We had OCS Commander's inspection of our bunks on Monday. I didnt do much cleaning because I'm the store i/c for my platoon and was packing lotsa stores for the upcoming Exercise Lancer in Brunei. Well, field pack was still a little muddy from the previous day's navigation exercise in Mandai. Still, managed to get most of the mud off last minute with the help of Edmund's Wet Wipes.
In walks Commander OCS, takes a look at my Commando tee and newspaper article on Commandos on my notice board (below) as well as the red beret on my shoulder, and looks at me suspiciously. His eyes sweep across the room and zoom in on my field pack. "Eh Commando, why is your field pack so filthy? Never wash, right?" I stare back with thoughts of "you didnt even notice my buddy's EXTREMELY muddy field pack with that GIGANTIC splotch of mud in the front, even though it was right NEXT to my moderately dirty field pack! Gosh, can the prejudice be ANY more obvious, Mr Guardsman?!"
Instead, for the sake of friendship and not saboh-ing my buddy, the pathetic words of "Yes Sir." tumble out of my mouth.
my notice board
my very clean bunk. the legs belong to my buddy with the dirty field pack that escaped getting extra.
Inspection over, the whole wing gathers at the training shed outside and endures two talks my Commander and our Wing Sergeant Major. Amazingly, WSM was "happy with the inspection" and mentioned nothing about giving extras. (For the clueless, an "extra" is a weekend duty in camp, either in the form of guard duty or cadet duty officer/duty sergeat where you sit in a room for 24 hours waiting for the phone to ring and doing absolutely nothing) I breathe a sigh of relief, glad that i escaped yet another extra.
An hour later, when the Cadet Wing Sergeant Major was allocating people to do luggage party for Brunei (another dumb thing where a selected group of 20 have to book in early to transport all the luggage to the airport before Brunei, and transport it back from the airport after Brunei.) He has allocated about 8 guys with extras already. Left with another 12 spaces to fill, he conveniently remembers that Commander had accused about half a platoon size (including me) of dirty field packs. The announcement comes: "Will all those who have been caught with dirty field packs please see the CWSM?" Yours truly was EXTREMELY irked and tempted not to turn myself in at all. Finally, conscience and another honest friend convinced me to report and admit, resulting in me signing (frickin) THREE extras!! THREE!! For a bloody field pack! Gosh. And worse: only a percentage of those who were caught actually came down to admit themselves, leaving me feeling foolish and convinced that there's no place in this world for nice, honest guys.
This comes at a time when yours truly was attempting to try for a record of not getting extra for his entire NS career. I have NEVER, i mean NEVER, had to serve a single weekend duty, whether its been regimental (means that its assigned to you out of your sheer bad luck) or extra (means that you have to do it cause you committed some offence.) There's a saying that goes: "If you dont get extra in OCS, something is very wrong" Well, I was so hoping to prove that wrong, with only less than three months to go in OCS, but i suppose it wasnt meant to be, thanks to this stupid organization called the SAF with its bureaucracy, its prejudice, its injustice, and its tendency to make those lower in the food chain submit to the whims and fancy of the self-deluded higher ranks.
One more year to go.. kiss my ass, SAF.
he rocked the party at 9:25 PM |
