A year into service

Okay, it's been about a year since I entered this so called "boy to manhood" phase and so far, all that crap I've been built up to is nothing but bullshit and I'm saying this as a jaded serviceman, not some freshly-into-BMT JC kid. Let's start off with my favourite 3 really misguided public(or rather, my) perceptions based on information I was fed:

1) Tekong is some inhumane WWII Nazi-Germany concentration camp where sergeants are Gestapo personnels who serve you shit in every way possible (diced, steamed braised, chopped, fried, etc) and will take every opportunity to fuck you like Germans when Russians took over Berlin. You do a million push ups a day, sleep 4 hours and you will eat food that'd repulse any starved, malnutrition-ed Haitian 36 hours after an Earthquake.

Reality: That may be true in the past, today, it's like orientation in JC, military style. Instead of having OGLs, you get sergeants and officers (because they're only a year or two older than us), instead of doing cheers, you do push ups. and oh, instead of having females, well, you get this half-male-half-female-because-no-one-really-knows barber, you get the point. Also, you'll lose your voice because of all the singing(and shouting) and like every school ran event, shit hits the fan if someone gets injured/faint so it's really important that people are given the option to "fall out" [pussy out] if they can't take it [i.e. tak boleh tahan]. And oh, food is cooked by professional SFI (Singapore Food Industry) kind aunties and uncles who greet you with a fake smile just so you can tap "Excellent" for food and service which leads (actually, it does not) to a fat little bonus for them to take "cha-cha" lesson in the nearest community centre.

2) People die and it's covered up =O Oh the humanity~

Reality: If there's one thing that NSFs can fuck up well (besides everything they do), they can fuck this up exceptionally well, it is maintaining confidentiality. In this E-era of NSFs, ours is an especially loose-mouthed whiney bunch (guilty) of man-child for a bunch of 19 year olds when juxtaposed to professional soldiers as depicted in Hollywood movies. Perhaps Jack Neo would shed some light on the issue with a new "I not stupid soldier" movie, but lets not talk about that, I just digressed. In a nut shell, we whine like bitches in gossip girls, we bitch about every single injustice we're served on a shit platter on facebook (regarding not receiving their marksmanship incentive), in blogs (evidently, this is one example) or even in the form of a nice little letter to the higher ups (some officer a few years back) about some other guy neglecting his duties. So, if someone were to die in this organization filled by roughly 70% of NSFs, wouldn't we be the first to sell it to STOMP for a pretty lil iPad?

3)No one slacks off in the army because of all the rules in place! You can get charged or even worse, go to DB (Detention Barracks, i.e. Military Jail) exclamation mark.

Reality: If there's one thing being in the army has taught me, it is this, it doesn't pay to be proactive (i.e. Garang, Up, enthusiastic) and responsible. For one, your blood pressure is upped a notch by the sheer the amount of people who skive and run behind the Captains (Medical) in the medical centres to get excuse letters in order to skip training, thereafter, live to gloat and piss off the rest without any repercussions. As stated above, since everyone one of us here is somebody's child in this age-ing population country on par with Japan, and after that incident with this kid dying in the army and having some senior commissioned officer bitch slapped by the grieving parent, our superiors are nothing but pussy-whipped when it comes to deciding if the guy is a conniving work dodging shady slacker or genuinely sick. Furthermore, those who are any competent at all in the work they do are rewarded with, wait for it, EVEN MORE work because of their competence and track record of not-fucking-up! So congratu-fucking-lations mr hardworking, I'm showing your appreciation by giving you even more work to do, make me proud!


So there you have it, 1 year of experience summarized im 3 simple, easy-to-digest summarized bitching about how cheated I felt. Oh and would you look at the time, it's a lovely Friday night, and I'm off to take a C130 where I shall parachute into the hostile territories of Afghanistan and storm a terrorist fort with my assault rifle blazing, lobbing a grenade after another into terrorist infested caves, killing them and making the world a better place....
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not
I'm just going back to my camp, draw a rifle used in the vietnam war with a pathetic amount of ammunition and walk around a really deserted (because it's a friday night) fenced up urban environment which no one is interested in attacking. TGIF (not)