Thursday, June 22, 2006

The Good Things About The Army (?)

I was very busy for the past few days because I was involved in an Ops Planning Exercise. An Ops planning Exercise is whereby several soldiers are trapped inside a meeting room from morning till late night discussing and planning for an upcoming Exercise which we are involved in. To them, it is to devise a strategy to fight against enemy ambush and how to deploy vehicles and stores to their respective locations. To me, it is fighting a losing battle against sleep and boredom.

Ops Planning exercise are a waste of time because 90% of the things you plan will never happen. Most of the things are executed to what happen on the ground itself. I was most of the time sitting by one side playing with my handphone and acting that I was listening. With all the Staff Sgts and 1st Sgts plotting and planning, the last thing you need is a small Private contributing because if you say something too constructive, you will make those big shots look stupid.

During one of the smoke breaks, a Staff Sgt came up to me and made small talk. He asked me how I felt about NS and what are the good things about it. I looked at him with big questioning eyes. Good things about NS? If you had asked me about the bad things about NS, I could have written a book about it. But good things? I went,"er....eh...good things...er...eh..."

Was I too negative? Did I fail to see some good in the bad? Why wasn't I able to answer him? I pondered this question on the way home and finally came up with some good things about the NS.

1) NS is good because they provide you with breakfast, lunch and dinner and even give you a big fat pay of $350 a month.

2) NS is good because that is where you have to learn to be independent and resourceful. Many a times your superiors can throw something to you and most of the time it's HIS problem and tell you," I don't care how you do it but you better solve this problem by today." Then you have need to crack your brains and learn how to get your resources because if you don't, it means extra guard duty and confidment.

3) NS is good because it hones your acting skills. You cannot pretend you don't know anything but you also cannot show that you know everything. Being too capable will throw you into the 'arrow army' and whenever there are any big things coming up, you will be asked to be involved everytime. You have to moderate yourself and put yourself into the category of 'I NOT BLUR BUT I ALSO NOT SO CLEVER'.

4) NS is good because you get to see all types of people. It really opens your eyes to see the type of people that exist. People that ranges from super blur cocks to those who are so clever that they know how to siam and push all the shit to you. There are also those people whom if you put their faces on the target boards in the firing range, I would have been a Marksman.

5) NS is good because you don't have to worry about what to wear. You are given 5 sets of smart uniforms that have the design of the green scenery and everyone loves the green scenery.

6) NS is good because you learn good manners. You are expected to greet every officers that come your way. Imagine 5 officers walking individually along the corridor and you happen to be there. You will have to greet them all and before long, you are even more polite than the Japanese.

7) NS is good because they bring you to go camping. They bring you to the forest and play many games with you. They play exciting games like ARTI ambush drills, trench digging and fire movement. They also bring you on a nature tour in the forest where you get to interact upclose with mosquitoes, scorpins, fire ants and many other more cute insects. During camping, they also teach you to save water because you cannot bath.

I really miss my pink IC and I am looking forward to Dec 07, my ORD date. Dec 07 will be the day where my pride and dignity will be restored.