Army Stories
Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 1:12 AM |  
Earlier on when I was fetching my sister from school, I stumbled upon my old RSM back when I was with my army unit in national service. I called out his name from far. He acknowledged me with a sense of familiarity. We exchanged formalities and asked one another what we've been up to.

He seemed nice, unlike back then. I suppose one has to put on a 'role' when he is assigned to his task. Being the RSM is akin to being a discipline master of a school. We, the Regimental Police(RP), were akin to prefects that transforms to coolies when needed.

We chatted for a while, then he struck a pose. One which is deep in thought, almost epiphanic. Typical 'drama mama' of him. By the way, he's Indian.

He said, "I can foresee the future...." *LOL* Then he started out dishing out some fatherly advice about how in the future one needs to have at least a diploma. A diploma would only be enough for me to cover myself; would not be enough for family. After which, I would need to continuosly upgrade myself in that particular field.

Then comes the touching part. He opened up that life in the army is hard. Although he has 5 day work week now, he would need to work late nights. He has 4 small children to take care of. He went on to say that by right, he should have been a master warrant officer by now. I took glance on his ampulets, and true enough he was still a 1st Warrant Officer like he was 7 years back(man... how time flies). Hard work does not account to anything if you don't have the qualifications. All you need is the qualification, that's enough to justify a promotion. Pretty sincere sharing on his part. I felt his pain.

He went on to dish out things like I should not get married before I am stable and pointed out the broken marriages than happens when Malay couples get married way too young. He went on to say that I need to be Chinese minded.

I am reminded at how he used to scold the RPs. Our guardroom was 'kampung melayu'. The RPs were all Malays. Don't ask me why... more often than not, it's a common phenomena throughout most military camps in Singapore. We he gets angry with us among his favourite phrase was, "You know why many Malays are lazy?..... because you all eat too many belacan!!"

As Malays, we feel a little offended and hurt, especially when you are at '45-degree-to-the-left-position' when we are at the receiving end of his lecture. But we are quick to dismiss the validity of the argument. Our generation of Malays are not well acquainted with the belacan(prawn paste). We also agree that its just too funny to take it to heart.

That small exchange triggered many things:

1. My educational future
2. My financial future
3. My future ...
4. The fate of my Malay/Muslim community (who to champion the change)

He seemed delighted when I told him that I am pursuing my diploma... that's a start.
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