IT'S THE CHAIN

There are the good officers. They will guide you, they will bring you up when you fall, they will be there for you. These officers exists through-out the ranks of the officers, from an NSF 2nd lieutenant to a Regular lieutentant colonel (from what i have seen so far).

And there are officers who command respect. Even if they clearly don't deserve it. It pains me to see an extremely experienced and good warrant officer having to salute a comissioned officer of such character.

Maybe those "bad" officers meant well for their actions. But one thing for sure is that temper brings down the reputation of the one who lose it.

Officers who make use of their men to show off their capbilities are also the one who is comdemed.

The one who leads by example is respected, the one who uses his rank as a dozer blade is hated. You can't expected to be respected if you are eating cilivian food if the rest of the men is eating combat rations.

No i'm not an officer. I am a specialist trainee. But the attitude of the officer will affect the morale of the specialist. In turn, the attitude of the specialist will affect the morale of the men.

My morale this past week at out-field is at an especially low level. Even the drivers didn't like my commanding officer.

But inside news is that the higher ups didn't like him either.

But what ever it is, the lesson learnt is about earning a little thing called respect. Take that extra step out, lead with actions and not by words. Show your men respect if you want the same treatment.

Stop that chain of "Because i had takan so i must pass it to you".

And whwe it happens, SAF will be a better place.

HI, WE ARE A LOCAL, AND A TOURIST

This is a story of 4 singaporeans bringing 2 burieans out on a Sentosa trip. As locals, we ought to know all about Sentosa.

But as our civilian lives became faded, we became tourist instead. For a start we went up the wrong elevator while going to the boarding area of the cable car. And even in the elevator, the floor indicator just flashes "1", "2", "3", then "15". So while the number turned "15". One of us went dumb enough to say, "Oh, so fast 15th floor already ah". This caused the many people inside the elevator to control their laughter.

As army men, our military lives became stronger by the day. Uptill a point where a cable car can become a helicopter. One of us pretended to be a load-master, signaling us to hook up and prepare to jump off while talking to the pilot throught the headset attached to a helmet. This actually happen as the cable-car was just above the shore line of the sentosa island.

And down at the Sentosa island itself, we instinctively tried to align the map to the north. Only to realise that we don't have a compass with us.

But the rest of the Sentosa was interesting. It was not the usual beach only Sentosa outing. But it wasn't cheap either. Up till now, i dared not and will not calculate how much i had spend on this one single day alone.

But of course, this is sure a good way of bringing a love one out. Espcially since V-day is just around the corner. A pity that i'm still strongly a single. But i'm determined to find a love soon.

And when the day ended, we each parted way to different destinations, for me and 2 others, we went to play a computer game at a lan shop. This was the idea of one of the 2, (a game addicted guy), because he was too excited to play his new favourite game called "Company of Heros" with other people.

So The arrangement became that he and another guy played as "Allies" and i played as "Axis". So through out the game, i was playing against 2 players who are by default allied to each other. Of course i lost. But i made sure i wasn't trashed. I gave the allies a good beating before i was finally defeated.

But this game game wasn't any ordinary C&C game. This is something that reflects reality. An example is that infantary men just can't give any damage to armoured vehicles. Unlike in red aleart where by a rifle men can cake out even the heaviest of battle tanks.

But enough said. This games clearly reflects that technology cannot defeat numbers. i was defeated by sheer numbers. And the darn snipers.