From: harish@csar.uucp (Harish Pillay)
Subject: Re: NS and Officer Pillay
Organization: CSA Research, Singapore.
Date: Tue, 07 Apr 1992 02:40:55 GMT

slam@eve.wright.edu (Sau Chun Lam) writes:

>Ok! Sure! He made a mistake and the officer involved, decided
>to make him clean his rifle. That was convenient enough wasn't it. If
>that was supposed to be punsihment it sure as heck was not instructive
>or constructive.

I'll not defend the action of an officer esp if that officer seems to not
deserve the rank he has been bestowed with [believe me, I've known quite
a few people who do not deserve their ranks].

>Even if we were to attempt to seek redress what is going to come of it?
>If your OC and higher ups ignore it what can you do, petition your
>Brigadier General. Ha! Ha! Ha! You are an Officer. Do you know of the
>experiences of the people under you?

I do not normally discuss how I interact with my men.  But since you asked,
I'll mention it briefly.

In any organization, it is the "men" who get all the bulk of the work done.
I recognized this when I was in doing ECA in a uniformed group in school.  I
was but a lowly nothing and I did come across some of my "superiors" who
treated me like their errand boy.  It was then that I developed my sense of
perspective when it comes to man management.  Later when I did my NS, the 
welfare and well-being of my men were more important to me than anything
else.  What they did and how they did it, will ultimately affect and reflect
upon me.

Suffice to say that I've treated my men as equals to me, our individual 
ranks being incidental.

>You are an Officer by training and therefore you were evaluated IMO by
>your previous status. You, my dear Officer Pillay, are the creme de la
>creme, the pick of the crop, etc, etc. For everyone of you, there are at
>least 10 other privates, LCPLs and CPLs that are not evaluated. Show me
>otherwise and I will withdraw my argument. 

I've evaluated and recommended for promotion 2 CPLs when I was in service.
They were both promoted.

>The CD *requested* you for a information update. You did not go to them
>to petition for a change in your Reservist duties. So who or what branch
>of Mindef should we approach to file our petitions for assignment
>changes in Reservist duties?

I was VERY SURPRISED when CD asked me if I'll agree to a transfer.  Why don't
you frame a letter requesting that you be sent to units or depts that better
use your skills and send it off to your OC and cc a copy to Chok Tong?  Yes,
Chok Tong.

>Soemtimes the best of your abilities is unfortunately not up to the
>"standard" somebody else requires. Worse still, if your mentality and
>opinions differ from those with power and authority. That could really
>cause you some severe pain and suffering. My opinion about NS is to 
>basically throw your mind away for 3 years and be a robot. Don't even 
>think in a logical manner cos' **IT DON'T PAY NONE TO BE SMART**!!!!!!

Story time:  There was this guy who hated to do NS.  Hoping that things will
be easy on him, he became a vegetarian overnight among other things.  None of
that was of any help.  He finished SISL and then was selected for OCS.  He
completed all of that and now he is a reservist OC.

He figured that if he was able to give a tough time to others, he'll
eventually be ignored, but was very wrong.

Your comment that it doesn't pay to be smart is very valid.  It is ironical
that if you are promoted to a CPL or better or have a full GCE A Level cert,
you do 6 months more, i.e., 2.5 years of full-time service.  Kinda like 
punishment for doing better.

>I understand the philosphy of "talk softly but carry a big stick"! So
>everybody in SEA arms themselves to the teeth and puts themselves on the
>leading edge of early warning and first strike capabilities. Tell me,
>doesn't that bring us closer to war accidental and otherwise????????

I never agreed at all of our purchase of the AWACs (not that the govt asked
me :-)).  I feel that it is an absolute waste of or reserves.  BTW, one of
the AWACs, I believe, crashed recently.  Poof goes a few millions.  We are
now seeing the emergence of an export oriented armaments industry!!!

>I have no objections if your argument for NS is such but tell me. How
>many NS and Reservist personnel have good memories of their service
>stint? 

About the only thing I got out of NS was that I was better able to guage
human nature and that in life there is a lot of give and take and that
there is more to life than what I knew growing up in a 3-room flat in 
Queenstown.  Sure, one does not have to go through NS to get these, but, in
my case, there are things I was exposed to during NS that I'll never ever 
see in my civilian life.  How would you like to have to check the body of a
suicide victim for signs of foul play, or have to go through bushes looking
for body parts of a person run over by a train?  As the office-in-charge of
the case, and a 19 year old at that, it was asking for too much.  I had to
grow up on-the-spot and very quickly too.

On a slightly tangent issue, what does the net think about people using their
ranks in civilian life.  Though I'm proud of my rank, I'll not use it at all
except during reservists.  However, it bothers me a lot to see people like
Loong and George Yeo being addressed as BG when they are in fact reservists
like you and me.  [I must qualify this:  they are generally referred to
as BG Yeo and BG Lee in the press but they may *personally* prefer not to.
I do not know.]  The right way to address them is BG (Res) Yeo and BG (Res)
Lee.  By conveniently dropping the (Res), is, IMHO, discourteous and wrong,
for it implies that these people are SAF regulars.

Enjoy.
--
Harish Pillay             harish%csar@uunet.uu.net
Singapore               "Psst!  Wanna buy some gum?"