For those of us who are "other ranks", we have come across
officers whom we respect and officers whom we do not respect.
Here's a true story about the latter.
Our reservist SIR was in ROC for ICT. During the initial phase of
training, the S3 CPT (NS) walked around the training ground in his
clean 4 and made all the super-intelligent remarks about how we
should have done better -- "You should take cover over there", "You
should this ...", "You should that ...". "What if the enemy were to
do this & that ..." Easy for him to say of course -- use mouth
only.
Then came the interesting part. Time for battalion mission. Whole
battalion got to be involved. So Bn S3 also need to walk for MTC.
Well, many of us know the ROC terrain. Up & down the hills.
Most of us by that time already got used to the terrain. But not
the Bn S3. He got so shagged that half way through he could not
walked any more and sat at the side of the road to rest like a
punctured tyre, right in front of all the men who continue moving
forward.
Although it was night movement, it was bright enough for us to
recognise him, and his 3 bars. Anyway, the revervist privates
couldn't resist themselves -- they pretended they couldn't
recognise him & suanned, chided him as they walked past. Poor
S3 CPT lan lan & had to eat his humble pie.
On we went. Reached the first objective. The point company
contacted enemy and got into a fire fight. Our company was behind.
As usual, all of us proned whilst the point company is taking care
of the enemy. The fire fight went on with sound of all the guns
blazing, then we saw someone nodding his head in the prone position
-- asleep & snoring! It was our LTA (NS) OC.
Our OC is one of those kao bei kao bu officers whom men hate. So
one of them picked some stones & threw them at the back of OC's
helmet. "Tok". "Tok". "Tok". The poor OC woked up after getting hit
by a few stones -- but too blur & confused & didn't
react... All of us had to control & not laughed out loud.
They should make this a case study for the young cadets at OCS so
that they learn to earn respect from the men that they have to
lead.
