Just my two cents worth.
I was an instructor at the old ITD (camp 3 P. Tekong) back in
85-87.
What you are subject to, the entire platoon paying for one person's
mistakes, never good, clean, fast or even loud enough is almost
always mistaken for 'tekan' or 'sado masochistic' behaviour
control. The real (seldom understood) reason is to grind you down
then build you up. The process is supposed to make you mentally
stronger, not feeble bullet catches. To make a solider really
charge at a bayonet dummy is meaningless unless the fear is
overcomed. When you are at your most tired, your most hungry, your
most painful state is when your buddy needs you to do the
impossible.
It is not a mindless grind to make us all sausages of equal
diameter or stuffed with sh**. But questioning an order can prove
more fatal than you think. Take the Immediate Ambush Drill. Basic
Instinct makes you either freeze, cringe and take cover or worst of
all run away from the threat. The best response is to charge into
the enemy position. This takes conditioning and to overcome the
primal fear of pain or death. That is what the true aim of these
'tekan' methods seeks to achieve (in an ideal world).
Once a recruit (from a scholar batch) asked if I needed to give my
instructions through shouts or threats. The only reason why we put
on a gruff image (other then misapprehension of what is macho) is
that in conditioning my boys (yes, I always 'adopt' my recruits for
their BMT as my boys) to respond to instructions to are
communicated asap. Can you imagine if your NCO crowering behind the
base of the next rubber tree asking using a even tone "Mr XXX, can
you kindly shift to the next cover so that Mr YYY can find space
between us, and at the same time please give us more of your
covering fire"? (well trained soliders will easily know the SAF
version of that order).
Anyone who has been through the Section Assult Course at BCTC (the
final grind for NSMen) will know at an instance what is it like to
be at the sharp end of the blade. Any mistake costs lives this is
proven time and time again. The proof of the pudding is in the
eating, hope we don't have to pay too high a price to see which is
a better method of winning a war. In case anyone has any doubts
training in the SAF is to fight and win a war with less
casualities.
