Tuesday, March 08, 2005

This is a letter to all SAF sergeants:

Hi, to all you egoistic THIRD SERGEANTS. Oops, sorry you people must be called commanders. After all you people crashed the jungle two months longer than me. I am an ENLISTED MAN. Yes, you must be sniggering and using your three stripes to wipe away your drool. "Chao corporal kao bei so much. Wait I knock you down twenty." Before you ever have any of that nonsense circulating in your head, let me tell you that is the bloody reason you are getting this letter.
First let me tell you guys, a THIRD SERGEANT is a piece of shit in the army. I mean they are neither here nor there. They are not a man that does the work on the ground, neither are there officers who command the whole operations. They are just middlemen(read extras) who bump around and ask the men to do stuff. Stuff which they have been ordered to do by the superiors. When the job is not done, the first to lose the temper and head is the sergeant. He screams his head off and spout nonsense that nobody is interested to hear. He also gets screwed left right and center because he can't get things right.
Let me tell you sergeant. In a section there are about 7- 10 men. AND only one of you. If you continue to rub your manhood with that three stripes of yours and think that you are very big, let me tell you that it would not work. If your man don't carry out what you demands you will be in deep shit and there is nothing we can do to save you. You better cooperate with us if you want to see results.
I hate sergeants who proclaim that " I am King! I can let you do anything you want if you do the job!" King my ass. YOU, a THIRD SERGEANT, deserves a THIRD FINGER. You can sit there is slippers and singlet and demand the men to help out with the work. Why don't you lead by example and GET your LAZY ass on the job?
And don't "play rank" for goodness sake. Don't say " Look at this(he uses his hand to brush the three stripes) . I COMMAND you to do this."
All of us are after all NATIONAL SERVICE FULLTIME guys. We serve two years and when we finish we become civilians again. It is easy to get caught up with the whole army thing where people in command treat the people they command like dirt. But don't forget, two years of misery can result in a lifetime of regret for you sergeant. There are many ways to get a job done. And good leadership does not demand respect. If you are good, the men will naturally respect you and work hard for you. Once you have to stooped so low as to say that " I command you, so you better do it." Then you know, you have lost control of your men. I wish to end this letter by highlighting the army slogan that is plastered all over Singapore. COMMANDING RESPECT, RESPECTING COMMAND.


A CORPORAL

No comments: