That Sergeant Should be Hammered

In a week's time, I am going to finally reunite with my pink IC, yet the days leading up to it are less than bliss. In fact torturous is an understatement though not physically but mentally. It's a massive struggle against the roving tentacles of the sergeants who refuse to leave me alone. This post must open with a caveat. There would be vulgarities because it would be a long tirade against those bastards whom don't deserve a single bit to wear those three stripes on their sleeves.

This hatred for those assholes whom are a rank higher than me did not start overnight. It has been a war of a sorts and a daily struggle throughtout my life in the army. Sometimes I wonder how on earth this organisation make idiots like them 'leaders of the infantry'. The three word phrase demands more responsibilty than it looks. Yet, the people that graduate as these 'leaders' are seldom of any responsibility or quality. As far as my experience with these 'leaders' go, I have never seen one that was worthy to be addressed as one or respected as such. So this tirade is not aim at all sergeants in the organisation in general but just to that certain few that I have came across in my time here.

My initial perception of sergeants were that there were a bunch of middle men trapped in the centre of a long chain of hierarchy. With limited powers, there were often caught in difficult situations that requires finesse and intellect to get out of. Being a sergeant is definately more difficult than being an officer or an enlisted man because you have to satisfy both sides and it is seldom easy. With the mentality of 'slacking' consistent in the minds of many NSFs, the rank of a sergeant is often a much hated appointment.

So it was no wonder that none of them that I have come across has the ability to even come close to performing anywhere near what they are required to. Especially so in the case of my vocation. Due to the signing of my secret oath of allegiance to the SAF, I cannot reveal the unit I come from but I will reveal their attitude.

The sergeants in my place are nothing but mere scums. Unworthy of any respect that should be accorded them. My first sergeant was a power crazy manic that believed he was sent to this earth as the ruler of weaklings. His special desire everyday was to see himself being in total control of his men so that they can carry out his wants. Granting 'special priviledges' to individuals that carry out his orders were what he promised. But these priviledges were neither special nor extraordinary because they were basic human rights. I remember a tale that best described him. It was a case about a government in charge of a country filled with fishermen. However one day, the government decided to confiscate all their equipment to fish. It left the fishermen oppressed and helpless but the government said it will grant these fishermen 'special priviledges' if they carry out their task and behave themselves. And these 'special priviledges' were fish. Fish that the fishermen could have caught themselves if they did not have their fishing equipment confiscated. So exactly like this fictitious story, that sergeant was like the government who denied us our basic rights as a living breathing human and forced us to submit to his whims and wants and in return, only a small portion of basic rights deemed as 'priviledges' were given to us.

When his power mad days were over, another two sergeants came in to replace his throne. Although both looked credible in the first few days, things slowly collasped faster than dominoes. One of them was as spineless as a parasite. He had neither the ability nor the resolve to make his own decisions and often left all the difficult ones to his counterpart. His counterpart was no better as he was under the influenced of the power mad sergeant that just left and he tried to be a poor prototype.

With two sergeants at helm, their reign was a great cause of confusion and it left many matters unresolved. They created acrimony and bewilderment in their often senseless decisions. So now it was not the matter of confiscating the fishing equipment anymore. It was a matter of returning the fishing equipment but drawing up restrictive boundaries all over the sea in which the fishermen could fish.

It was like saying:' Here is the fishing equipment for you guys to fish but out of the three zones that you can fish, 2 and 3/4 of it are no fishing zones. The remaining quarter can be used to fish but certain areas in it requires permission from relevant authorites. '

This created a sense of elation at first but confusion, anger and bewilderment soon after.

I wondered after looking at my short anecdote of these three sergeants that were in charged of me, was I justified to feel aggrieved? I felt so but it was not only these matters that concerned me. It was the sergeants' total lack of recognition for the good work done by the men.

I speak for all my fellow ORD mates. In my period of service, I have went through countless of task, routines and have even went out of my way to do jobs that were not supposed to be mine. I have worked without complaints when they changed my working system to duties every alternate days. I worked without complaints when I was tasked to take over the sergeant's job temporarily due to a shortage of manpower. I worked without complaints as I sought to make all my new guys understand the intricacies of the task at hand and I worked without any complaints when my duties overlapped into my off days.

For so long, my friends and I have done so much and went all out to serve our nation and yet a week before we ORD, we are still made to do more. Our hard work has went unappreciated as these new sergeants failed to realize that the reason why they are seating comfortably and ordering their lackeys around was because we built that foundation for them. We ensured that work done was of the highest standard with no room for complacency. We ensured that our new guys are always ready when tasked upon a duty. And now, the recognition for our hard work is not there.

Our present life a week before we ord can still be compared to a beggar's life. We beg for more mercy to be left alone and on good days we recieve a few penny's that are too little even to buy a drink and on bad days we are given nothing but a kick on the face and the words' FUCK OFF!'. Our pride and ego are shredded yet they refuse to give up and they intend to shred even our basic rights of life.

We are treated as mere digits or rather robots that are wanted when there is use but discarded when we are past our expiry date. Yet before discarding, we are used to the fullest and squeezed to our dryest before we are unceremoniously dumped into the bin with the word 'condemn' on our heads.

Where is the humanity in us? Are we just going to be dumped without any appreciation for our hard work? I am not sure if this is just an organisation problem or a country's problem in a whole because this work attitude towards the subordinates serves no one any good. Morale would be on an all time low and standards of work will drop tremendously. Subordinates will quit and in this case of SAF, start a civil disobedience and refuse to carry out any task. Is there a need for all these?

All we ask for is a certain degree of recognition. Show us some human decency and don't treat us as your dogs. Come to think about it, dogs have better treatment than us because they are loved and cared for by their owners. But WE are not. The Sergeants had better 'wake up their idea'. At least we can forgive if innately you don't have the capability to be a sergeant because some people are just born STUPID but if you have that thread of humanity, at least, at the very very least, you may see your respect go up by a slight notch.