Why Doctors Earn a Lot

A few Saturdays ago, due to exceptionally poor braking technique on the bicycle, I ended up with some pretty nasty, though ultimately harmless, injuries. As luck would have it, the batch of recruits we were taking then were due to have their Graduation march and parade the following Monday. It seemed to me a very bad idea to try and wear a LBV when there was a big open wound on one shoulder, so I took medical leave for the first time since enlistment. Geez.
I had to pay the doctor a good fifty dollars. It seems terribly expensive. The doctor made only the most superficial and general observations, prescribed a bunch of non-essential medications, most of which I didn't even use in the end, and breezed through any questions. Not to put down the medical profession, but I could have done this particular call myself. The only difference would have been that I wouldn't have had the authority to make out a certificate requesting medical leave. Damnit. I guess it's the price to pay to prove yourself a genuine sick case.
Does it have to be? If integrity were a more common thing in society, perhaps we could trust people to recommend themselves for sick leave without abusing the authority---but of course, History has demonstrated that it is not so wise to trust so much in human nature. That does not rule out exceptions in specific cases, when perhaps a supervisor is willing to accept his/her charge's claims of not feeling well as genuine without a professional opinion, based on the specific circumstances. In general, however, it would seem that the monopoly of the medical profession over medical leave is indeed a necessary evil. It is not a perfect solution---a physician might be inclined to give medical leave out freely to family or friends, for instance---but it's a roughly workable on, and better than nothing. Even if the added content of the "professional" opinion doesn't amount to much, the fact that the patient was willing to go to the trouble and expense of getting it supports the thesis that the medical problem was genuine.

Own Time Own Target

It was actually quite funny, though perhaps a little towards the slapstick side ... '"So, what would you like to to say about your men?" "They are a bunch of chee ... ... ampions."' But it seemed to capture so much of the NS atmosphere ... a mixture of coarseness, sian-ness, cock-ups, petty sqabbling and good old camaraderie.
It would be quite sad if Singapore's top brass really were but a bunch of work-avoiding, know-nothing goofers, or if the media were as muzzled as it was made out to be in Full Tank ... but it's probably just exaggeration for a good purpose. The intent of satire is after all to correct by exposing to ridicule.
Watching Botak Boys, on the hand, was a little like watching my own life from a different perspective, although the plot focus wasn't entirely on BMT per se. It's a useful thing, and not the least uninteresting either, to look at the same things you see every day through different eyes sometimes. You notice things you usually might not, or things just appear in a new light, different relief. In this case, I think the most salient point was how arbitrary, and sometimes dehumanising, BMT can seem to recruits; and hence the importance of conducting it in such a way as to diminish or counteract this impression ... and to think BMT instructors had once been recruits before too. Strange. It's almost as though empathy doesn't extend through time ... or perhaps it is just far too weak against the combination of the demands of training and sheer laziness.

Sergeant

Frankly, I don't particularly like hearing a rank attached to my name. Especially my current rank. Because it reminds me of all the heavy responsibilities that come with it and all the bullshit one faces trying to carry them out; of all the great expectations or dim views that people have of it; of all the times those expectations and slights have been downright unreasonable and unwarranted, and, worse, all the occasions when you have failed to live up to reasonable expectations and vindicated those low opinions.
The positive thing to do would be to remember the lessons but not the sting, and to try my best to live up to the responsibility and expectations. But at some level, all the baggage the word carries will never go away.

Proactivity

On the second day of Exercise Warrior, when we were on our way to the platoon ambush site in the rain which had been going on since forever, this guy with two plum blossoms on his epaulette and a red beret came up and started talking to the GPMG team. (Or maybe he didn't have his red beret then, but for some reason in my memory his red beret was an inseparable part of him, whatever the rest of his attire.) 'Hi ... what do you think is the MG commander's job? ... It's to look for a job to do. You should never be waiting around doing nothing ... go and find an arc of fire to cover, run somewhere and deploy your guys ...' And then he went off to talk to the trainee platoon sergeant.
Then the only response we could muster, being handicapped by thoroughly soaked attire and a full combat load, was "okay, so it's true that the higher your rank, the more you talk." Now, his comments start to make rather more sense. The MG is a powerful asset, and the commander should be constantly trying to maximise its effect, to get it to work for the rest of the platoon, so that life is made that little bit easier for the whole platoon.

Post-Admin

'Until quite recently, then, the American military Services have been inclined to consider post-conflict operations not as a part of war itself, but as something belonging to its aftermath—a view that has obscured “the fact that the principal condition for strategic success in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was the establishment of a political (and to a certain extent an economic) order favorable to the United States.”'
Echoing, on a larger scale, Staff Alan's remark to the effect that the exercise isn't over until the post-admin is complete.

Spot the Difference

How do you get from Rocky Hill to Ladang when the company hasn't indented enough vehicles to bring you along?

1. Pass your LBV, helmet and SAR21 to someone going by tonner, then go for a run. (That's OC.)
2. Hitchhike on a contractor's van. (That's Tiong, Mel and Reid, who, to be fair, did not have anyone to pass their GPMG to.)
   

Presenting The Tiong

The epitome of relaxed. You thought you were relaxed? Evidently you haven't seen The Tiong yet. He's very relaxed. Relaxed enough to sit intently in front of the computer during his shift as DOS, fully engaged in ... playing Bloons. In his admin attire, with boots by the side. You want to be more relaxed than that? It'll be hard.

387 more days to ORD

Sunday, October 19 2008. 1422. Fair, slightly overcast.

What a week.
On Thursday, I finally managed to convince myself I am not hopeless at shooting. Which, incidentally, means that my No. 4 just became a little bit less plain. The joy.
The day after that, there was a big conflagration. Oh well. It was all a misunderstanding. Really, it was. Why does someone have to take the blame? (Although, in the end, after a slightly nasty argument, no one really did) Isn't it altogether better to forget the whole blame business and focus on trying to prevent it from happening again? Yes, what happened that morning was not very nice. And all involved should take responsibility. But it is a plainly stupid and primitive view that equates 'take responsibility' with 'sign extras'. I fully agree that I am partly to blame for what happened. But I do not see how this justifies three extras (and none to anyone else involved) and would have refused to sign without raising hell over it first. Extras for permstaff are used far too liberally here. As is PT for recruits. The bottom line is, fear and other negative emotions are more efficient way of producing conformity. Not a nice thing to realise, but maybe that's the way the truth usually is.

After that Syukri and Hashim came to tell me that I was being 'too soft on the recruits.' Probably true. Hmm. I am becoming the mirror image of Sergeant Huang. Maybe eventually I will attain de facto permanent COS position, too. A terrible thought.
But I guess they were right ... I should become more demanding. Stricter but not necessarily fiercer. Surely there must be some way to pull this off without liberally meting out push-ups ... we shall see. Next week is supposed to be hell week, after all the specialists raised a ruckus with OC this Friday and asked for more freedom to discipline their platoons. And IFC lessons are starting too. After that there's field camp. So, in some sense, the next two weeks and a bit are supposed to be the toughest and most memorable part of BMT. Less, of course, 24-klick. How will the recruits come out of it? And how well will you do as instructor? We shall see ...

What do I remember vividly so far, in my own NS? Sitting at the back of the Cougar lecture room, not being able to hear much, listening to Xiaowen counting down the time to the first bookout in minutes. The admonishment Lieutenant Na gave me over losing my status slip: "Soldiers aren't supposed to be like that." Being the last man to finish the SOC rundown, with all the instructors running behind me in a huge, noisy cloud ("Hurry up! Go! @#$%^&*!"). And then, in SISPEC, once again the sensation of exhaustion after every SOC rundown, the Strength Training sessions involving never-ending static exercises and Sergeant Tay going "Don't believe him. This PTI is a liar!" while doing the push-ups with us, the long overnight marches during Grandslam 2, and then finally the time I fell out of Warrior, with all the instructors shouting at me. And, strangely, ASLC dispersal. I don't really remember all the times we were tekaned. The concrete memory fades, leaving only the memory of the fact ("yes, we did do a lot of push-ups" or "yes, we were made to leopard crawl through the mud"). Tekan is unpleasant and of no value in itself, so the mind relegates it to the far reaches of memory, leaving it to be eroded by the sands of time, hopefully leaving the lessons learnt. I don't remember most of the long route marches either; they are now only faint memories. What I remember is the sense of great physical challenge or occasions when others' words struck a deep chord.

In other news, I'll be exactly halfway through NS when my current batch of recruits complete their BMT. Whoo.

[654]

Subscribe to This V3R or Carry On Twenty

V3R here referring not to the Motorola RAZR phone, but to "shared Vision, Rules, Roles and Relationships"---the tenets of the SAF's supposed team-building model. Every NSF in the Army now would have gone through at least two sessions in which their section / platoon / syndicate would be asked to sit around and discuss their vision for the course / posting and set down rules, describe roles and decide how they wanted their relationships to be, in order to achieve that vision. On paper, that is a Very Good Idea. Discussion produces synthesis, produces agreement, promotes participation and involvement. But it never quite works out. The "shared vision" usually ends up as a bland, unwieldy pastiche of generic, undescriptive homilies. Something that people would hesitate to believe in whole-heartedly even if they wanted to. The rules and roles are glossed over briefly, and a less unwieldy but no less bland homily stands in to describe the rules of conduct for "relationships". Hardly anyone is willing to put in the necessary effort needed to produce genuine synthesis, consensus and agreement. Instead, the participants invariably agree to cut short the session so that everyone can go for lunch, and acquiesce in the first semblance of a compromise that can be formulated. More time is needed, if it is really to be a Very Good Idea.
How many people really do partake in a Shared Vision, at the end of this somewhat farcical process? Not many, surely. And if that is the answer, how can the description, "Shared Vision", still stand, when it is only shared by so few of the people it should be shared amongst?
This isn't just a problem that presents itself in the narrow circle of Singaporean NSFs. Humankind could achieve so much if it were united in purpose---but, of course, we are not. We are all individuals with our own individual dreams and purposes, and these will invariably clash at times. And compromise and true alignment of purpose takes time and effort---plenty of both. Which means, considering how stingy people usually are with either of those, it doesn't happen.
Where shared intent fails, there arise incentive structures. That's why incentive structures pop up everywhere in human society---because shared intent fails so often. Think of all the instances where incentive structures are inducing people to align their actions with others' vision and intents: push-ups for not following your platoon sergeant's injunction to move fast, or execution by hanging for drug trafficking, or a potential $5 gain for selling that book you're not going to read again to a willing buyer, even though you're not particularly into sharing books. The spirit of Adam Smith still trumps that of Marx at resource allocation any day.

Transition into new job

Not altogether smooth, really. But I think it's easing up now. Spots of the past week, recorded as handphone memos at odd times:
Not sure what to do, sense of uselessness
Just don't want to book in, wake up early, have to face the platoon and section the whole day. And my colleagues and the PC and the OC.
Damnit the highbeams are blinding me.
It's only as stressful as you make it out to be, really.
But it's a bit easier to work now that the recruits aren't so stunned and actually respond a bit. Discipline is still a problem though. Need to learn to start scolding and punishing soon ... unfortunately.
And yes, your voice is incredibly flat. After talking to the whole platoon for a while it becomes a downer even to yourself. Work on it, please.

What actually happens during regimental duties.

I typed this out as a memo in my handphone while doing guard duty at Rocky Hill Camp on the seventh of this month:
One o'clock at training shed next to Zulu coy sitting and staring at a whiteboard in the darkness, waiting for the shift to end at two.
[My buddy was playing his PSP]
We were just observing the norm. Really.

A fortnight spent listening to Senior Personnel

Some of whom, of course, were better speakers than the others. The parts I remembered most vividly, nonetheless, were not necessarily presented by the best speakers. They were the real-life anecdotes which some of them sprinkled to underline their point. Some of them were really inspiring, even if they were not particularly well presented. Such as the Commando Encik who insisted on running a 100km ultramarathon despite suffering from food poisoning, and who eventually helped his team clinch second overall. They were all the more inspiring for having been real, for having the added dimension of sincerity as compared to all the dry and 'airy' theory that formed the bulk of the presentations.
The other strong impression I got was that all the theory and skills we were being taught were no more than common sense, only now put into a framework, given some structure. Neuro-Linguistic Programming, in particular, although that might have been because we were taught a simplified and somewhat bowdlerised version of that. Maybe that is what knowledge and wisdom are after all: only the conscious, systematic organisation of what we naturally know as common sense into frameworks and structures. Or maybe common sense is just a chimera. As Voltaire put it, 'On dit quelquefois: "Le sens commun est fort rare."' : 'Common sense is not so common'.

A long overdue account of Starlight

Day 0: 26 July 2008.
Spent the last night before Taiwan figuring out the saddle point between minimum time spent as a stone at Changi Airport and minimum cost incurred going there. Finally settled on taking the 33 all the way to Bedok and then taking a taxi from there. The cab fare worked out to about $11, including midnight surcharge. Not too bad, although it did take more than 2 hours on the road. But it was a nice nap on the bus, and anyway the time would have been spent sleeping either at home or at the airport anyway. Same difference. Bedok bus interchange at 1 am was extremely quiet. And almost deserted. It was like the whole town centre was asleep.
Changi Airport was pretty quiet too; guess there aren't too many flights between the midnight rush and the sunrise rush. Terminal 3 is a nice and spacious place. The shops inside the passenger waiting area are arranged nicely around the corridors so that the whole place looks like a bustling shopping street. And the fountains and greenery outside the waiting area are pretty pleasant.
Presently it's time to fall-in. Regimentation begins.
About half a dozen hours later we arrive at Taipei. We step off the plane, cruise through the unremarkable and rather empty airport (does Taiwan get this little air traffic? Strange) and step out to board the bus ... hallelujah. Are you sure we didn't just step into a sauna?
It's a long bus ride. About 5 hours to Meilin. And then training begins.

Phase 1A -- Training: Until 7 August 2008.
Training was, well, training. Something I don't really want to talk about and can't even if I did, courtesy of the collective blockheadnesses of MP Command, MSD, Mindef, the Cabinet, the PAP, Old Harry, and the Man. Suffice to say it was like training in Singapore writ large: mountains instead of hills, hills where there would have been microknolls, extreme heat and humidity, even worse than in Singapore, and distances magnified at least fourfold. Oh, yes, and the views from up high were excellent. Too bad we weren't allowed cameras.

Phase 1B -- Should have been Training: 7 to 12 August 2008.
But my immune system and the sandflies conspired to make it otherwise. Their very successful joint operation resulted in my being confined to the Medical Centre in camp for 5 days. So while my comrades continued to charge hills, march overnight and sleep at odd times in uncomfortable positions, I observed the sick bay ceiling, cleaned the medical centre, reported the current temperature to the Ops Room every hour during daylight hours, and watched TV. Caught the Olympic opening ceremony, which was truly spectacular, and a couple of movies.
Also went to a hospital in Douliu, the nearest town, twice. Once on the 8th, right after I came in, and once on the 12th. Douliu is a pretty unremarkable town, but it seemed the epitome of urban bustle after we'd been out in the field for more than 2 weeks, when the largest human settlements we saw were villages, with no more than a dozen or two low-rise buildings.
The MO and medic were also nice enough to buy me breakfast in town both times. It tasted particularly excellent after combat rations and cookhouse food, although on hindsight it was perhaps just of the usual standard for Chinese roadside stalls. Burgers (freshly-made, not fast-food-style factory-made) and chicken cutlets figure quite prominently in Taiwan, somehow. American influence, perhaps.

On my release I went to join the rest of the platoon to do post-administration, packing up our bags and everything ... and promptly had to fall out after getting rather giddy in the overwhelming afternoon heat. Oh dear. Maybe I had been lounging in the air-conditioned Medical Centre for a little too long.

Phase 2 -- Rest & Relaxation! : 13 to 15 August 2008.
Despite all the drama of Phase 1B, I still got the full three days of R&R. Incredible and amazing.
A guided tour took up the first two days. It was, well, not too great. First the tour guide went crazy (but then she was quite helpful afterwards so we should just forgive her), then we visited an amusement park. Two roller-coasters promptly convinced me that undue accelerations weren't exactly my thing ><. And then there was the highlight ... getting suspended, sort of, at the top of a 110-metre vertical drop right before you plunge down, perpendicularly. What a thought, no? By the first day night we had reached Taipei. The second day we went out again, to two more amusement parks, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Did someone mention the word 'repetitive'? Yes, it is a very apt word to use here. The second one was really more for children. And by the time we reached the third ... we were all getting just a little bored. Fortunately, the guided tour didn't eat up all of the three days. So on the first and second evenings, we poked our heads around the major shopping areas. 士林夜市 and 西门町.
Not particularly remarkable, actually. The atmosphere and stuff on sale weren't very different from, say, major shopping areas in Singapore. Other than the food which was excellent. The mango ice was nice (except I bought too large a portion and got a stomachache), and using pastry to wrap up crushed pastry (大饼包小饼) produced an intriguing and pleasant texture. Oh yes, and there was this shop tucked in the 万年 Department Store in 西门町 that specialised entirely in Japanese magazines and design catalogues ... or actually I'm not quite sure how to describe the sort of publications. Somewhere in between the two, or maybe both at once. Like coffee-table books in that they were full of pictures and graphics, but not entirely that since they also had plenty of words and verbal description ... there were regular magazines, and unofficial owners' guides for various models of cars, collections of logos, colour catalogues, collections of drawings of anime characters, and more. Quite an interesting shop, and probably something you wouldn't find here. Or maybe I'm just being ignorant about it. (EDIT: Yes you can find such a thing here. Go to Kinokuniya's flagship store and look in the "Graphic" section.) Also, Taiwan is full of convenience stores, particularly 7-11's. Just an observation.
The last day was given over entirely to free and easy. Followed Pui Kit and Yihan to the 故宫博物馆 (National Palace Museum) for the morning. The Museum was quite a sight: large and grand, almost like a palace.
After viewing the superb lacquerware collection and a few of the other exhibits, a few of them rather jaw-dropping (the piece of braised meat or the cabbage, both carved out whole from precious stones, for example, or the concentric ivory spheres carved out of what was originally one solid piece of ivory) we split; Pui Kit went to visit Taipei 101 and Yihan somewhere southwest of Taipei, while I went, with Afiq in tow, to airmail excess cargo (which turned out to be a really bad decision, financially, in the end, but never mind that), and then to 中正纪念堂 (CKS Memorial Hall). Larked around the huge square around the Memorial Hall for a while, then went off to 鼎泰丰，a twenty-minute walk away, for lunch.
The 小笼包 were really excellent: the meat and soup just melted in your mouth. The egg soup was quite tasty too. It was most unfortunate Afiq couldn't eat anything there ><. After that we headed back, by foot all the way, passing by the National Theatre, built in traditional style with a huge Chinese roof, various government buildings built in an imposing and large style, the President's Office and the huge 凯达格兰大道 (Ketagalan Boulevard), the rather messy bus station. Taipei felt a bit like a mix between 厦门 and 南京, and perhaps 浦东. The parts around City Hall and Taipei 101 were most like 浦东: wide roads and broad plazas and skyscrapers, and bustling commerce. The bits near the Presidential Office were more like 南京: broad roads and facades, imposing buildings, lots of greenery and open space, an air of official seriousness. The parts around our hotel and further north and east were most like 厦门: old buildings, a little dilapidated, a faint air of faded glory. The place as a whole was rather less crowded than most cities on mainland China, or even today's Singapore, come to think of it. Singapore is getting awfully crowded. The MRT is often standing-space-only even during off-peak hours, and the difficult crowds in the shopping centres make movement at anything beyond a leisurely saunter difficult. Even the RJ campus feels like it's getting more and more cramped. But excuse me. Digression.And the people seemed rather more polite and civilised. They queued up to board the MRT, unlike the huge crowds congregating around the doors and squeezing in here, or in China. On the escalators people would automatically keep to the right if they weren't moving. People didn't seem to be in so much of an impatient rush everywhere, and didn't show any impatience if you asked them for directions or other help.
And, on the whole, Taiwan felt more Chinese than China. Here you hear Chinese being spoken everywhere, see signs on the roads and shops purely in Chinese and generally just feel soaked in Chinese. Whereas on the mainland there are plenty of people trying to practise English, the Chinese signs are usually accompanied by bad English translations, and the general perception that things Western must be better than things Chinese is still alive in some corners.

Day 21: 16 August 2008
And then we came back. A most uneventful journey homewards. Taipei CKS International was rather busier on the day we came back. Maybe it was just the time.

Back to school, again.

Hey, guess what? The System sent your writer straight back to Tekong. It was sort of expected, actually. Yes, I am happy about it. It really is, as Corporal Floor's good friend noted, the ideal situation. There was the usual mixed bag of reactions at postings. People were either elated at getting into 6 SIR, less than thrilled at getting into one of the other SIRs, glad or disappointed at going back to Tekong, or slightly stunned and flabbergasted at their unusual posting. Care to join the Australian at ATEC, anyone?

Why conscript service can be no fun.

The context of the below quote is somewhat different., but some parts of it are still salient. Here goes :--
'My service had been a period of utter loneliness, mixed with apathy and pensiveness, and at the time I was too young to understand it all.' -- from this site.

Wha?

A military coup in Singapore? Was the Old Man thinking when he said that? A conscript army led by depoliticised commanders carrying out a coup? Unless he meant that the Party would infiltrate the SAF and use it as a tool ... you know, maybe. The WOSPEC corps is quite thoroughly depoliticised but also thoroughly accustomed to obeying and carrying out orders, since that is its job after all. The top of the Officers' Corp, on the other hand is quite the other way. Hmm.

What Walsh said ...

(the below refers to article linked to by previous post)
... was probably very true. It's telling enough that Armour and Signals camps don't have halal cookhouses. There are probably some antiquated mindsets lying around regarding promotion and the role of women in the military, which would take rather a bit of time to change. And inexperience will always be a problem until the day, heaven forbid, war actually breaks out in this Most Serene Republic.
But taking a broader, possibly rougher, view, the problems mentioned read like a list of problems that Singapore faces as a putative nation-state, writ small in the military arena.
We are a small Chinese-majority dot in a Muslim sea. Hence the peculiar issues of ethnic politics involved. The Scholar has been the highest caste, so to speak, (and the soldier one of the lowliest) in Confucianist society since time immemorial. And probably will be for some time, even after the liberation of Gen X has messed up 'traditional mindsets'. Hence a somewhat unreasonable prominence of Scholars in the promotion scheme, a large and inordinately prestigious officers' corps and a mildly hackneyed attitude towards women in the military. Hierachy and deference to authority, also, figure prominently here and take on an even harder dimension in the military -- hence the extreme focus on doctrine. And Singaporeans proudly proclaim themselves kiasi -- hence the scripted live-firing exercises and what Walsh describes as an inordinate focus on safety.
And so really, barring half-measures and perhaps broad organisational changes that I am absolutely not qualified to comment on (someone further down in that thread linked to suggested shrinking the officers' corps and expanding the WOSPEC corps, for example), these weaknesses will only be remedied slowly, incrementally, at perhaps no more than a snail's pace, as Singaporean society changes, perhaps as the world around changes and forces Singapore to change.
Meanwhile, we're stuck with low security clearances for Malays, the absolute rule of doctrine, parachuted lesson plans, scripted live-firing exercises and continued scholar-farmer conflict.
Wonderful.
Meanwhile, this quote from the thread was probably more meaningful than all that crap I just wrote:
'Stupid people start wars, stupid people run wars, and stupid people won't listen to those who fight the wars' - Gen. (Retired) Robin Olds, USAF.
Sort of reminds me of how our sergeants are attacking the Officers' Corps all day for planning on paper and holding higher authority for it. 纸上谈兵, in a way.

For reference in the near future

The article cited and displayed here shall be the subject of much discussion here this coming week.

Postings.

Plus ça change ... oh well. Thirteen more weeks of the same. At least the end-of-course date is nicely placed.