Episode III

My life in this batt seems to have taken a turn for the busier. There is a lot of crap a 2IC is supposed to do. And having scored three extras for leaving a stamp on the table isn't going to help it much. Over a week, i think i managed somehow to get 3 CDO duties, as well as 2 BDO and 3 extras. Hmmm....... something doesnt seem quite right here. And my company is on standby next weekend. Im going to see more of camp than of home. Immediately after the standby we're going on deployment. Sigh. More and more i long for the simple life of a PC. At least there were the men. Now it seems an endless barrage of assignments and duties. There are lots of things that need to be done. And it has come at a most opportune time...

DO duty sucks. I was supposed to go and receive Junwei when he came back from the states. Haven't seen that bugger in almost 4 years. wait, more than 4 years. Wonder how much he had changed. i bet we all did. It must have been quite a shock. Haven seen my Sec sch mates for quite a while either. How much have they changed?

I was chatting with jo the other night. we'd come a long long way since we carpooled to school 6 years ago. A long journey that changes all of us. She was commenting that all of us had grown up. Some more cynical, some more jaded, some completely awry, some just out of whack. Has this life we led corrupted the thinking of young minds? Or is it the penetrating tendrils of society and the stark harshness of the real world that hardens our thinking?

For me, it was army that facilitated the transformation. Coming in as a young, green recruit, i enjoyed BMT and the camaraderie that existed between my platoon mates. We all were the 'scholar batch' and thus enjoyed some privileges. That i do not deny. But does it make us any inferior to other more 'siong' companies? i think not. Then came OCS. Once more, i ended up in the 'scholar batch'. This time it was different. We were whacked beyond our limits, beyond recognising, and many times beyond reason. Why? Because life is a BITCH. Yes, thats it, life is a BITCH. You put in your 100%, someone else doesn't, everyone gets the shit that flies from the fan. And furthermore, its not always the most qualified or the one who puts in the most effort that gets the place of respect and honour. It seems to me, at the end of my course, that most of those graded better were ball-carrying, boot-licking, apple-polishing bastards, who happened to know a way to get what they want by any and all means possible. Even if it meant total disregard for the rules and for others. To them, the end justifies the means.

And now, in this batt...... sigh. somehow i managed to see the symptoms before everyone else did. There is something dreadfully wrong. Its spreading... the sense of unease and dissatisfaction. Or is it the gradual awakening to the truth of the real world? "Welcome to the desert of the real world," Morpheus said in the Matrix. Is it that when we are young our world is but a collection of illusions that we hold to ourselves? And the price of growing up is the stripping of these illusions, the revelation of the real world.

You know, maybe bat2 was right. young, stupid. Not green, but stupid enough to believe that green is all that we are.


"So this is how freedom dies. To thunderous applause."