I think I've realised what people hate most. Having all this time to ruminate in the army, I've realised that it probably comes close to this. People hate being stuck in something and having no real way out of it in sight. But here's something even better. I've personally experienced a situation of being stuck in something and having no way out twice over in one situation. And before you write me off in disbelief, I shall show you how in one sentence.
Wanting to take a dump while in the army but not having any toilet paper in sight in the whole company line.
Now that is one super farked up situation. Firstly, you're already stuck in camp and sad enough about that. secondly, you feel constipated in every sense of the word. And it happened to me.
That fateful night, I was looking for an empty, clean and working toilet. In my camp, finding a toilet that works fine, is clean and not occupied is like striking a lottery, only that the chance of all 3 occuring at the same time is similar to that in a singaporean hawker centre. Its like some jackpot machine with 3 slots. 99% of the time you don't get it.
Howver, this time I was lucky enough to find one. Unfortunately, there wasn't any paper. I frantically checked all the cubicles. There weren't any either.
I checked all 4 levels of my company line and the result was the same. In one day, my company had somehow managed to exhaust like 15 rolls of toilet paper. But I guess it happened that day because of a cleanliness inspection earlier.
When people want something clean in the army, they mean so clean that they can't find a single speck of dust. In other words they want everything impossibly clean and since it is impossible, its just a good excuse for releasing that frustration they feel every morning after asking themselves why they signed on. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean you stop trying to clean the bunk because I like clean bunks and doubly because the staff sarge will probably smoke in the bunk and dirty it further. Jackass.
But anyway, the lack of toilet paper was becoming a real concern. Luckily for me, I was fortunate enough to find enough tissue paper from friends by asking around. The next morning, a friend of mine from another platoon asked me if there was any toilet paper. I heard he ended up using newspaper.
Now that I'm done with a stupid toilet episode, here's a stupider one. A few days back we had a practice shoot for range, or IMT. Since it wasn't at our camp, we had to take a bus to the venue. So we fall in early by 6am, expecting to see buses taking us to our destination so that we can practice shooting and become decisive soldiers of a decisive force. Ok, maybe that last part wasn't necessary but I thought the army was particularly proud of it and as a part of them I ought to spread their propaganda.
So we fall in, and guess what? There aren't enough buses! Apparently some idiot above thought that 190 people or so could fit in two buses, despite the fact that they split us into five different details for five buses! Maybe they've been involved in human smuggling, where you see people fit into the boot, under the bus and in all those secret compartments you never knew existed. Otherwise I don't see how its possible that anyone with half a brain would make an assumption that a bus that normally sits 40 can suddenly sit 95 people. Or maybe that's the crux of the issue. Idiots don't have brains.
So what does the army do when they make a mistake? If your answer was recitfy it immediately, you're wrong on two counts. Firstly, they don't rectify the problem immediately. Secondly, they start blaming people until someone accepts the blame and solves the problem.
Now we had a situation where about 100 people were unable to reach their destination. And in the army, when something goes wrong, someone must be blamed. So there commenced a session of finger-pointing and feigning ignorance and eventually one tonner appeared an hour later to carry some 50 people off. So there are still 50 people or so who still are going nowhere, including me. We eventually reached our destination, but 4 hours later.
However, the fact that such a situation existed spoke volumes about the efficiency of the army. That's one side of the army that you never see on TV.
The stupid thing is that the army you see on TV and the army I'm serving are two different armies. The one on TV doesn't exist, or if it does it definitely isn't Singapore's.
The television army uses high-tech computer gadgets, great organisational skills and well-trained soldiers to destroy its opponents. The real army can't even get its men to shooting practice on time. I have this gut feeling that they might forget to bring ammunition to the battlefield, and instead of bringing some immediately, they start blaming each other till the enemy shows up and pumps them all full of ammunition. Now that would be poetic justice.