Today is the 14th of July.
An insignificant day to all.
Except for GESS NCC Intake 04.
It's Independence Day to us.
History:
On this day, 2 years ago,
For the first time ever we boycotted training.
It was some sort of a planned thing.
Though i think 8 out of 23 of us
were against the idea and reported anyway.
Where was I?
At home the whole day on MC.
Hehehe. So guys u cant say i "pon" training.
My 100% record prevails.
Still, somehow, boycotting the training
was wad motivated me to take an MC.
Why did we do this?
We finally realised that enough was enough.
After being mistreated and punished
unreasonably by the then NCOs
for the previous few trainings in a row,
having a platoon mate cry while being punished
and still being bombarded by questions by the NCOs,
having our precious berets confiscated from us,
made to wear the stupid mock zero,
(army boots plus pe shirt and shorts),
all this is part of the process of being "tekan".
Its a very controversial thing really.
Its bad yet its good.
Its good yet its bad.
Dats the overall viewpoint of it.
But to me it was always more of bad.
I think u can count how many times
i actually said "knock it down" in my time as NCO,
let alone how many times i actually made
them carry on to do push ups.
How can punishing without any reason,
breaking one down to his limits,
demoralising him to extreme extents be good?
How does that help?
It only makes the cadet hate the NCO
and this cadet-NCO tension is never good for the unit,
as i have seen.
It was a good thing that the Intake 04
and Intake 03 rivalry didnt turn sour.
It almost did or rather already had on the 14th of July.
But by then both sides realised their mistakes.
And there was never really much tension between us.
But looking at cadets and NCOs nowadays,
cadets seem to give this "want to fight" kind of face,
increasingly often when they get punished,
even if its just abit.
(this is especially so among the sec 3s or even 2s,
as the age gap between them an NCOs
is not that much)
And as for the NCOs, more often than not,
they dont show a good example.
How do you expect the cadet to "face it like a man"
when they have absolutely no respect for you.
"Rebelling" often comes to mind nowadays.
And as stated, its both parties' fault.
No matter wad the pros are, tekan is definitely
not accepted by newer generations of cadets.
You can say ppl are getting more pampered.
But i think the true reason is what i've mentioned above.
What are the pros of tekan u might be wondering?
I gotta admit tekan played a huge part in bonding
Intake 04 together.
I think in terms of togetherness and unity,
we are exemplary.
But considering how cadets accept punishment nowadays,
i think its better for us to use other methods
to gel ppl together.
There are many. Push ups isnt the only way.
Of course, whenever we go to some random place
like KFC, Mac, kopitiam or a coffee shop to talk cock
about days of the past,
tekan always comes first.
What memories they bring.
I remember in Sec 1,
when we were stupid and naive,
the antiques of Private Chng Bin Hong Bryan,
always led us into trouble.
We got fucked day in day out on dat camp.
Everytime we entered our bunks,
we were on all fours rather than on our feet.
Sec 2 annual camp
is the major talking point for tekan, really.
Forced to fall in when ur busy bathing,
not once, not twice, but thrice.
Immediately after that,
we got powder bathed in our bunks,
which made the floor slippery
and so whenever we fidget in push up position
due to the powder on the floor,
we got fucked even more.
(rhymes)
Sec 3, well.
It was okay.
We expected it.
It came.
We faced it.
It was over.
One thing i remember more prominently was
how Mun Wah fell down outside the classroom
cuz he was in a hurry. Haha.
K i think i digressed too much.
The point is,
14th of July happened because of tekan.
Intake 04 does not support tekan.
We did not tekan in our reign as NCOs.
I guess what really made 14 July so impt
is that it was the day we stood for our rights and ideals.
Dun get me wrong though.
If any cadets are reading this and start to formulate
funny ideas,
well, lets just say u guys wont escape so easily from it.
I doubt any of them know of this blog though.
I'm actually taking a big risk
posting about this topic in the first place.
U know its perfectly okay,
if u just scrolled down to this paragraph
cuz ur lazy to read.
I hate lengthy posts myself.
I just need to post this so next time i can look back and read.
That's all for today then.
My streak of losses still continue.
Though today i managed to score 2 goals
and conceded 10+++
