Is what I’m facing everyday now. 14th mono has begun, and the PTP recruits are in. I’m quite surprised by the quality of recruits that we’ve gotten though. Most of my platoon are poly dropouts, which is far from the stereotypical expectation that mono intake recruits are O level and below.
It’s been really fun thus far, as the recruits have just completed their confinement/adjustment face. We’ve been holding back the punishments as a form of grace to let them adapt slowly to military life. They’ve been quite cooperative and surprisingly motivated this far though, and I don’t care what the other commanders think but I’m very impressed and happy with their performance.
Speaking of motivation, I’ve been thinking about what drives this particular brand of recruits. They know that chances of them going to command school and subsequently holding a command position is close to zero, and for me at least going to command school and becoming a commander was one thing I really looked forward to when I enlisted. Therefore, in everything I did, I had that hope and goal to look forward to and would always do my best.
These mono intake recruits, though, what do they have? Especially since their education level is not really that bad, considering that I myself was a poly dropout and now hold a private diploma, some of them really feel that it is downright unfair that I was given the opportunity to attend SiSPEC but yet they have to be stuck here at 2SIR as men. How on earth then can we blame them for not being motivated? For not possessing the drive and will to excel that we see in all recruits in BMTC who are working hard so that they may go to command school? How can we treat them like how our BMT commanders treated us, knowing full well that we would endure everything they could throw at us simply because we wanted to last through all the training and finally make it as a commander one day?
So what do they have? They have one another, their platoon mates who would last through the 2 years with them, through thick and thin, through forests and rivers and God knows what else is in store for them. And they have us. It’s a really challenging task to be able to lead an initially unwilling section so that they would wholeheartedly fight for me and with me together should the need ever arise. And it is exactly because of this that I don’t believe in treating them like dogs, punishing them for every single nitty gritty mistake, making them run all over the shop, yelling at them and being downright sarcastic with them, just because we can. Ultimately, my aim as a commander is for my section to be able to look up to me as an elder brother, someone they can trust and believe in, and not a harbinger of fear and punishment, whom they serve because they dread the wrath that I would bring to bear. I therefore also despise all who abuse their authority, and I hope they reap the fruits of their heartlessness.
On this vision that I have for myself, I have been as nice to my section as I can, treating them as if they were my brothers and doing my best to motivate them without invoking or instilling fear. My plan so far has been working out, but yet my fellow commanders are telling me I am too soft, and that my section is a problem section. But who are they to tell me that? They don’t know them as I do. They claim my section does not care for regimentation and would march anyhow they want. Yet they do not see the effort that my section put in trying to correct their psychomotor behavior or incorrect postures behind closed doors. They do not see my section working out at the chinup bars regularly everyday after last parade in a bid to pass their IPPT. So who’re the better men? These recruits who have nothing as substantial as what we had to look forward for in NS but yet are still so motivated, or these so called commanders who pick on and judge recruits as though they themselves are faultless?
Self-righteous pricks, that’s what I would call them. And much deserved applause for these recruits.
