Thursday, August 05, 2004

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iTunes' party shuffle is playing: Jealous Guy - John Lennon - Imagine
For the benefit of Woof! who was so stoked by the sentimental Army post that he left a comment that had to be truncated, and then pressed the publish button three times some more; and for Malaysian boys who wish they had the benefit of National Service, here is an Army anecdote. Look away now, girls. It probably is not funny to you, but I swear it'll bring a tear to Woof!'s eyes from laughing too much. Guaranteed. Wonsaponatime, Attila Combat Team ('A' Coy, 46SAR) had a new NCO (now known as Specialist) who was incredibly inept at everything he did. The entire company viewed him as a danger to everyone else. Once I even had to ride my bike into a ditch to avoid being run over by the Armoured Fighting Vehicle he was commanding. We felt a little sorry for Cpl Tan Ting Tong (I can't remember his real name), for he wasn't cut out for Armour, much less as a commander in Armour. But because he was the one most likely to get us killed, there was a concerted effort from both the officers and men to get him out of the company. Bit hard, given that you don't get dismissed from a unit because of stupidity. And so, we hatched a diabolical scheme to make Cpl Tan Ting Tong do something so inept, but without danger to his company mates, that would see him get transferred out. During one field training exercise, we parked our vehicles in formation and rested for the night. Cpl Tan was still on alert in his commander's cupola, in his vehicle, One-Two-Bravo. Me and the company sergeant major asked him if he was hungry. He said yes. We then said 'Did you know that you can order pizza through the radio comms'? 'Izzit?' 'Yes, you dunno meh? Switch to this frequency, order what you want, give your location MGR (map grid reference) and they will deliver, no matter where in the jungle you are.... and if more than one hour, you get one free garlic bread and pepsi'. The trap was set. We went back to company HQ's vehicle, One-Niner, tuned our radio to 'Pizza Hut' frequency and waited. Faster than expected. And in proper military radio protocol: *crackle* * buzz* Hallo Pizza Hut, Hallo Pizza Hut, This is One Two Bravo, message, over. Stifling laughter, our company 2IC (2nd in command), took the radio handset and replied, 'Pizza Hut, send, over'. 'One Two Bravo, err... um... want to order one Super Supreme, over'. 'Pizza Hut, say again, over'. 'One Two Bravo, one Super Supreme, over'. 'Pizza Hut, roger that, would you like a drink with that, over?' 'One Two Bravo, errrrrr.... that's a negative, over'. 'Pizza Hut, that's a roger, what is your mike golf romeo (MGR), over?' 'One Two Bravo, umm.... wait... ummm two... six... three... four... seven.. two, over'. 'Pizza Hut, confirm mike golf romeo two six three four seven two, over'. 'One Two Bravo, umm... that's a roger, over'. 'Pizza Hut to One Two Bravo, roger that, rendevous at your location in figure zero five mike, please prepare exact change, over'. 'One Two Bravo, ummm, ok, roger'. 'Pizza Hut, out'. For dereliction of duty, unauthorised use of military communications and generally flouting Article 25 of the Singapore Armed Forces Code of Conduct, Cpl Tan Ting Tong was given a field demotion to spare MG gunner. Later on, he was transferred out of Attila, and even later, out of the Battalion. His replacement, Cpl Koh Lian Thye, was almost just as inept, but that's several other stories altogether.


17 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's really funny..omg. He was that dumb enough to fall for that? But you guys are a bit too mean la. -evie

8/05/2004 03:23:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

haha this post perked up my boring thursday afternoon. beats insulting my sister any time.

8/05/2004 03:55:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oops the above comment was from me, btw. -denise

8/05/2004 03:56:00 PM  
Blogger FF said...

Don't u just hate sisters?
Anyway miyagisan, that was not nice wor. the poor guy was hungry leh. :( U sure somebody so stupid exists? :)

8/05/2004 03:58:00 PM  
Blogger Mr Miyagi said...

Cpl Tan was a PSC Scholar who was also my platoon mate in Basic Training. He would've made the officer corps and would've had a career in the SAF and civil service if he had even made the bare minimum required of a combat soldier. In BMT, I realised his stupidity was immense when during a lecture I encouraged him to squeeze the trigger of a loaded (with blanks) light machine gun, as a joke. He went and did it. I will remember that moment for life. 40 men cowering and in shock, and Recruit Tan holding the smoking gun, slack jawed and wide eyed.

8/05/2004 07:42:00 PM  
Blogger Cowboy Caleb said...

haha that's diabolically funny.

Can you also blog about how the osifers are selected? Seems to be that any idiot gets to be one.

8/05/2004 09:03:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's as I've always suspected. Singapore is full of these underlings and
birthrights to the de Sade throne and whip. And as for National Service:
your anecdote affirms, for me, the inevitable consequence of such
soul-crushing institutions - genius turned to highly questionable use by
reckless, idle minds :)


rAchel

8/05/2004 10:30:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I didnt press the button 3 times! :o)

ok ok.. how abt this one? I was once doing guard duty at Nee Soon Camp as 1 of the guard commanders, and we sent 1 scholar platoon recruit out to the nearby coffee shop for prata for dinner.. he had to take everyone's orders, and the Guard Commander wanted "1 kosong, 3 egg"...

15 minutes later, this idiot came back with just 1 piece of really thick and yellow prata for the Commander.. "you wanted 1 kosong inside with 3 eggs wah!" he said to incredulous stares!

and you wonder how the fat indian prata man could even be persuaded to do that!!

8/05/2004 10:34:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

And how abt the monkey who left 1 part of his 5-piece rod in his weapon and went ahead to fire it in the range? freaking thing nearly blew up in his face!

8/05/2004 10:36:00 PM  
Blogger Mr Miyagi said...

Rachel, indeed. We're all like, I mean, we've got a system in place where, like, the cream of the crop is groomed to be leaders and shit, you know? :)

Woof!, man, the scholar platoon. I was embarrassed to be part of it. Did not make OCS because I was the only scholar to fail the A levels. I believe it was a record at the time.

The 5 piece rod incident was very recent, no? Or did it happen again. I heard about an exploding SAR-21.

Caleb, the ossifers are selected through our grueling Basic Training tests. But I will blog about some of the officers I've had to beat up. Stay tuned.

8/05/2004 10:53:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

yah.. the 5-piece rod is a recent one..

boy there were some really weird ones in the scholar platoons... booking in and out with a briefcase, working-back the angle of convergence of the M-16 fore-sight-tip and barrel through the information gathered from THC (technical handling) lectures whilst the rest of us were fighting the Z-monster..

did you ever have stand-by underwear? during field camps one of our SOPs (standard operating procedures) was to assemble the recruits in just their underwear and boots, and then make them apply tons of powder all over.. the "test" to determine if one was sufficiently powdered was to pull back their underwear band, let it snap, and see if there was sufficient "smoke"... I had 1 recruit who stood naked cos he doesnt believe in underwear (of course we made him do jumping jacks to see his little one bounce all over), and how else to determine if he has enough powder but to make him bend over and give him a good spank?

And dont get me started on the recruit who wore women's underwear..

8/05/2004 11:21:00 PM  
Blogger Cowboy Caleb said...

f87k if I was in the army, I would not be wearing any underwear!

8/06/2004 12:08:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

CC: And if I were your instructor, I'd tie you to the tree, paint ur balls with honey, and leave you with the red ants.. haha

8/06/2004 08:16:00 AM  
Blogger Mr Miyagi said...

Oh no, you wuz one of them sadistic instructors!

8/06/2004 01:25:00 PM  
Blogger cokecat said...

Don't think i will ever be allowed near a rifle again...
i was the misfire king of my SISPEC company...
while we were in supposed safe harbour, i managed to misfire, and my sadistic PC made us all move harbour...
that was in Basic Section Leader's Course...
then in the 2nd installment, Advanced Section Leaders Course, i did the exact same thing *shrug*

took 20 extras in all...i was most popular for weeks!

8/06/2004 03:23:00 PM  
Blogger cokecat said...

hmm...got an invitation to a NS experience compendium thing but the link didn't work

8/06/2004 04:07:00 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

haha.. 20 extras??? did you ever get to book out at all in the army?

8/06/2004 10:37:00 PM  

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