I'm The Joker

+Imagine preparing for a stand down parade of your detachment.

+For those of you who have been in the army/are in the army, you would know how hard it is. For my part, I had to paint a 10m banner (all by myself, mind you - last time, there were more manpower, we could do 10, no problem), clean the interior of the tanks (a bitch to do, due to all the small parts and the confined space of the tank, not to mention no one has actually consistently cleaned the inside), paint and diesel the exterior of the tanks and change the tracks (oh the horror of this). Other preparations included preparing a drive thru stand, a brand new saluting dias, setting up tentages, moving chairs, doing up invitation cards, creating momentos for the camp, doing a video montage, etc etc etc.

+ALL that to waste. 2 months worth of effort, gone down the drain in 3o seconds.

+"What would you guys say if we changed the parade to an indoor function?"he asked, just 3 hours before the parade. We were in the midst of setting up the parade, and was 80% done. All of us, in the sweltering heat, thought we had heard wrong.

+"Ask the armour guys to gather round please, I would like to ask them something,"he said. We put down everything we were doing, and gestured for everyone to gather. We were all perspiring while we walked over, what with setting up the banner, PA system and everything else.

+"Due to certain reasons, let's say - for our purpose here - that the tanks are not roadworthy...what would you all say that we cancel the parade, and make it an indoor function instead?"he asked, when we were all there.

+What? I thought to myself. You can't be serious. My jaw literally dropped. I looked round to see if the others thought the same but I was disappointed that most of my platoon was actually smiling and grinning. With overwhelming votes for the indoor function, the parade was cancelled and shifted to the function hall.

+No pride.

+I knew that many of them were hoping for the wet weather program. And that offer was much more than they could have hoped for. The parade was cancelled without the weather being wet. I know many of them hate this place, hate armour, hate army. So do I. But can't you have a little pride in whatever you do, even in doing things that you don't like? I've seen people being so selfish here, it makes me want to throw up. I've seen people here who are so indifferent to everything else other than themselves, that it spreads like a disease. They didn't even care that their hard work were all gone to waste. Yeah, you can claim that you are not like this outside of army, but I regret to tell you that army is where you show your true colours - if you are not like this outside of army, then I feel sorry for your friends outside as they do not even know the real you. That is truly pathetic and sad.

+And for the management who made this change, congratulations; for you have made a joke out of the camp, yourselves and the armour detachment. The heli-detachment even moved all their helicopters away from the helipad to allow us to parade there. This whole parade thing, right from the very beginning, was ONE WHOLE COLOSSAL JOKE. The reason for the change was kept from us, because "we're not supposed to know". Can you believe they said that? I think we have ALL the right to know, since we were the ones who put in the most effort, and then see it wrenched from our hands and flushed down the drain, while we stood by and watched. So, yeah, I think we have the right to know.

+The indoor function went okay, until the end when there was this unexpected twist - armour was to wash all the cutlery, serving trays and to clean up the function hall. The blatant injustice of this, when (put in his words) this was supposed to be "our day". Well, for your info, the day couldn't have ended more demoralizing with the whole detachment washing the cutlery and trays for the whole camp, in our parade coveralls and boots.

+But then again, I don't really care anymore, since no one else seem to put this on their minds, or feel sad about it, or ponder over it, well that is - except me. I don't care anymore because I'm leaving this godforsaken place in 19 days, and the army in 40 days. So there. Throw whatever arrows you want at me, I'll be the one having the last laugh, for -