A Week In Green

I've been away on reservist for a week, my second in-camp training ever. It was a "low-key" stint, which means that it's less intense and lasts about 5 days, as opposed to being massively painful and long-lasting with many hours in the jungle and not in bed.

We learned about what to do if we were attacked (by the enemy that is) while transporting stuff to the folks at the battlefront. I can't tell you any more than that or I would might get a call from some fierce people.

In the past week, I made a few discoveries/judgments:
- Reservist life is reassuringly not well organised. There is massive inefficiency and time-wasting.
- Men on reservist fall into 2 main categories: a) not interested but co-operative and b) not interested and unco-operative. The latter are a lot harder to deal with and it is not easy to respect them as people, much less counterparts in green.
- Men in command should be taught how to inspire men who are interested to get work done. It's a matter of authority tempered with consideration with hints of human psychology and herd instinct. EQ plays a part.
- Lunch and dinner are relatively expensive but lousy, still. The army pays SFI for catering services at a rather distressing cost. The Chinese food on Day 1 had green chicken and no, it wasn't in Thai Green Curry. The $2.30 chicken rice at maxwell beats the food we ate from Monday to Friday.
- It's hard to focus on a target with an M16 at night. Pah-jiao and hence quite bo-bo.
- There are friends to make with each ICT. And some of them can really talk cock.

Now I need to turn on the work face.