Not forgetting the brutal training. The very first day at the railway station in Seremban was chaotic with hundreds of potential soldiers from a multi ethnic background. The senior NCO’s were yelling away trying to bring order to a very chaotic situation. There was this gentleman who was moving along all pumped up with self importance he was making the situation worse by barking out to the already harassed NCO’ s.

That action brought out the meanness in the NCO’ s who started abusing everyone in the language most foul, mentioning mothers and sisters, private parts, copulation, a bit on what to do with male parts and all of it brought about shocked stares from us. The strutting gentleman we later found out was the Commanding Officer of the Recruit Training Center in Port Dickson named Major Aarof. That guy we realized later in training was a cross between Gomer Pyle and Gilligan.

All of us were rounded up like the sheep we were onto trucks .It was twenty guys to a truck, of course we were warned, not to wave or yell to the public on the way to Port Dickson which was an hour away, to maintain proper military decorum and image. As though we were the guys who created the bad image, imagine all the curses and abuse at a public railway station in full hearing range of the public, especially on the matter that somebody’s mother’s private parts was diseased.

These NCO’s who were going to be our instructors were the most sadistic bunch of people I ever had the privilege of meeting. They would put the drill sergeant in the movie Full Metal Jacket to shame.. Not to soon we reached the great big square. This is where you get to see the great military bullshit of being yelled at repeatedly. You get sorted out, which platoon you going into, under which company; you are repeatedly shuffled from place to place under the blistering sun. The realization hits you then, what the fuck are doing in hell on earth. After all the pathetic souls have been sorted out many times and some semblance of order has been retrieved, we are issued with plastic cups and plates to go for lunch.

We are made to form in lines of three and herded to lunch. In most armies the place soldiers eat is known as a mess hall, here it is known as a cook house.