The Frenetic, Cacophonous Cadence of This Corporal's Life

Three months since my last blog entry and it feels like I have been here forever but for just a brief moment, time is passing so slowly and I'm already running out of it, just like what they say, "Where got time?!"

I don't know when exactly it happened but somewhere within the span of the last three months - along the way in my NS journey - I realized that I have become a changed person. Not so much physically (oh, how I wish that were the case, like, maybe give me a six-pack, pretty please? Wait long-long la) but rather, spiritually. To a large extent, my experience in the 23rd Maintenance Section Commander Course (MSCC) just last month attributed to this change:



There and then, it occurred to me that it has been almost one year since I got enlisted into the army. Basic Military Training (BMT) was so 2009, so was Basic Technician Training (BTT) in OETI. During MSCC, especially during the outfield, there were times when I reflected upon my current life vis-à-vis the larger scheme of things, and when MSCC finally ended, a part of me wanted to just tear and let it all out.

Of course I did, in the end, but that's besides the point. Something even further from the point is that if only someone saw me then and sang, 'I'll Stand By You'. LOL.



Well, I'm not afraid to admit that I did tear at that point in time. Some people will scoff at such unmanly, let alone soldierly act, but soldiers are human too, I would argue, and that, was simply a raw moment of humanity. I teared not because the training was unbearable, the expectations overwhelming, or wholly because I would miss my coursemates after we end our course. I teared because as much as NS hasn't been bad, it would become a part of my life from now on, and perhaps, I got a tad too jaded and worn down by everything it has been to me. But then again, at that very moment too it dawned on me that merely letting my twenty-four months in the army pass by me just like that wouldn't do me any good. It would not do anyone any good, for that matter. I resolved that I am not going to have the next twelve months slide by. I am going to live my life in the army, to carpe diem, and I cried because I told myself I will not let anything, or anyone, to break me apart no matter what, not any form of extra duties or any imbecile military experts (MEs), any circumstances dictating that I have to do something against my principles.

Pretty much what-doesn't-kill-you-only-makes-you-stronger the Nietzschean way, eh?

I also cried because I suddenly became nostalgic of my previous life (the relatively carefree JC and Council days - gosh, those were Halcyon days), my old friends and the people around me, and the utilitarian part of me got temporarily subdued by the sentimental side. I cried, and that symbolized my way of letting go, of no longer being in denial. No, don't get me wrong. It doesn't mean that now, I will stop being friends with my friends and that I will give up everything for army (I'm not talking about 'Absorption into Regular Service', okay? :P). It just means that I have completely come to terms with my comme-ci-comme-ça life as it is now and in fact, I have begun to embrace it. I'm doing this for myself and also because I know that this is what God wants me to do. Book-outs are no longer the time for me to reclaim the civilian 'me'; book-outs are now well-earned time for me, a soldier, to catch up with my family, friends, and things that truly matter insofar that it has become my philosophy to 'fuse' the NSF 'me' and the civilian 'me' instead of treating them as two mutually-exclusive entities. Makes me sound like I was suffering from bipolar disorder to have two separate identities, anyway. Haha.

Once you actually get the right mindset, certain things in the army don't seem that stupid, after all. I mean, you get to do certain things that you won't be able to do elsewhere (like shooting an M203 or traversing thick vegetation equipped with just a map and antiquated compass :P). Once you are able to do that, everything actually becomes an experience that indubitably will enrich your lives in ways you've never imagined before.

Phew, now, thank God for the fact that I'm still alive and kicking after a hectic month in the army (with IMT, ATP, outfield, navigation exercise, field deployment, guard duties and whatnot).

But wait, didn't I just say I am beginning to appreciate such things in the army by turning them into experience?

Ah, freak, I always indulge in self-conflict, don't I?

Until next time, I suppose! ;)




Your not-so-obedient-but-at-least-eventually-coming-to-terms-with-his-conscription soldier,



CPL Perdana Putra.