Brainless Thoughts

While wasting my life away in camp, one of my friends gave me a pretty good thought to ponder about, thus presenting me with the opportunity to actually use my brain in camp. I jumped on that idea excitedly, seeing that I finally had something decent to do, but the question he had asked stumped me quite abit. "Why must we be in the army?" he lamented. Noticing that I was visibly stunned, he simply drooped his shoulders and walked away, resigned to his fate. That particular question, having crossed my mind before, had troubled me since but I shrugged it off as I just could not figure out the answer.

Now that it has resurfaced, I was tempted to give him the same age-old answers that I have been hearing, "It is because you're a guy and it is your responsibility" or "Because you are born and raised here in Singapore". Considering that he himself might have heard it a billion times before, I decided against my initial response for my own well-being as he looked irate and frustrated when he approached me, desperate for an answer that made sense. Staying in these camps can really drive you crazy at times.

NS is also known as national service... I marveled at my brilliance. But if that is the case, then shouldn't the entire population be serving the army if it is on a national scale? Nah, not a good explanation. If I followed the four lettered word that is emblazoned on the back of all the dull grey t-shirts that we are made to wear, ARMY would just simply mean A Really Meaningless Youth, since it has become their practice to capture innocent young civilian men and enforce onto them the military life, thus wasting 2.5 years of their precious youth. I am sure my friend would have been pretty contented with that answer, more for wit than reason, but he had already left.

Maybe the myth of losing your brain cells when you enter the army really has some truth in it after all. Having just moved to another camp for whatever training, a few of us came upon a drab and empty room that seemed to have been vacated since the last World War, multi-layered of dust and five-year old lizards greeted us when we entered. We could not do much but to bunk in that room. The unthinkable happened. A portly figure appeared at the door early next morning. No it is not a ghost although its facial features had a certain amount of similarity. "It" spoke out in a stern voice that sounded more like a warning, "Do you all realise that this is an office ah? How can you all bunk in here huh?" I realised he happened to be some big shot from that camp. I stared at the so-called "office" and turned to him, immediately wondering if he had ever seen a real office before. Perhaps in the army, the level of IQ you possess is inversely proportionate to your rank.

The strangest thing to happen had yet to come. Another friend of mine approached a guy who was just about to go for his night off and requested a favour from him. He apparently had a craving for some food from KFC and so he said, "Hey get me a colonial burger later k?"

Images of a clumsily made burger with a british flag sticking out on the top flooded my mind as I tried to fathom out what he intended to say. It wasn't until very much later when I figured out that he must have been trying to say colonel burger then my mind rested at ease. This just proves that staying overly long in camp indeed kills your brain cells away.