Am I glad to have partners as bloggers who are like me..........retired military personnels. I do not know some of them because their identity is not revealed, but I do know for sure that they once served the military from their style of writing and the content of their articles.
Blogging has been interesting for me because I am now free to express my views about anything. I know my limitations, and I am fairly careful in the use of words in my writings that may sound offensive and distasteful to some.
I have been perceived as being anti government in my writings by some of my former colleagues; a perception that is debatable, and which I don't fully subscribe. I am merely trying to be frank and direct in my views, and that has nothing to do with me being loyal or disloyal to the government of the day. Anyway, that is how I have been trained to write by the military, and if it is wrong, please don't blame me; blame the Armed Forces for having trained me.
I recall once towards the end of my career, that I was told to stop making comments in the newspapers by my higher headquarters, over a case of a soldier who was charged for murdering an Indonesian illegal immigrant. I was offended by the way the police had handled the soldier who was merely performing his duties by arresting an illegal immigrant that had just landed on the beaches of Johor, who later died after a brief scuffle with the soldier. The soldier has since been freed of charges of murder by the courts.
Verbal or written comments aimed at senior officers are rarely heard in the Armed Forces, and doing so is tantamount to insubordination. This is a situation where officers do not want to be slammed with, as a 'black dot' in ones record of service is a virtual 'death certificate' for the officer concern. Serious verbal arguments between a subordinate officer and a senior officers is seldom heard too, and this is because officers are trained to remain loyal, honourable and subservient to their superiors.
There is however a provision in the Armed Forces for officers to submit a redress of wrong to his superior officer, if he feels that he has been unjustly punished for an offence. However, in my 34 years of military service, I have not experienced having to preside over a case involving a redress of wrong, and I believe the reason being that the punishment meted to offenders are well within the bounds legally permissible to the presiding officer, over an offence being presided or 'judged' by him.
I noticed that some of the military bloggers share a common desire to expose all forms of corruption and abuses, linking officers to these unhealthy practices. I have been watching quite closely some of the 'unhealthy on-goings' in the Armed Forces and the ministry, and the exposure is merely to correct what is believe to be seriously wrong. Military officers in particular have to be extremely careful not to be associated with corrupt practices, and to avoid being in the circle of defence contractors and businessman.
The military profession is one that is sworn to loyalty and allegiance to the king, and the readiness to sacrifice ones life in defence of the country. It does not say anything about the profession having to indulge in business of any kind with anybody. Taking just a cent from a contractor or a businessman, is no different from taking a million. The offence is still corruption, and this must be avoided at all costs.
Military officers must remain true to his profession, and never to succumb to greed, or to anything that will only bring shame and dishonour to the military profession.
CRUSADE AGAINST CORRUPTION
Posted at 10.45 pm March 16, 2009
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3 comments:
Dato,
I really appreciate your stand.What you have written is all true.The truth hurts but it is for the good of the organization.
I am pretty sure the rakyat and most political leaders appreciate and support of your efforts to expose of any corrupt practices involving military officers and civilians in the Ministry of Defence.
You are helping the nation to save our Armed Forces from being permanently inflicted with the disease of corruption which will destroy the morale and fighting spirit of its members.
I wish to call on all readers of Mind No Evil to do your part to help Dato Arshad to accomplish his noble mission.
Dato, only the brave inside the system will voice out anything that goes wrong, currently these officers are no more serving. All have left because they are not willing to take the path of indignity!
The good ones have all left much earlier....the ones left are all APPLE POLISHERS...BIG TIME.
"It's a sad day for the ATM"
Pak Chat,
A very well written piece as usual.
Knowing you personally,you are qualified to write in such manner.
There is no other honourable profession that vows to put one's life in the line of danger than the military.
However if we look at the Malaysian Military, the last known threat was the communist and they put up their struggle in 1989.
So for the last 20 years or so, there is no more threat.
It is indeed a peace time military.
Imagine the experience of officers and men who enlisted in 1990 onwards......
Everything must have been "Notional"...
Nothing beats the real thing and we can't blame them for the real experience of 'operational duties'..
Other than the few UN missions assignments and the recent piracy case off Somalia, other experiences are just "Notional"...
I can still remember some of my seniors bragging about their Sarawak experiences, whereas i only had my jungle experience here in Semenanjung...which to me is a good enough experience...
Now those in the age group that i mentioned earlier post 1989...what experience do they have?
I consider myself lucky that i have some of these operational experiences from 1974 onwards, when the booby traps and ambushes were still active....
I was not lucky enough to experience it first hand though, only a small occasion when i had to carry a booby trap soldier out from location to Gubir camp..
There are some that did not have the chance like me.
So if we were to look to the future...we will be left at the mercy of those post 1989 guys to take care of us...
I hope they will not be just "Notional"
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