-
|
Friday, 9 July 2010
The Chain of Commandy
Sunday, 4 July 2010
Military Leadership A Slim View
MILITARY LEADERSHIP( Courtesy Brig R Kukreja) 1. In all my professional readings on Military Leadership I have not come across a better piece than Field Marshal Sir William "Bill" Slim's address to officers at Fort Knox USA on Leadership during a visit to that country . 2. I am reproducing it below. Courage, willpower, initiative, knowledge and ------ self sacrifice. 3. now we know why the Team Most Fine is special. Read On. LEADERSHIP By Field Marshal Sir William Slim, GBE, KCB, DSO, MC (Taken from an address delivered to Officers at Fort Knox, U.S.A., during a visit to that country) I have chosen to speak to you on leadership but I am a little diffident for two reasons. The first is, that if anybody who has had any command, talks about leadership, he is awfully inclined to talk about himself and that gets horribly boring. I shall try not to, but I probably shall. The second thing is that I have very often sat where you are now sitting, and to get up at this time in the morning to come and listen to a foreign General talking about something that lot of people have talked to me about already is not really my idea of a happy morning. Now you are all officers, and the be-all and end-all of an officer is to be a leader. You have your men in your own hands, under your own eyes, and that is the basis of leadership-your handling of men. I have been very lucky in my service. In getting on for forty years of service, I have commanded everything from a section of six men to an army group of a million and a quarter, and, believe me, while it gets sometimes more difficult and sometimes easier, the bigger your command, the essentials of command and leadership are always the same. It does not matter whether you command ten men or ten million men. If you ask me to define what leadership is, I should say it is the projection of your own personality so that you get men to do what you want them to do even if they aren't very keen on doing it themselves. Leadership is the most intensely personal thing there is in the world, because leadership is just plain you. I have told you that leadership is the projection of your personality, so it is not much good starting off to be a leader unless you have got personality, and you have got to have a certain kind of personality. In that personality, you must have certain qualities. The first of these is courage, the next is will power, the third is initiative and the fourth is knowledge-courage, willpower, initiative and knowledge. If you do not have those, you will not make a leader, and I would like, if you will allow me, to talk for a moment or two about these qualities. First of all, courage......An officer requires something more than mere physical courage. He must have that. You must take the lead when it is most dangerous. The officer must accept the greatest hazards, but, in addition to the ordinary physical courage, an officer is required to have courage of two kinds, much more than the men he leads. Now the first thing that an officer must have is the courage that goes on. A British soldier is no braver than a German, or an Italian, or an Arab, or a Persian, or anybody else, but he is, thank God, brave for a little bit longer, and that is the kind of bravery that the officer has to have. You have to go on being brave. Any body can be brave for five minutes, but it takes something to go on being brave for five weeks. That is what the officer has to do, that is what his men look for that when things are bad, they look to the officer. We can all get along all right when we are winning. I am a hell of a general when I am winning, but I have not always been winning. If you have been a British general at the beginning of a war, you will know what I mean. There always comes a time when things go wrong -when your airplays are shot out of the sky; when your guns run out of ammunition; when it is cold and it's wet and your men are hungry, and when a chap’s heart sinks down into his empty belly. When that happens, it doesn't matter whether you are the general commanding an army or the officer commanding a platoon or a section, you will find-a lot of you have found it-you will find there comes a pause and your men just look at you. They want to know what to do, and they look to you to tell them, to lead them. That is the test of an officer- the test of leadership, and you won't pass that test unless you have thought of if and practised it. Sometimes is it very difficult , it has happened to me-men have looked at me to see what I was going to say and I have not known what the hell to say. I stepped out of a tank once which was the only means of communication I had, and standing outside that tank there were three of my subordinate commanders, a couple of staff officers, and one or two other chaps. The situation was bad. We had a division cut off and nothing to get it out with. It didn't look as if we should last very long, and, as I stepped out, I saw those fellows waiting. They didn't do anything-they just looked at me. I didn't know what the hell to say, but I had to say something to cheer them up, so I said "Well, Gentlemen, it might be worse," and one those fellows said "how?" The only thing I could think of answering was "Well, it might be raining", and by golly in an hour it was. Well, I don't hold that up to you as an example of leadership, but it is the sort of thing that does occur, the sort of thing you have to steel yourself against-that moment when the courage and morale of the men you lead falters, and you, the officer, it doesn't matter whether you have one bar on your shoulder or a couple of eagles- you are the man who has got to put that courage and that morale back into them. For that, you need a long-term courage. The other kind of courage that you have to show as on officer is moral courage. Moral courage, believe me, is a much rarer thing than physical courage, much rarer, All men I have know who have had moral courage have had physical courage as well. I can give you a very small example of moral courage in your everyday life. A junior officer passes an enlisted man that doesn't salute him. The officer has seen it; he knows the man ought to have saluted him, but he doesn't say anything, doesn't say anything because, first of all, perhaps he is a bit shy and he doesn't say anything because he is afraid that if he stops this big husky doughboy, he may get a bit of lip from him, and then there is trouble. The real reason why he doesn't do what he knows he ought to do, is that he is frightened that he doesn’t have the moral courage to do it. You want to start young and practice it, because unless you have moral courage, you won't be much good as an officer. The second quality I talked about was willpower. Your job as an officer is to make decisions, to tell people what to do. Well, it is not very difficult sometimes to know what you want to do; the difficulty is to get an order or make plans that you want carried through, you will find there are an awful lot of things that will turn up to oppose it. First, there is the enemy. Well, that is all right; you expect them to be like that. I remember a long time ago in the First World War in 1915, when they kept on asking us for reports. We were up in a front line trench and they sent us up a big form to fill in. One of the questions was, “ What is the attitude of the enemy?" One of the young officers in my regiment filled that in as 'hostile'. The form was sent back to him with a reprimand, and he was told to fill it is again. He sent it back altered to 'still hostile'. You expect opposition from the enemy, but you will get it from all sorts of other places as well. You will get opposition from your own side; you will get opposition from people who want to do it in another way; you will get opposition from your own staff, especially your administrative or logistical staff, who, in my experience, jolly good chaps as they are, always tell you that anything you want to do is quite impossible. Of course, too, you will get opposition from your allies. When you fight in the next war, you will probably fight with allies, and some of them will be worse than the British. Allies are frightful people. They are narrow-minded. They can’t see the big picture. They have extraordinary ways of doing things,, really they don’t appreciate how broad-minded, how sound, and how big-hearted you are. When you begin to feel like that-and you will-I used to sometimes when I was discussing things with Joe Stilwell-when, you feel like that just remind yourself that you are an ally too. All you have to do is to walk around and sit on the other side of the table and you will look just like that to the fellow sitting opposite you. When you have realised that start again, and you will get on all right. As a commander, you will have all this opposition, opposition of every kind, and you have to have the strength and will to break it down and force your plan through. Without strength of will, a commander is no use at all. However, there is a trap in it. I have seen some very good fellows fall down on it. You have to distinguish between what is just plump obstinacy and strength of will. You must keep a flexibility of mind so that you can change your mind when it is necessary. That is one of the trickiest things to do, and when you solve the problems of keeping a balance between strength of will and determination and flexibility of mind, you are well on the way to being quite a big chap. However, willpower is an essential of any commander. The next thing I said you need is initiative, which is very simple. It simply means that you don’t sit down, do nothing, and wait for something to happen, because, if you do that in war, it will happen all right, and it will be most unpleasant. The way an officer shows initiative really depends on how, much he thinks ahead. Your job is to be several jumps ahead of your men. If you are a platoon or a section commander, you probably think only half an hour ahead. If you are a company commander, it may be a matter of hours; a battalion commander, perhaps a day; and if you are an army commander, you are probably thinking three months ahead. The higher you go, the further ahead you must think, but whatever you are; whatever your rank, you have got to think ahead of your men. That is the way you will get initiative; that is the only way you will make things happen instead of just have them happen to you. So think ahead, and keep the initiative. The fourth quality is knowledge. Now you and I set us up to be officers. You have bars and leaves and stars on your shoulders, and I have a thing on mine you have never seen before, but it all means that we are officers . We have no business to set ourselves up as officers at all unless we know more about the job than the men we are leading. If you are a junior officer commanding a small sub unit, you ought to be able to do everything that you ask any man to do better than he can do it himself. If you can't, just go out behind the hut and practice until you can... You will see here in this school of yours all sorts of things which will make you more efficient killers and more efficient soldiers, but the whole lot isn't worth two-pence if the men who handle it aren't right, and if the men who handle it are not properly led. The first bit of knowledge you have got to get, if you set yourself up as a leader, is how to deal with men. Get to know your men; learn which man is the sort of fellow that needs a little encouraging; which responds when you go around your posts at night, and put your hands on his shoulder and talk to him about his home town; which man wants barking at and which is occasionally the sort of fellow who wants a good kick up behind. Know your men! The basis of all leadership is knowledge of men. If you have these qualities that I have given you –these qualities of courage, willpower, initiative, and knowledge-you will be a leader. People will follow you, but there is something else that you have got to have-something that will make men follow you when things go wrong. If you have these four qualities you will be a leader, but you won't be a good leader and you won't be a leader for good or for long. You have to have one more quality, and that is self-sacrifice. If you have the quality of self -sacrifice, your men will follow you not only in good times, that is easy, but in hard bad times. I remember after a bit of a battle-one of the many battles I lost-I was told that a particular battalion had not done well, and so I went along to see why. I found this battalion just behind the battle line, where they had been brought out. The men were sitting about . They were very, very tired, very dirty, a lot of them were wounded. They were hungry and miserable. I looked around, walking amongst those men, I could not see an officer anywhere, and I thought, as sometimes happened, all the officers had been killed. I went around a corner and I found a little bunch of officers. They were siting there having a meal, and they were having a meal before their men had fed. Then I knew why that was a bad battalion. You, as officers, you will put the honour of your country and of your unit first; you will put the well being the comfort and safety of your men second and your will put your own comfort, your own well being last and last all of the time. If ever you have that kind of leadership with that ingredient of self-sacrifice in it, then your men will follow you anywhere. The sorts of men you lead are worth that. Now I have talked long though, I will end by saying one thing, as a rather old officer to a lot of younger officers, and that is this. In the Army......there are no good regiments and there are no bad regiments, there are only good and bad officers. See to it that you are good officers. - This article was originally published in the July 1951 issue of the Infantry (India). |
The Young Officer and Staff Duties
The Young Officer and Staff Duties
By Michael M. O'Leary, Captain, The RCR
Time, time, and the saving of it, should be the soul of every order and instruction, of every report and of every message. - J.F.C. Fuller, 1943
The line officer despises the lowly "staff officer," and rues the day he might become one himself. But every officer, regardless of rank, position, or responsibilities requires the fundamental skills on which the capable staff officer depends. These skills are best acquired when opportunity presents at the most junior levels, for they are much more difficult to master (or fake) if early years of commissioned rank are spent avoiding putting pen to paper, for this, when dealing with the bureaucracy on behalf of one's troops, is where the rubber meets the road.
Even the most enthusiastic platoon commander, between assaulting enemy objectives and leading troops to hell and back, must be ready to write a brief, comprehensive and clear memorandum ensuring one of those troops for which he is responsible receives an entitled benefit or is identified for an opportunity. Whether writing Performance Evaluation Reports, letters of recommendation, Summary Investigations, or requests for adventure training funds, young officers are never far from occasions requiring the development of their personal military writing skills. As painful as it may seem at the time, each time a Company 2IC, OC or Adjutant, bleeds red ink over a carefully crafted memo it should be seen not as a condemnation of effort, but as a chance to refine one's abilities. No less important than indications of MPI and individual hits on a rifle range are to an infantry rifleman.
Officers who write well spend less time fighting the bureaucracy and more time training with resources they managed to convince the staff to provide them. Those who see staff duties as a dead or unneeded art spend a lot of time running in circles and finding things unobtainable when the good old boy net fails them. Easy to set the blame on those others when one's own staffwork is non-existent, even if it means you've set aside one's own commitment to doing the best for the troops.
In this age of e-mail and instantaneous passage of information and queries, it is hard to develop a concrete understanding that good staff duties are as important as ever. Let me set forth one example:
In the days of hand-written drafts, and clerk-typed correspondence, a staff officer might take a day or two to mull over the perfect wording for a set of four or five questions to another unit or headquarters. Passing this to a clerk, it might be a day or two before the typed version of the draft was returned. By then, the staff officer had time to consider the issue, and then to view the content, structure and tone of the letter with fresh eyes. Amendments might be in order, to either remove or insert points, or even to completely alter the tone or format of the letter. Extra work for the clerk perhaps, but it did ensure that the final product was as good as the staff officer could produce - in this case the staff officer's contribution was the intellectual effort to create and revise the document, the clerk's was to prepare it in the requested format.
With external correspondence, most units had a very limited number of appointments who could sign letters leaving the unit lines. And this limitation in itself ensured due focus on the preparation of correspondence because senior eyes would see the product before it was signed and dispatched.
Contrast this to today's methods. The staff officer sitting at his desk, able to immediately dispatch a question by e-mail to any other staff or line officer with instantaneous delivery. Now the officer, on conjuring his first (of the four or so) questions, sends an e-mail to his lateral counterpart. Perhaps he adds an info addressee or two to ensure they are aware of the request. Later he derives his second question, and another e-mail follows in the wake of the first. Shortly, there's another. The next day, sober second thought wants to revise or combine questions already sent, perhaps already answered or rejected for the very reason an amendment is desired. Responses may have their own alternate info addressees. It's not hard to imagine the information morass that can quickly be created by a too hasty approach in using available technology with what is literally a lower degree of applied intellectual effort than the pace of the predecessor staff process allowed.That letter was then sealed in an envelope and mailed. A week, or so, in transit, time for the recipient to absorb its content, a week or so to staff a response. Perhaps a month might go by before the sender bothered to call looking for confirmation that a response was on its way (excepting of course emergency requests or imposed deadlines).
The point here is not so much the imbalance between effective execution and advancing technology, but in the loss of focus on the importance of credible staff processes and good staff work. Imagine the difficulty in sorting out the ensuing problems if this contrived information morass is dealing with a pay or leave problem for one of your soldiers, or an exercise ration plan. Use the technology to streamline delivery and development processes, don't permit it's sense of immediacy to overrule common sense deliberation in the creation of staff work.
Being a good staff officer, either as a primary function (like the Adjutant), or in support of a line job (like a platoon commander submitting training requests), doesn't have to mean you have to like it. Effective staff officers seldom have to do things twice, or spend time sorting out their own paperwork messes. They get to spend more time with their troops, or working on other staff projects that benefit their units, because the routine administration was done right the first time. Clear staff writing that achieves a desired effect or response is as important to the fighting efficiency of a unit as skill at arms. It ensures beans and bullets are where they need to be in the right quantities, that troops have minimal lost training time for administrative reasons and that intentions and goals are well defined in support of the training requirement.
The education of officers has never been more highly proclaimed as an essential requirement for commanders. This requirement, however, to be useful, must also be expressed in ways that support and forward the intellectual development of the army as a whole. It is one thing for an officer to continue his own intellectual development through personal study, but the effects of this are limited if he is unable to concisely express the synthesis of original thought in military matters to his peers, subordinates, and the Army as a whole. The mechanism by which this must be done is the written word. Expansion of the body of knowledge particular to the direction of doctrine, process and technology in use by our Army can only be achieved by personnel who are able to express these new ideas in a form readily digestible by others. Despite their modern appeal as methods to communicate with the masses, sound bites, vertiginous PowerPoint presentations or single screen web pages with dancing penguins are no way to further the sharing of knowledge. The officer who effectively develops his staff skills will also be able to craft credible position papers on any matter of technology or process within his expertise.
There's no such thing as a "natural" staff officer. The skills to write well must be learned, though some may pick it up sooner than others, there is no substitute for practice, even when this requires subjecting one's work to the editing depredations of a cranky old Adjutant. Like many painful training experiences, this is best experienced while young; unlike others, the scars are usually invisible and do not support good Happy Hour "war stories."
How Military Values hold Meaning for the Corporate World
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
How Military Values hold Meaning for the Corporate World
Navinder Narang
Economic Times, an Indian National Daily, recently covered a news item on the rising popularity of recruiting military officers for leadership roles in the corporate sector. It is easy to understand how someone whose leadership skills were honed in combat would be more qualified for leadership than the candidate whose only leadership test could have been winning the school summer camp obstacle race.
The correlation between military service and leadership ability is well documented. Studies show that companies with military leaders outperform their peers.Many of our nation's most respected companies have discovered a source for talent that traditional recruiting methods often overlook - the men and women of our Armed Services. The leadership skills, core values, integrity, and work ethic of our military transition members provide a bridge to span the leadership gap in our current workforce.
There are seven core values associated with the military: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honour, Integrity and Personal Courage. Let us examine each military value for its usefulnes to the corporate world.
Loyalty - Bear true faith and allegiance to the Nation, the Army, and other soldiers.
This means showing your faith in your organisation, your leaders and your colleagues. People want to know they can trust you. And you want the same reassurances from others.
Duty - Fulfill your obligations. Accept responsibility for your actions and those entrusted to your care. Find opportunities to improve oneself for the good of the unit.
You've got a job to do and people depend on you to get it done. If someone needs help, give it to them. If you need help, seek it from your peers. Be consistent in action and deed.
Respect - Treat people as they should be treated.
How we consider others reflects upon each of us, both personally and as a professional organization. Act courteously toward customers, colleagues and seniors. If you disagree with an opinion or point of view, challenge the position, but avoid the personal attack. Remember that your actions speak volumes about yourself and your business or organization.
Selfless Service - Put the welfare of the nation, the Army, and your subordinates before your own.
Selfless service leads to organizational teamwork and encompasses discipline, self-control and faith in the system.Take care of your co-workers. Go the 'extra mile' for your customers and clients, even if gains you nothing more than some personal satisfaction. Volunteer to take on the tough job, or the mundane job that others avoid.
Honour - Live up to all the Army values.
Live up to the values of your business. Act accordingly, and others will recognize you as an individual of principled character. Don't fall into the trap of, "but I just did what others did before me". Given the choice, take the 'high road'. Distinguish yourself from those who would be satisfied to do less.
Integrity - Do what is right, legally and morally.
Ask yourself, "Is this the right thing to do? How does it reflect on who I am?" If your inner voice is sounding the alarm, it's doing so for a good reason. Avoid shortcuts, cheats, or otherwise doing less than what is expected. Don't compromise yourself, your friends, family or business for some short-term satisfaction. Integrity offers long-term rewards that can't be acquired any other way.
Personal Courage - Face fear, danger, or adversity with physical and moral courage.
Is a boss asking you to do something questionable? Been in a group that disparages a certain race or ethnicity? It may be safer to go along with the crowd, or do nothing at all. It takes inner strength to stand up to peer pressure and moral dilemmas. It's easy to be a follower - anyone can do that. True leadership requires all of one's audacity, nerve and 'guts' to negotiate the difficult roads that lie before us.
Yes, these men and women who wish to launch their second careers have battle proven leadership ability. But even more importantly they have honour. And the courage to do what is right, even if there is risk of casualties. They are worthy of respect and worthy of trust. They are ready to lead, with integrity.
And they are looking to leading their way to the corner office instead of capturing the hill.
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Memos From Your Child
Memos From Your Child
- Don't spoil me. I know quite well that I ought not to have all I ask for ... I'm only testing you.
- Don't be afraid to be firm with me. I prefer it .. it makes me feel more secure.
- Don't correct me in front of people if you can help it. I'll take much more notice if you talk to me in private.
- Don't make me feel that my mistakes are sins. It upsets my sense of values.
- Don't be too upset if I say "I hate you." It isn't that I hate you, but only that I need your attention.
- Don't protect me from consequence. I need to learn the hard way.
- Don't take too much notice of my small ailment. Sometimes they get me the attention I want.
- Don't nag. If you do, I shall have to protect myself by appearing deaf.
- Don't make rash promises. Remember that I feel badly let down when promises are broken.
- Don't forget that I cannot explain myself as well as I should like. This is why I'm not always accurate.
- Don't tax my honesty too much. I am easily frightened into telling lies.
- Don't be inconsistent. That completely confuses me and makes me lose my faith in you.
- Don't put me off when I ask you questions. If you do, you will find that I stop asking and seek my information elsewhere.
- Don't tell me my fears are silly. They are terribly real and you can do much to try to understand.
- Don't ever suggest that you are perfect or infallible. It gives me too great a shock when I discover that you are neither.
- Don't ever think it beneath your dignity to apologize to me. An honest apology makes me feel surprisingly warm to you.
- Don't forget how quickly I am growing up. It must be very difficult for you to keep pace with me but please try.
- Don't forget I love experimenting. I couldn't get along without it, so please put up with it.
- Don't forget that I can't thrive without lots of love. But I don't need to tell you all the time, do I?
__._,_.___
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
views of an Officer's daughter
A very nice piece I received from one of the forces groups – thought it deserved to be forwarded. Unfortunately the lady’s email ID is not mentioned, or one could have congratulated her on her thoughts.
Rohit
Absolutely genuine views of an Officer's daughter!
It's very simple. A military coup, that is. One collective word
is all it needs to convert this nation from a democratic country to a
progressive economy with martial law. The armed forces will take over the
nation, and no one can do a thing about it. Not the police force, not
Manmohan Singh(=Sonia Gandhi), not A.K. Antony. No one. A movement will
arise so suddenly and with the fury of a raging tsunami, that it will
rewrite India's future, inject discipline in the blood of every Indian,
unscrew unopened bottles of potential and terrorise the intestines out of
those who dare to oppose them or irrigate the minds of others with vile
thoughts. Corruption will be eliminated 90% and progress will double..
Indeed, the souls of our forefathers who fought for real freedom, will rest
whole-heartily under this military control. Ironic, but true.
The question here is, why won't they do it?
Let me tell you what bothers me. I am the 19 year old daughter of a retired
government servant, an army officer to be specific (note the 'Servant'..
absolutely true in case of the armed forces)
My father, who retired as a Colonel, is not a receiver of the PVSM, AVSM,
VSM, or even the VC for that matter. He was a part of the army, served an
ordinary Colonel's role, did not jump in front of a bullet to save his men,
or plan an intelligent strategy to capture some enemy territory. He was a
part of both major wars with Pakistan and China, returned without being a
decorated war hero, served in regiments in both borders, saw extreme weather
conditions and backward technology and most importantly, he enjoyed and took
immense pride in doing all this and serving the nation.
Yet, I feel my father is a greater man than many 'greats' in this nation.
Shahrukh Khan, or Pratibha Patil,to begin with:neither of them have
sacrificed more than a sleepless night or compromised on their Saturday
morning sleep for the nation.
I don't blame you for saying, 'Oh, she's an army officer's daughter,
obviously that's why she's biased'. I don't deny it. It is true. I am
biased. And I want every single person in this country, if not the world to
be biased. I can only tell you what it is like to have seen these people up,
close and personal, to have heard true incidents of bravery and selflessness
and then know they're are being paid peanuts, to sacrifice their lives
without hesitation for the nation.
When I was 16, my family took a holiday to Arunachal Pradesh, to the
regiment where my father had been in command, more than 20 years ago. From a
scenic , quaint little town called Tenga, on the banks of a gushing river,
we travelled to a snow desert near the Chinese border called Bumla. Here, in
the middle of nowhere, one could see a small board stuck in the ice reading
'Welcome to India'. For as far as our eyes could see in all four directions,
there was nothing but snow. Beside that board stood a guard, probably of
south Indian origin, in 6 layers of clothing, a giant wind-cheater and the
heaviest pair of snow-boots imaginable, against constant rapid winds,
endless lengths and immense depths of ice, pacing an abandoned minefield
from the 1962 war, looking through a telescope at Chinese vantage points to
track enemy positions and moves.
He didn't opt to be there, but when he chose the forces as a career he knew
what he would be facing, and he faces it with valour, for he has the
patriotism that you and I and many of our politicians lack. Tomorrow he may
die in battle, but I know for sure, that no one who has joined the forces
will ever regret taking up that profession. If he dies in an act of bravery,
he will most probably be awarded a VC or PVC medal for the same,
posthumously. Then the government might give his family a lump sum and/or a
measly monthly stipend of Rs.850 to Rs.1500. I ask you, is that all this
man's life is worth?
What about a serving soldier? He mostly hails from small areas or rural
backgrounds with an uneducated wife and 2 children back in his village
alone.Typical, but true. This man, who has time in the forward areas only to
eat, sleep and watch the enemy, hardly sees his family. His entire salary is
sent back home to his spouse, who faces the brunt of yet again uneducated
parents-in-law ready to blame her for anything that happens to their son. In
such a situation, a soldier's wife receiving the pitiful salary of her
husband will be left an orphan in the middle of the road, simply for the
lack of money.
Then, these war heroes, and martyrs are forgotten within minutes, no, wait,
seconds of their death. No one forgets to come for the Republic Day parade
,or to place that wreath they didn't order on the grave of some memorial
they don't know was built for what on Independence day. Just because it is
protocol. Protocol to 'remember' (or forget?) these people on these 'days'
meant for our nation, to 'remember' them for the 30 seconds it takes you to
read patriotic forwards and messages in your in boxes on email and on your
cellphone.
Like a 90-year old war veteran said, I guess it's the forces who are to be
blamed. Right from the 3rd pay commission-who screwed up royally- the three
forces have always put the pride of serving the nation over money. I guess
it's their fault they didn't demand it then.
My father and I have been discussing this issue for a while now, and my
blood boils, every single time I see our so-called Defence minister
Mr.A.K.Antony defending his stupidity on a podium which he does not deserve.
Have you for a minute stopped and thought about why you at home are able to
enjoy your evening spent listening to your iPod, or watching a DVD on your
42-inch LCD? It is because you live in India, where the borders, threatened
by invasion every second, are guarded constantly, by the watchful eyes of
some 27-year old son of a mother who sits far away in a remote town, praying
consciously every second for the safety of her son. If that guard decided to
look away for even a minute, he would be dead, within seconds, and there
would be an invasion leading to chaos everywhere. Soon, India would become a
replicate Iraq, pandemonium prevailing,where you would need the permission
of your invaders to even use the toilet, which under normal circumstances
would be your birthright.
Sometimes it's scary, how something so simple and routine is linked to
something so complex and out of hand. From all of you who saw these reports
of the military's peaceful war against the government on television, some of
you changed the channel since it didn't concern you, some saw the report and
took it in as general knowledge, and some burnt rage over it for a few
seconds. Those whose blood still boils, would be the ones who have actually
some patriotism left in their blood.
Am I being too philosophical for a nineteen year old? Most of you might say
yes, but I say, why not? You would too, if you saw the fire in the eyes of
these people the way I do.
And what is it, with Mr.Antony's comment on discipline? I'm sorry Mr.Antony,
but you politicians, who hit each other with chappals, and microphones, use
unparliamentary language in the parliament, come half an hour late to a
meeting, and do not know the words of the national anthem, are talking about
discipline.Please, don't make me laugh.Or with the panel that is enquiring
the pay commission having IAS officers in it!? Why don't we have a separate
pay commission for the Military like most other countries do? Why do we have
to put up with a cock-eyed system? Why does a DGP get paid almost twice as
much as his equivalent in the forces? Why does the army have to replace the
fire-brigade, police force and everyone else, when it is specifically
mentioned that the forces are only for training during peace and attack
during war. Why does the government involve the forces in flood relief ,
earthquake relief, tsunami relief, and more recently, rescuing of children
fallen in pits? Then to put the cherry on the icing, you pay them in a pay
scale adopted in 1948?
I have faced and will face a lot of criticism for my views.As some of my
friends say, we do get good rations, accommodation and cheaper FMCGs and
alcohol. Rations and accommodation -anyone in a decent government service
gets that. Cheaper FMCGs- The least the government can do is to remove the
taxes off the MRP of many products and make it available to the average
soldier, who in return is willing to pay the price of his life for his
nation. Cheap alcohol- yes, a bottle of rum is relatively cheaper. Why don't
you spend one year of your life to replace a soldier in snowy altitudes, in
nothing but a tent or in the blistering heat of the Thar with the only wind
bringing sandstorms along with it or in the jungles of Nagaland with the
leeches sucking your blood out and I'm sure ANY soldier you replace to give
him precious time with his family will gladly give you all the rum he can
ever get in his life, simply so you don't die of exhaustion and depression
and actually live to tell your tale.Simply, so you can survive.
Let me remind you (non)patriotic souls, that the life of a person in the
armed forces is one filled with dignity and pride, and I believe it should
reflect in how much s/he is paid, for glamour and corruption rule the roost
today, and that bias will take our country nowhere.
Hoping for the best to come for our brave men and women..
JAI HIND.
--
Vaishnavi Prasad
Rohit Agarwal
9868967224
http://jottingsofmine.blogspot.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/1agarwal
! PaUNa-mad: PaUNa-imad\ma pUNa-at\ pUNaa-maud\cCyato .
pUNa-sya pUrmaaVa pUNa-maovaaiSaYyato .
Absolute perfection comes from the absolute.
That which is well built
will never be torn down.
That which is well latched
can not slip away.
Those who do things well
will be honored from generation to generation.
(Tao Te Ching)
