On dropping out of Officer Cadet School (OCS)

LTC Nadarajan- Thank you Sir for all the lessons you've taught me.

This is a note I written on my FB page a while back talking about how the habit of sending out a quote of the week came about, I’ll put it up here on my blog to share.

‘I treasure the memories of my past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.’ – Bruce Lee

After my left knee blew during OCS, I was downgraded and given a staff position in OCS hq as the Dy Comd (Army) PA. Dy Comd (Army) at that time was LTC Nadarajan, whose office had this culture of having the PA send out a quote of the week every Monday to the whole of OCS. This weekly process strangely kept me going and thinking, as I was alone in the office most of the time.

Attending 7 commissioning parades and never commissioning is something that stays with you. You see people coming and going but you’re still there, stuck in a moment. Sometimes I wonder, what if? I might have even signed on as I weirdly enjoyed the time out in the jungles. Back to the primitive, you feel your senses in tune to nature and things are magically put back into perspective.

As time goes by, your mind plays tricks on you. There are days when I still suspect that I’ve given up too early; that I could have pushed on, or tried to extend my NS and recourse. But the reality was that it took me 9 months of rehab after the incident just to run again (I was then able to follow my boss outfield after that and have the time of my life out there). I still can’t run as I did because of what happened and I had to change the way I run to keep running. I would like to think that I was a good soldier, but I guess I’m not the one to be the judge of that. As I wrote in my last post to OCS, even though I couldn’t be an officer, I tried to be the best man I could be.

I tell myself never again, that this time, I will finish the fight. Two more years of running, no regrets, no what ifs.

I was lucky to have such a great boss whom I’ve learnt a great deal from. And also I was with great company, many whom had it much worse than me (being in a collecting place for sad cases made me realise I had it easy).  I’d like to share with you some of the quotes that I sent out, and hope they might inspire you, just like it helped me.

For all that you’ve taught and showed by example, and even though I don’t think you’re on my friend list, thank you Sir.

/(‘.’)

CPL (ret) TAN YONG SHENG

17/10/10

Also I’ve noticed that I put the date for my next major competition wrongly in my previous post. The pentathlon I’m doing will be next Sunday, 13th March, instead of today. Apologies for the error and do drop by next week to see how it goes! Have a great week ahead! =)