Some time last week I received a call from one of the men who had served under my command from 1993-1995 in a unit called No.107 Squadron of the RMAF Ground Defence Regiment (HANDAU). He is Wan Nadzmi, one of the men I had put under my Combat Intelligence team. The other men in that team were (excuse me if I can only recall them by the nickname they each had): Sgt Uzaid Chikaro (retired as Flight Sgt), Cpl Ali Siam, Cpl Fodzi Taib, Cpl Manaf, Leading Aircraftman Rozamin (retired Sgt), Leading Aircraftman Abdull Me (retired Cpl), Leading Aircraftman Dahalan Dahaman a.k.a Inspector D.D (retired Warrant Officer 2), and Wan Nadzmi who retired as a Cpl.
Wan Nadzmi had left in 2003 after a long stint at the current Chief of Air Force’s office when the latter was Commandant of the Air Force College in Alor Setar. Together with his brother and sister-in-law he opened up a bookstore much like MPH somewhere in Buterworth, then got cheated by his sister-in-law, and has remained jobless since 2006. He is lucky only for the fact that his wife is a teacher and live in the teachers’ quarters. To cut a long story short, he managed to get hold of my number through one of his relatives, who is my former colleague, and asked for help. Today, I took him for a job interview.
I had not seen him since 1996, about a year after leaving the service. So it was time for us to walk down memory lane.
He remembers the apprehension he had had when he heard that I was going to take over command of the squadron. Yes, I was one of the meanest bas***ds the Air Force had ever known. A very strict disciplinarian and a perfectionist, I had no problem punishing wrong-doers. In short, I was a very sickening person. At least once a month, some fixture in my office would have to be replaced. Files would get thrown into the face of the orderlies if the side margin, or number of spaces after a full stop or a comma, were found to contradict one of the bibles of the Malaysian Armed Forces, the T100. I was the best student for the Administrative Officers Course for that series and there was a benchmark I had fixed. On the day I took over command, a record of 90 men asked for transfer. By the end of the day, I had strongly supported their respective transfer, and was left with 35 men and 1 woman…not inclusive of one civilian staff who was rejected by every other squadron/department in that base.
He related to my wife and every person who was there with us for tea how the men, despite my being a pain in the rear to them, was a very caring commander. Simply put, I demanded the best from my men, but I gave them back the best. As an officer, I looked after them right from the cradle to the grave…and I mean it in the literal form of speech. From the point the men’s wife deliver a child, right to the death of my men (I lost two men under my command there), or when their parents or in-laws fell ill, I made sure they got the treatment they deserved, and better. When Leading Aircraftman Hasbullah died, I was one of the men who was inside the grave to place his body, and was the last to leave him there as the soil was being placed back into the grave.
When one of my Corporals was arrested by the police for some petty crime, my Commanding Officer had made ready a cutting blade, ready to demote this Corporal after a summary trial. I argued with my Commanding Officer, jeopardising my relationship with him, that for 364 days out of 365, this Corporal had performed above par, and that it would be wrong for him to be demoted in that manner. My superiors from MINDEF met up with me two days later to discuss the transfer of this said Corporal. I called up this Corporal, and thanked him for all the good he had done when he was under my command, but that he had disappointed me for that one day, miserably. I requested for him to be transfered to the squadron in Kuching, rank intact. He has since retired, a Warrant Officer. When I bumped into him 5 years ago, he hugged me and wept and thanked me for not agreeing to demote him then.
I left the squadron in June 1995. I left 32 good men and 1 good woman, to look after the security aspect of all the Royal Malaysian Air Force bases nationwide, and crime prevention. I worked through my last day in service, called the Run-Out-Date (R.O.D).
When I asked Wan Nadzmi what was it that made the men and woman cry the day I left the squadron, he replied saying that it was how I could relate myself to the men. I never ate with the officers, but I ate with the men in the cookhouse; whenever I was free, I would visit them, and slept in their barracks…much to the disagreement of the other officers. But I had to. It was the only chance I could have for them to speak freely to me, and for me to know what kind of food was served to them, and how they lived their lives. It was the only way for me, as an officer, to know the trials and tribulations that my men had to endure.
I drove Wan Nadzmi to Puduraya for him to catch a bus back. When we arrived there, I gave him RM100 for his pocket money. He wept uncontrollably and hugged me, and asked me why. I told him, I may no longer be an officer in His Majesty’s service, but I am still his officer-in-charge, and that is a fact that will never change until either one of us pass on.
SeaDemon Says 
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