misc update

great, i think i'm going for the intelligence specialist course. this week
we've been doing some terrain analysis. well i just need to list down the
stuff along a route of advance, no analysis required. but i hope i might be
able to do that some day; write the terrain analysis for my officer.
really lucky, cos in the dull days of SISPEC i dreamed up more interesting
scenarios like being involved in military intelligence. and here i am, doing
this stuff at the division level. everytime i think abt the scale of a
division, i'm awed by the sheer magnitude of the whole thing. a battalion is
but less than a ninth of a division. it gives me some pride, and i hope to
contribute in a deeper way.

its an honour, but i know its definitely not because anyone thinks i'm good.
more like they think i'm not, and therefore not possibly capable enough to
work in the combat unit. but just as well, cos the stories coming out from my
friends over there is that they'ved got rather bad, unreasonable commanders.
not what i'd like to think as 'military leaders'. there's no 'heaven' in the
SAF. i think its quite chock-full of screwed up pple who've gotten lucky
enough to get a commission. and then there are the admirable ones...few and
far between. come one...make the whole damn branch wait for something to
arrive? to do what? you see the think is nothing gets filtered down to the
level of the servicemen...you're just a machine waiting to receive
instructions. you do as you are told, no questions asked, no initiative
necessary, no thinking is to be done. the thinking has already been done for
you. you are not important. you are dispensible. you do as you are told.
damnation!

as i learnt abt that i expressed some sarcastic bewilderment, and i hope it
was loud enough for the two Majors behind to hear. the senseless things they
make you do like stay in the office late into the night until the workaholic
bosses leave and you can finally lock it up. can't they lock it up
themselves? or give a call if they need some assistance? servicemen aren't
handmaids. as a high ranking officer, your heads are in the clouds. its easy
to lose sight of the ground, where the men are working hard for you too. do
not forget them. your success depends on them, and reciprocity is greatly
appreciated.

and that shouting captain 'banshee'...the problem with the military is that
power and hierarchy is projected to the very fore of the management
philosophy. this is an important and useful tool for the commander in the
urgent tactical environment at war. BUT its also they way by which many
commanders lose control of themselves. and they think that being
authoritative and going out of their way to be imposing and domineering is
the most effective way of so-called 'leadership'. it is not. it is a trap
that commanders who lack the qualities and character fall into while
attempting to lead.

a leader and a boss are different things. there are only military leaders. no
military bosses. there is no place for bossing around in the military.

anyway, that was a very emotional ranting, because i got upset at the way my
friend was treated. i wish there was something i could do about it, not just
about my friends in their unit, but also my colleagues in HQ as well.

its been pretty busy, but i'm trying hard to make progress understanding
electromagnetics. i've always held the impression that electromagnetics and
the whole business of radar and radio frequency is black magic. much as i
wanted to learn more about it, that was always in KIV status. never really
went near it...anyway there were other learning priorities then. of course,
i'm not talking about studying for exams...never my priority. but now,
mastering electromagnetics has become an immediate priority, because these
are the most fundamental principles that govern all things electrical
engineers do. a good understanding of those principles, and some solid state
physics, and then a more general and higher level view embodied in standard
circuit analysis, i feel, would enable the electrical engineer to gain an
intuitive understanding of a circuit. in the words of some engineer who
contributed in the book "the art of analog circuit design"(?), the analog
engineer is one who can 'simulate circuits in his head'. intuitive
understanding is better than letting that understanding 'fall out of the
mathematics'.