The article below was taken from the blog 'reflections@bayswater , A Fading Soldier' :
Who belong to the poncho ?
Posted on January 7, 2010 by tuanzainal| Leave a comment
Remember Jebat Company collective punishment at Sebatang Karah? One poncho was “found” by Sergeant Hashim the martinet of Jebat Company.He assembled the entire company cadets and asked the question “who belong to the poncho” in English language. He sounded poncho with pooonchoou “who belong to the pooonchoou”. Many believed Sergeant Hashim deliberately picked one poncho from our Barrack and later claimed that he found the poncho as an easy excuse to punish the cadets and to teach the cadets the meaning of collective responsibility. Just a simple mistake like this we had a full day of punishment because no cadet admitted that he had lost the poncho.Sergeant Hashim was from the Recce Regiment and his trademark was brutality of the extreme kind.
We had to do extra parade without stop till midday on Sunday,pumped up, kissed the parade ground like lovers,performed various combat drills, ran many times to the beach and back in double quick time until many cadets dropped like flies from exhaustion. An old timer officer cadet in the name of Mohd Nor voluntarily admitted of losing the poncho to sacrifice for other cadets got himself punished for concocting a tale to save the other cadets. He was a cadet from the other rank in the infantry. He was manhandled by Sergeant Hashim and was brutally punished for attempting to do undue sacrifice for the undeserving cadets. We were all caught in a bind as no cadet had lost any poncho and telling a lie would be an offence by itself. We all had no choice and had to go through the complete punishment and ended up in holing our bodies in lubang beruang till past midnight. Lubang Beruang or Bear Hole was a swampy punishment site for any serious wrong committed by cadets.This unused water catchment was infested with millions of water creatures that would cause skin rashes and itchiness for weeks even after medical treatments.
This was our first taste of collective punishment.Till today I’m still wondering what actually the phrase means “who belong to the poncho?” Rarified English or plainly we were of lesser value than the poncho.I don’t know.Despite his brutality Sergeant Hashim was a very good instructor to transfrom us from a bunch of civilians to hardy soldiers ready to fight any time. My character was transformed and I hope it would last throughout my life, never to give up in fighting for justice for myself, for us and for the Malaysian Armed Forces.We need to be hardy soldiers as before to fight our case to it’s very end successfully and reasonably compensated.
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