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STAFF AND TRAINEE DYNAMICS
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THIRTEEN
VII. UNCOMMON PROFESSIONALISM:
COMPANY WARRANT OFFICERS
Commander, especially when the weekend leave was threatened. No Platoon Commander,
on the other hand, lightly overruled his NCOs’ decisions.
As a whole, the NCOs who were posted to SAFTI must have been the best senior NCOs
in the SAF, but even so, it is remarkable that there should have been such a large crop of
high calibre NCOs from so small a base as two regular infantry battalions. One can imagine
what a wrench it must have been to the Commanding Officers of 1 and 2 SIR and HQ 1
Brigade to give up their ‘backbone’ personnel, as NCOs have long been regarded in the
military. The eagle-eyed Company Warrant Officers of ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies were especially
impressive. Their personalities and professionalism—perhaps the best local manifestation
of the British military establishment—shone through. No first intake trainee dared to match
wits with them and there was a palpable hush in each of the two company premises when
they were known to be present. On their daily walkabouts prior to first parade or after the
trainees had departed for field training, it was a foregone conclusion that they would spot
any shortcoming in area cleaning or barrack-room layout or any other sin of omission or
commission the trainees may have been guilty of the previous night. The consequences
could range from a relatively tolerable hour of short-and-sharp extra drill at noon, to the
bitter confinement to barracks for the weekend.
If the actions of then WO1 ‘Tiger’ Hong Seng Mak, CWO ‘A’ Company during officer cadet
training were representative of Regimental Sergeant Majors in the SAF, they were in a class
by themselves. Among the most dreaded sounds in ‘A’ Company lines was the whiplash
yell “You there, Officer Cadet!!” from the CWO’s office. But for all his inscrutability and
unapproachability, Tiger was a man with a mission. Officer Cadet Ng Seng Chan relates
how, when he was Cadet Company Sergeant Major for one week, Tiger seemed to have had
it in for him. One of the Cadet CSM’s jobs was to ensure the spotlessness of the barrack
premises and every day for the first few days, Tiger would take him to task over two things:
sloppiness in toilet and shower stalls cleaning, evidence of which Seng Chan was at a loss to
find; and the inevitable presence of cigarette butts behind a particular section of Platoon 3
barrack block. The sloppiness, it turned out, was the staining of the back inside wall of the
toilet bowls, which Tiger demonstrated by donning a rubber glove and wiping off a sample
to offer close evidence to Seng Chan’s nostrils. As for the cigarette butts, Tiger seemed to be
able to zero in on several which Seng Chan would invariably miss, even when he specifically
searched for them at the suspect location. Seng Chan’s initial attempts at warning the cadets
and Platoon I/Cs produced no respite. In frustration, one morning he fell in the whole
company well before muster parade and ordered some ten minutes of short-and-sharp to
draw the attention of the cadets to the problem.