It began with just my colleague and I. We passed each other on the stairs leading to the trainees' bunks, and we impulsively sat on the steps to discuss a particularly thorny conflict among two recruits. The thing was, another colleague who was on his way down, saw us and joined us.
One officer and two sergeants, sitting on the stairs just a stone's throw from the recruits.
Like a silly local sitcom, another colleague passed us and also joined us. Then another. Then, another. Just as we spaced ourselves out on three different steps to form a little circle, the remaining permanent staff walked up the stairs, returning from their coffee break.
Now, three officers and 5 sergeants, sitting on the stairs, passing around curry puffs and packet kopis.
A fitting end to the hastily-convened EGM played out thus: our current batch of recruits started coming down the stairs, and when they saw all of their superiors sitting around on the stairs, laughing and joking like they were at a Starbucks instead of a flight of stairs cleaned by recruit power, they were simply so stunned they stopped and stared!
That was the moment. The moment where I looked around that circle and was so seized by the camaraderie my wing had formed amongst itself. People from such diverse walks of life, brought together by circumstance and army tyranny, bonded by shared experiences and a common love for torture (just kidding). Friends in peace, team-mates in training, brothers in war.
How can anyone leave the army without such poignant memories as these?
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