But It Is Not This Day

I was sent to Sandakan to fly a few sorties on the fateful day of 9-7-11.

I was probably crossing the Crocker Range at the time the march began.

I was hoping against hopelessness that the ruling government would stand down and seize a legitimate moment of glory for itself. But later in the day I was to discover both in pride and sorrow that it failed to be the bigger guy and yield. Pride that Malaysians are now willing to fight for a better country and return us to being the Golden Chersonese. Sorrow that the country's leadership refused to budge from the role of abusive parenting.

I am a civilian now.

This day I would not have wanted to be in uniform. Not when the government would have exercised emergency laws to harm its own citizens. The authorities tried to use the military during the days of the Reformasi. Thank God we had an Armed Forces Chief who had the appendage to tell the authorities that we would not mobilise against civilians we signed up to fight for, and that the cops could do their dirty work for them.

I wouldn't ordinarily trust a cop further than I could throw him, having known of their inimitable modus operandii through work experience, but at the same time I have had some good experiences with them too.  We worked together in Acheh and also when I was in MINDEF in processing the approval of military aircraft to ferry goods and personnel that air charters would not.

Thus, I can sympathise with a few of them.

For as time draws on I am witness to more and more erosion of common sense and the decompostion of good governance. Were I in uniform now, I would worry that the idiot at the helm of my ministry would issue a command to open fire upon people I had many times risked my life to draw away from harm.

Cops come under the Home Ministry. Lucky for me I was in the military requiring the King to issue the order. Yet as we have all witnessed, the King has been sidelined. So now even soldiers may be forced into what they really never ever want to do.

In all my years of serving and flying in the air force I was used to the idea that each time I took to the air could be my last moment alive.

I am afraid of dying but I didn't fear death in serving my countrymen.

What I did fear was the nitwit behind the signing of orders to kill.