Discrepancies?

I was thinking to myself why is there a discrepancy between the officer cadets in the SPF and the SAF. What led me to this thinking is because of, obviously what i see in PA and the stories i heard from my counterparts in the SAF. After all, we all came from BMT, but two totally different fates awaits. Let me first talk about the cadets from the SPF, which is from my point of view.

In PA, the cadets are somewhat the superior beings. This probably has to do with us not being the lowest lifeform, unlike in the SAF. There's this very obvious stratification between the junior offiers and us, senior officers. Firstly, we wear white shorts, which signifies position of authority in both cultures. Therefore, we're left relatively untouched if we commit minor offences, and to add to that, our course manager always covers up for us, and he is of the higher rank in PA. Then there's another example during morning flag raising. My squad forms up at the front of cohort together with the C-Course (Regular Senior Officer Trainees) personnel with the rest of the junior officers formed up behind us. This even includes regulars whom are training to be sergeants. I mean, we're only serving NS and they treat us so much better. Another point to note is dining at the mess. All the trainees with white shorts get to sit on special allocated tables and we also have a special station for taking our food. The rest of the PA do not get to sit on our tables and also do not get to take food from our 'special' food station. What obvious segregation. What's more, we do provost duties for the academy and the red sash that those rostered for duty wears allows the provost officers to do what he feels is right to correct the wrong. This includes push-ups, marching on the spot etc etc.

Another point is that we have a cadet mess right on top of our bunks and we get to use it every day whenever we are free. In the mess we have a refrigerator, a television, a vcd player, 8 computer work stations, air conditioning and even two arcade machines! To add to that, we're not that busy like in OCS, where admin time is an hour or so a night. Rather, we have at least like 6 hours of admin a day and we get to do anything in our mess during this time.

In the SAF, from what i've heard, they're the lowest lifeforms in OCS. Correct me if I'm wrong alright, my friends in OCS. I mean they really get tortured upside down and have no one to look down to, since they wearing the insignia. Of course, when you have 3 bars as compared to 1 bar, the former would be more senior but still not in any official position to do anything to the latter. I suppose, this happens in the SAF and not in the SPF is because in SPF, there are recruits, or "mang koks", and ultimately, recruits are fresh enlistees that have totally no right or privilleges, whereas in OCS, there are no "lower lifeforms" other than the cadets themselves.

Also, the cadets in OCS hardly get to use their cadet mess as they are so busy that the hardly have time to do anything else. No doubt that they serve beer there, but what's the point of having beer if one can't use it often enough?

Nonetheless, I'm so glad to be an officer cadet in the SPF. And its 10 days to my commissioning!