Skip to main content

"Elite" Cry-Babies?

I CANNOT IMAGINE how an operative of the Special Counter-Insurgency Operations Unit (SCOU), when caught by insurgents and subjective to the worse torture imaginable, can ever survive with their mental faculties intact.

But that's exactly what's going to happen if the recent products of SCOU Training cry foul, or more specifically 'hazing,' when they are subjected to the hard realities of law enforcent that handles counterinsurgency operations. Operatives must be physically hard and mentally sturdy to survive the prospect of getting captured without squelling reserved information to the enemy.

I am disappointed to hear that the recent batch of SCOUT trainees considered their physical ordeals during training as 'hazing.' Have they entertained the thought that they were in Camp Ceferino Genovia in Barangay Bahay for an exotic 45-day vacation? If they cannot endure physical pain during training, they must ship out because real life counterinsurgency work will not get better. That is if they plan to be the competent operatives they should be.

From the reports coming out, even the three assistant trainers complained on appeared to be unsure that what they did was valid for the purpose of preparing police officers for the role. They apparently shied away from admitting that they did inflict physical pain during the training. If they did, so what? Their superiors know better than to fault them for doing their jobs.

Of course these trainers may have failed somehow in certain aspects, particularly that of creativity. They should have let these trainees watch special forces movies show rugged and intense physical demands of training in America's elite soldiers. Perhaps this way the trainees will realize that they are babies compared to these American soldiers.

There is a place for shouting 'hazing' when receiving physical punishments. The place is university education in the context of fraternity initiation rites. Not the SCOUT regimen that are intented to make them tough enforcers of law.

At the end of the day, these trainees chose voluntarily to join this batch of SCOUT trainees. Instead of shouting foul, they should be mature enough to assess their personal resources to withstand the demand of elite training. Otherwise, they should seek other avenues of their unspent free time.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Substate-of-a-Gun

THE MORO ISLAMIC Liberation Front (MILF) boldly declared that Muslims be allowed to run their government even "if they go to hell by their own making, so be it." I go for a lasting peace in Muslim Mindanao; but I have serious doubts on real peace when these armed Muslim leaders cannot accept the fact of life that Mindanao is no longer a Muslim territory after Muslim settlers took the land from the Lumads in the prehistoric Philippines. I came from Zamboanga, and grew there. Despite MILF's claim of representing the dream of Muslims in Mindanao, I have serious doubts if the leaders are merely using this separatist slogan for their own aggrandizement. Look at ARMM under MNLF's Nur Misuari who had nothing to show for the tax shares it received from the government. And reports had it Misuari kept a huge sum from this money for his own accounts. So I have so much reservations on the lasting peace settlement with the MILF can bring. First, how much really of our Muslim si...
Post a Comment
Read more

Embarrassing Pull Out

THE THING WITH the latest pull out of the Philippine military vessels from the disputed Panatag Shoal gives me a feeling that we have embarassed ourselves for getting duped into withdrawing from standing put in defending that claim. The current statement from the Chinese foreign ministry seems to say that the Philippines has the only responsibility to keep the tension down in the area; not the overreaching China. Somehow China managed to stand pat on its stubbornness in "defending" what is "hers" from the Philippine claim. If the Philippine politicians fail to get the message, then we as well admit our claim as much weaker (of low resolve) compared to that of China. Imagine leaving the Panatag Shoal on the excuse of protecting the government military vessels from bad weather. That's hollow-sounding to me considering that Chinese policy considers such a move a non-issue on their part. So much for our resolve to claim wha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sonny Politics

APPARENTLY, LIBERAL Party (LP)-National continues to have confidence in Hilario "Junjun" Davide III, despite his defeat in the 2010 elections. And when it comes to the election of the governor of Cebu in 2013, he heads the list of those that the party will support. But former senator John Henry "Sonny" Osmena has someone else in mind. Instead of Davide, Sonny wants a choice from four personalities--Vice Governor Agnes Magpale, Cebu 4th District Benhur Salimbangon, former tourism secretary Joseph Ace Durano, and 6th District representative Luis Quisumbing. These choices reflect more how Sonny's politics work, or how his mind works, than how LP thinks in choosing candidates for government offices. Because incidentally all these four politicians are One Cebu allies, a local party that opposed LP in the 2010 national elections. But that way of thinking is not surprising for Sonny. Although he started his political career as a Liberal in 1963, he was no so...
Post a Comment
Read more