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baris sedia!

(Theme Song for this Post: "Respect" by Aretha Franklin)

Do you know what SAF Day smells like? It's smells like sweat. More specifically, it smells like two hundred soaked and tired soldiers who've spent two hours standing shoulder to shoulder under the scorching sun and then with drenched uniforms clinging to their bodies, herded into a hall where they are allowed to further marinate in their own collective perspiratory vapours. You gotta take your beret off to these guys for the effort they've put in.

It is difficult to walk past that hall (which I obviously did) and not be overwhelmed by the inspiration from seeing their perspiration. Even though that inspiration (for those of you who were slacking in bio class, the scientific meaning of the word is "to breathe in," thus qualifying its usage here as a very witty pun) came only as a result of the length of the corridor along the hall outlasting the average person's lung capacity of a single held breath.

But seriously, you have to admire the effort these guys are putting into preparing for our military's single most important event of the year. With the Guest of Honour being the president of our republic and dozens of foreign military personnel on the invitation list for the First of July event, no effort at perfection is being spared. Eight days of rehearsals, four runs a day, over the course of a month leading up to the solemn day.

Even if most of these guys were not initially there by choice, I'd bet good money that on the day itself, not a few heads will be held higher than usual when, dressed to their nines in their Number Ones, they march onto the parade square and see the constellation of epaulettes and other top brass assembled on the grandstand just to watch them perform.

None of you will probably be there (unless you happen be someone from Mindef doing a routine blog check to see if any state secrets are being leaked here) but I have a feeling that the local media will grant it its fair share of coverage. So remember to tune in to the 9:30pm news that day. You might just hear a familiar voice booming over the parade square's sound system. :)