Humorous Kelantanese

Many of us will not forget RMAF Officer Cadet Meor Sukarno a really Bob Hope of our intake.I remember him doing his strip tease ala Rose Chan at Asahan Firing Range and he went naked until the last hair. His usual companion was Officer Cadet Mahmood Khamsani another Kelantanese of an aristocratic origin and the handsomest cadets of all. He received this award at our June Ball dinner night at the Federal Hotel Kuala Lumpur in June 1972.He was selected to join the Regular Intake 16 and continued two further years of cadet training.He came out as the Best Cadet and winner of our covetous Sword of Honour in 1974 Sovereign Parade before the Yang DiPertuan Agong.

Meor left the service as a Major and is now a businessman in Subang Jaya.Recently he had his bypass operations probably because of too much laughing and cracking of jokes.His happy disposition surely does not fade with the passing of time.

I belonged to Syed Putra Company at the Royal Military College and my squad was squad 9 and my squad Officer Instructor was Lieutenant Ali Zaman of Recce Regiment and my NCO Instructor was Staff Sergeant Soon also of the Recce Regiment.Out of 28 officer cadets in my squad only three were commissioned including Meor and the rest were sent back to their civilian life.This was the highest squad casualty record of all RMC intakes since 1957.

SSgt Soon was a very strict disciplinarian with no quarters given type. A real martinet.It is very rare today to meet a strict and professional Chinese of this type. He belonged to the old military order of the British type. He actually wanted to pancong kepala cadet Meor for incessant parade square mischiefs.When he conducted parade inspection he always insisted on 101 per cent perfect otherwise you had to run squaring the parade square until he gave the order to stop.I was picked up several times for not giving strict attention to his words of command and had to square the parade square and in one occasion I was altogether forgotten by him and had to run almost half a day.

Lt Ali Zaman was a very optimistic instructor and a real jovial and fun loving instructor, a passionate eating and outing type the only officer instructor that took us out for eating and outing at various famous places in Kuala Lumpur during the weekends.Unfortunately many of us did not commission to recall this experience.He was very funny and in one ocassion he took us to eat Kajang satay with the condition that who ate less had to pay the bill.This was a real eating contest and the skinnest among us had to pay the bill.I cannot remember this cadet and he was not commissioned.After this casualty record he was posted out to the Recce Regiment and I have never heard or  met him till today.