STOP PRESS

This just came in the Wire.
Six members of  Club 12/68 entered for a golf tournament organized by SetiakawanGolf. It was for the
SetiakawanGolf President’s Trophy. It was held on Wednesday 30 Dec 09 at the Port Dickson Golf & Country Club.

 

The six squad members who joined were:
a.    Isa Hassan.
b.    Khalid Saad.
c.    Rahman Jabir.
d.    Hashim Yahaya.
e.    John Ramli Harun and
f.    John Hamzah Hassan

Good representation huh?
And better news. Of the six, 4 won prizes. Of the four, 3 won part of the competition prizes and of the three one won the Championship. And the winner of the President’s Trophy went to Rahman Jabir. Playing to a handicap of 22 he had a net 66, 6 under. Wow. He beat 59 other golfers.

The results for the other squads were:
a.    Isa Hassan – Fifth for the A Medal with a net 71 (handicap 14).

b.    Khalid Saad – First for the B Medal with a net 69 (handicap 20).
c.    Hashim Yahaya – Nearest to Line. (handicap 22)
Our junior Amiruddin Aladad also won Fourth position in the A Medal. Playing to a handicap of 12 he had a net 70.

His gross was thus 82. One of us had a net 81 and I had a net 79. This is ‘teruk case’.
The two with a naught were the two Johns, John Ramli and John Hamzah. For both of us in Malay we ‘Menang Sorak’. We cheered for our Squadmates. Four out of 6 is 66.6666% success. Not bad for Club 12/68 to end 2009.
During the Prize Presentation, Setiakawan’s President’s wife, Datin Fatimah Huri was given the honour to give away the inaugural trophy. Rahman like a true gentleman invited Rohaya along. Other than the trophy he won the cash prize of RM ????.It was in an envelope. Rohaya received (maybe grabbed or took would be more appropriate) the envelope and Rahman the trophy. One the ‘cash’ the other the ‘kind’. This in relation to being ‘in cash or in kind’.
Well done Rahman. A good momento to end the Year. May there be more to come in 2010. For Rohaya, enjoy the ‘Cash’.

Club 12/68 Forever.

HASHIM AND HALIJAH'S WEDDING INVITATION

WEDDING RECEPTION OF AHMED IRFAN AND IDA HARMIZA AT THE GRAND MAHKOTA BALLROOM, HOTEL ISTANA ON 06 DECEMBER 2009

It was a grand and glittering occasion. The wedding reception of our squad, Mamat Ariffin’s son Ahmed Irfan with his bride, the lovely Ida Harmiza binti Dato Johar. It was held at the Grand Mahkota Ballroom, Hotel Istana.

As we entered the ballroom we could see the grandeur of it all. We made our way to the allocated table and met other squad mates. Almost everybody was there.

We first saw our Presidente with his wife Azizah, There was Khalid Saad, Hashim Yahaya, Marzuki Apai, Burn, Ahmad Ismail (all the way from Alor Star, Sam (Ramasamy) very smart in his beige suit, Jamil Rais, Ramli Harun, Kamaldin, Hadi Razak, Isa, Hj Hamdan, Bakar Suman, Zakaria Ramli, Billy Gooi, Khalid Othman and Chee Eng Boon. All with their spouses.

There was also Yusof Mohd Noor splendidly dressed in baju kebangsaan. Macam dia nak pergi kahwin pulak.


















Chee need special mention as it was ages since we met him. He was there with his lovely missus. Both dressed in red.

We had earlier said our greetings to Mamat Ariffin and his lovely wife, Datin Noraini at the entrance to the ballroom. They looked great in their grey baju kebangsaan. Together with the committee, all in grey, they looked fabulous.And whenever squads meet, there’ll lots of chats, catching up with the latest news. It took a bit of persuasion and a bit of prodding to have everybody seated. A bit scattered but everybody got a seat. I had Sam and Missus, Chee and Missus, Hj Hamdan and Missus and Ahmad Ismails’s daughter and her husband. Cukup sepuluh. The menu as listed on the menu card includes nasi beriani or nasi putih, dalca, daging lembu, acar rampai, udang mentega (buttered prawn lah tu), ayam masak merah, ikan masak sweet sour. Considering MatPin was from Kelantan, there was no budu though. A big spread. Hj Hamdan doesn’t take udang, so extras for us. There were sweetened drinks as well as mineral water. On completion there was a combination of dessert which includes apple pie, ice cream, cut fruits of strawberry (ini Isa kena sebut) and mango.
Coffee or tea to conclude. Besides that, there were cute Hotel Istana tiny tins with chocolates inside. Actually these chocs would be good to take during our drive back. As for mine, I took one earlier and when Joe Grey mentioned about being hungry, I gave him one. There was also a bowl of fragranced flowers inside. From the usual lithe clutch bags that our wives used to bring, we now have to bring slightly bigger handbags – to put these bowls in. The table gifts are getting bigger and bigger. We may have to bring brief cases soon.




At about 2030 hrs the newlyweds with their entourage entered the ballroom. They were led by lounge suited boys and flower girls. They paused for the recitation of the ‘Selawat’ and then proceeded to the pelamin. The pelamin on stage decorated with flowers was bathed in an impressive white lights. It was a very touching and a significant moment.



This was followed by the ‘menepung tawar’. There were 6 couples who did the honour to the newlyweds. Once done, they adjourned to the hightable.

They were followed by the newlyweds. Dinner was announced and we demurely started our meals. As usual we the gentlemen served for our ladies. We took last. It was a splendid spread. MatPin and family must have undergone a strict and tedious ‘food tasting’ time. There were dances immediately after the newlyweds sat at the HighTable. They were youngsters who danced very well indeed.














After dinner there was a speech by MatPin.
With his lovely wife by his side, he thanked all present, And in thanking the guests he made special mention of his pride in being part of Club 12/68, of which he said of a relationship that started in 1968. That’s a good 42 years.
This was followed by the Cake Cutting session.

It was a 4 tiered cake. Tall and exquisite. After the rituals were over, the newlyweds strode to the entrance to thank guests and bid them farewell. We lined up. Then I saw it.

Our members were still around and still sitting down. I guessed, pre dinner chats were still not enough. There need to be a post dinner continuation exchanges. Thats the spirit of Club 12/68. Our presence was to show support to our squad and his family. Sorry guys but no supper would be served. We thanked the newlyweds. Wished them Selamat Pengantin Baru and all the Best.

We thanked MatPin and Datin Noraini and the committee members who had done a splendid job.

 The next snag was the long crawl to get out of the basement parking area. It comes with the turf I guessed. Everybody was Happy and Hopefully MatPin and his Family too. Even though in his speech he mentioned that ‘ being a General I only make general decision whilst all major decisions were left to my wife'. It must be many hours of discussions, planning, preparation and decisions to be made for this wedding. Whew. Its over for now Squad. Ada lagi ke? We are available to attend another wedding.
Thanks a Lot Squad.

Squad Terima Menantu

As for this one, you need to refer to Jamil's latest on the openning of a German Store. The two guys on inserted pictures were also there.
Oooopps.
ps. Dear Bro Zed & Kathy. My apology. John

THE BEIJING GET TOGETHER 2010

Dear Squads,

I guess you would have received Apai’s update on our Beijing Trip. What started as a ship ride from Port Kelang to Lumut, enjoying the Navy’s Hospitality, then on to Jakarta, to Bandung, to Padang, to the Indo Chinese States, to Perth has now gone to Beijing. There was a long and noisy discussion for the venue of our next Get Together. Noisy but interesting.
Everybody had their say – selling their favourite place. We eventually settled for Beijing. Our Chairman, Apai’s former stay in Bejing as the Defence Attache has nothing to do with the decision. Lets say ‘we would like to venture further’
I believe Apai’s Summary of our meeting with the agent’s representative on 26 Nov 09 has been read and comprehended. As stated, we have requested that Cindy, the agency’s sales rep come out with a more acceptable costings. The deliberations went as far as requesting her to look at the costs of our daily meals to save costs. A list of menu was also suggested. We went as far as that as long as we don’t go hungry it should be alright. But as long as there is ‘telor dadar’.
If I may have my say:
a. Beijing has always been on our minds. At least in mine. It is the capital of one of the great nation or soon to be great nation of the world. We have read about it which includes the Great Wall of China,the Forbidden City,

the Tiananmen Square, the Yangtze Kiang, one of the world’s longest river, the world’s largest population and the discovery of the TerraCotta Army of the Qin Emperor, Shih Huang Ti in 1974















and then the construction of the Three Gorges Dam
and later still the Summer Olympics in August 2008 with its Bird’s Nest Stadium

and the National Aquatic Centre and its cube water bubble.
All these in China and most could be seen in Beijing.
b. We would be traveling with MAS. So, no more mee Maggie and mineral water or nasi lemak Pak Abbas. Our meals will be integrated into the air fares.
c. The costs, for now, would be RM 2590 per adult for a 6 day 4 nights stay. Our Chiangmai trip costs us RM 1,500 per person for 5 days and 3 nights. With an additional RM 1090 we would be traveling further and staying longer. And its Beijing, not really a cheap city. As stated by Apai, we would ‘negotiate' for a better price on this 10th Dec.
d. My air fare to Beijing last Nov, was RM 1,700. Going on this premise, we need to fork out another RM 890 for the costs of the rests. This include accommodation, transportation, meals and fees for the many tourists attractions we are visiting. Golf is not part of it though.
e. We have 6 months to ‘save’ though it depends on the schedule of payment which would also be discussed this 10 Dec.
During my trip there from 4th till 8th Nov 2009 I saw a big and sprawling city. Very orderly. Everything is big – of what I saw lah. It is generally clean – this for a city of 17 million people. The highways are big,
the cyclists have their own lanes, not much spitting seen. To a large extent, this transformation was due to organizing the Olympiad in 2008. In Nov of 2009, it was cold. We arrived with a -3 degree Celcius temperature. In June I believe it will be warmer or hotter.
The visits to the Great Wall was a real breath taking experience. We have only seen pictures, but this time it was for real.
You have to be there to realize the magnitude of it all. But I don’t suggest we climb all the steps to the top. It’ll be worst than our Karen Village visit in Chiangmai.
As a military man, it set me thinking on the the logistics and human resources required for such a construction. It set me thinking, if I were the invader how would I penetrate such an ‘impregnable fortress’ or would I suffer defeat in trying.
The Forbidden City is another sight to behold.
I can only describe it as walk, climb steps, see buildings, walk down steps, walk, walk up steps, see buldings and walk down steps. Continuously for about 1.5 kilometres. Tiring but interesting. The buildings as described by the Tour Guide are the Emperor’s Bedroom, the Emperor’s Office, the Emperor’s Court, the Queen’s Chamber, the Queen’s Court, the Concubines Buildings, the Childrens Rooms, the Library and the living quarters of the City’s residence. Even as I went through the motion of visiting the City, I also wonder at the management and structure of such a huge complex. And we are talking about a period of a few hundred years duration.
Another huge structure is the Summer Palace.
A summer retreat for the royal family. We didn’t get to the palace but its gardens and compound. Another wonder to view.
There is a lot more to see. But then it would be taking the thunder out of finding out for yourself.
So, let us all, agree to participate in our Annual Gathering in Beijing come 1st June 2010.And come for our discussion at Kelab Tasek Perdana DiRaja (Royal Lake Club) this 10 Dec at 1630 hrs.





Club 12/68 Forever




p.s. Do listen to the music in the Video Bar below.

BANTERING WITH SQUAD JAMIL

2009/11/24 hamzah hassan

It sort of started by me sending a response to Jamil’s earlier mail. My mail sent on 24th
Nov 2009 goes thus:





Dear Squad Jamil,
Thank you for the response and the advice. You sure would make a good diplomat. Our
Presidente gave the same advice, but, there were others who were just as fiery as I was. You
know who they are.
They say war is an extension or failure of diplomacy. In this case if there is a war involving our Squads, you know who to pick. Before that we have to send you and the Presidente. You fail you send us.
For the rest,
I would cease creating any more hostility. Unless he replied in the same manner. I would advise the others to do the same. I am not sure who gained here. Let us now prepare for 2010.

For Everybody
Listen to Taps that I forwarded to you.

Club 12/68 Forever. ( Sung to the tune of 'I will Wait Forever' by Air Supply).

Hamzah Hassan

On 24th Nov 09, Squad Jamil wrote thus:

dear squad hamzah,

enough have been said by our golfers themselves, your good self and by other (non-golfing) squad members on the subject of how we have been "cheated" of a place (4th placing) in the recent RAFOR golf. you have also, as the golf convenor, for the intake, rightly made your observations known to the organisers and MG (B) Dato Hashim has replied albeit a little too late with some lame excuses and a touch of sarcasm to boot!!! i suppose it just goes to show how immature (dah tua-tua macam ini pun masih belum wisen up!!!) they can be when dealing with complaints. your counter-reply has further fortified our observation of the lackadaisical attitude of the committee. and now that everyone who wants to be heard has made his point, i suggest we close the subject lest it gets carried away and gets mired with other issues and leaves a bad taste in the mouth in our relations with RAFOR who are, after all, our brother officers, too. i suggest we close this chapter, KIV the lessons learnt and move on.

something that really caught my attention out of this tiff is the hidden and hitherto unknown talents of our squadmates. i was amazed that you had articulated your observations and arguements so well.

the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogthe

speaking of moving on, what i had in mind is


The following mail from Squad Jamil was sent on 25th Nov 09. It was a follow up from the previous one.

Somehow he started with a giggle ehehehehehe. Macam pempuan pulak. Kita punya should be

HaHaHaHaHa! Anyway, here goes,

dear squad hamzah and all mates !!!!!

ehehehehehe!!!!!! i must have tertekan the send button ... my comments were not finished yet .... as i spoke with you over the phone, my letter was in fact already typed and ready to be sent as a reply in the club 1268 blog but somehow i couldn't press the right buttons to have it posted in the blog. and as i was over the phone and speaking to you, experimenting and followig your instructions on how to send .... oooops!!! the whole thing disappeared and i couldnt retrace or bactrack to it. so back to re-drafting the letter and tried as hard as i could to recall what i wrote in the original reply my pc starting giving problems which further exacerbated the recall nerves in my memory and caused a brain jam!!!... what i type in the key pad does not appear to be responsive on the screen .... i was missing letters in between words and spaces are not moving so it was a lot of frustration backtracking and checkng back on the spelling etc so much so that i couldnt concentrate on recallng what i wrote in the original reply to you (hehehehe!!!! you will notice that my letter below is hanging and also i was testing the keypad with "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" caption!!!!) even as i write now without backtracking and correcting ,this is how it would appear "the quickbwn fox jmps ver the lazydg". so i am having a hard time struggling to finish this letter as best as i could. so if there are minor sd errors please understand. so what i was trying to convey in my original reply in the blog revolved aound 3 points :
a. the first has been said already about the RAFOR golf. (i take note of your ref to clauswitz's philosophical observation that "war is an extension of politics" (after diplomacy fails) and taken note of your observations about the "hawks" and "doves"' among our squad members.
b the second point i made was that i was quite amazed that you have very good writing skills (dah tentulah kan ... u were my instructor for the sd course!!!!) only sikit bawah squad fathol kitalah (out of deferrence to him as our premier writer and owner and editor of a newspaper tau ... nah mamphui bersaing dengan dia!!!!!)
c. more importantly, i wanted to congratulate you for comig up with the club's very own blog and this is what i would like to elaborate further and invite comments from our fellow brothers and members.
the club's blog has been a long time coming and through your sole efforts you have finally made it a reality ...so my heartiest congrats to you again. well, as members of intake 12/68 we are all automaically "accepted" members of this blog ...
its OUR blog. so to all squadmates out there, lets contribute our ideas as to how best we want it to be presented/stuctured, how and who is to manage it, how can we actively contribute to it so that it does not just become a white elephant after the initial enthusiasm wears off.
for starters,i would like to suggest that maybe below the RMC logo, we should have a portrait/group picture of our intake as we were in 1968-1970. i know this can be quite challenging esp to get all of us in the photo as some had left while during training, some went off overseas to sandhurst and portsea, some joined sandhurst without going through RMC and there were yet others like me who joined the intake six months later from ssc 14. maybe one solution could be to post several of these portraits taken at different times during the training period. but that would mean another bigger problem .... have we got, among us, those photos taken at different times? members should come forward if they have those pix in their possesion
my next suggestion is an offshoot of the above, that is, a portrait of those of us who are still alive as we are today - greying hair,white hair, bald or balding, wrinkly and whethered faces, potbelly and all .... for us to compare and contrast and laugh and cry over it.
of course we must also have a picture gallery to archive and display photograhic evidences of all our activities from RMC through our career to the present. and there are the club activities that we have recorded in penang, sarawak, chiengmai, RAFOR etc etc which are presently loosely stored by individuals in their emailboxes or PCs.
squad bakar baba has taken great pains to compile personal, contact and family details of all members since the turn of the last century (my my does that not make it sound like we are THAT old????) in hard copy which could also be downloaded into the blog for easier updating, storage and access.
the blog can also be effectively used as the platform for passing info, call for meetngs, results of acivites, post mortems and anything that need to be conveyed to all under current postings.
in fact, gentlemen, the sky is the limit in terms of its usage. but please remember that it can be as useful only if the members want to make it so.
so on behalf of the president and esp squad hamzah, i would like to invite each and every
squadmate to support this blog and be an active contributor.

regards
jamil rais