Forces have system to deliver ‘servant soldiers’ to superiors: military sources

[webfact]

Forces have system to deliver ‘servant soldiers’ to superiors: military sources

By The Nation

 

 

Despite denials by the Deputy PM and general of a system that delivers “servant soldiers” to their superiors to do personal chores, sources within the armed forces have confirmed its existence.

 

Military draftees are systematically assigned as “personal staff members to attend to the superiors” or even some generals after they have retired, Nation TV's “Fact Hunters” programme has revealed.

 

A military source told the TV show that the matter had even been discussed at a meeting of a major military unit and criteria set for such requests.

 

Officers who request “military privates as personal staff members” must be of Lieutenant-Colonel rank and above to be eligible, said the source.

 

It was also set that officers could only get one private, although in practice military draftees would be sent in rotation so that officers would have an uninterrupted flow of personal service staff, said the insider.

 

The use of military draftees for personal service also reportedly extends to retired commanders, the Fact Hunters report found. Some military units also have an internal culture of serving superiors until the retired warriors died.

 

It was common for visitors to the home of a retired general to see a private or two doing chores around his house.

 

Faced with media reports about an Army private having to take care of an officer’s chickens and fighting cocks in Prachuap Khiri Khan, Deputy Premier and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan on Tuesday insisted that there was no such thing as “servant soldiers”.

 

He insisted the practice of putting recruits to personal service was a thing of the past in the armed forces. Prawit, however, said some junior soldiers might be “willingly borrowed from other units to voluntarily serve their seniors”.

 

Thai military tradition commonly allowed for military draftees to do chores around officers’ residences or run mundane errands.

 

The inappropriateness of the tradition of assigning draftees to menial personal tasks was highlighted in a recent case that attracted strong condemnation from netizens.

 

A military private posted a video on Facebook complaining about having to live in unhygienic conditions while tending to an unidentified officer’s hens and cocks after he was drafted and assigned to Prachuap Khiri Khan’s Thanarat Infantry Camp. The private claimed that, if he failed to meet expectations, he was often scolded rudely and his face was slapped.

 

The video went viral, resulting in public criticism of the personal-servant regime and prompting a fact-finding probe against the still unnamed officer – the findings of which should reach Army chief General Chalermchai Sittisart today. The private has already been returned to his unit, with Chalermchai stating that he had suffered no repercussions for going public.

 

Some former privates interviewed on the condition of anonymity told Fact Hunters that many draftees are enticed to agree to being “servant soldiers” on the assumption that they would live more comfortably than those who remain in boot camp. They saw advantages in retaining their salary or allowance while also enjoying additional benefits if they served to the officers’ satisfaction.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30350305

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-07-18

[edwinchester]

Fairly obvious why there is a need for a conscript army after reading this.

[tracker1]

So who is telling lies ? oh the reliable ones again

[Small Joke]

When the generals talk you better listen to him... 

Midnight Oils. 

https://youtu.be/ppLOWUilhEw

[Mango Bob]

I knew a retired Colonel who had a soldier as is worked to help him because of his age, doing things around the house and driving him places.  I have never seen him treat him bad when I was around.  But I know this does happen here.

[bluesofa]

Reminds me of I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman (a 1967 song)

 

More seriously, my brother-in-law was a conscript and spent IIRC six months permanently looking after his CO's ageing parents who were both senile.

He lived with them, cooking for them, bathing them, doing their washing, cleaning the house. He also had to put up with their claims he was starving them (due their dementia) even though he'd fed them an hour previously.

They watched the same cartoon channel day after day, laughing at the same cartoons from the day before, having no recollection of having seen them before.

The regular soldiers in the 'group' he was assigned to told him the CO had been getting conscripts to look after his parents for years.

I think my BIL would have loved the chance to look after chickens instead.

 

[Sir Dude]

Lol...the denial is strong with this. I have a retired colonel like about 1km away from me and he has an endless stream of conscripts gardening, washing his vehicles and painting walls etc. Anyone who is even trying to deny this is having a huge laugh. 

[tomta]

When the enemy attacks, the sufficiency of generals will unleash their fighting cocks first and then send in the servants to mop up pockets of resistance.

 

It will be a complete whitewash after that.

[harrry]

In my mind a lot depends on how they are treated.  This guy with the chickens was not treated well.  A soldier working a 10 hr day split shift with a day off a week and decent meals and a clean comfortable place to sleep will be better off than doing training runs or cutting the grass on a parade ground with scissors.

 

 

[4evermaat]

Well, if it came up to being stationed at a border (especially the southern border) and being a servant at an officer's house, i wonder which one would get first pick?

Sent from my ASUS_X00ID using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[rebo]

So - one more lie of the toad in an endless list. Whenever it opens its smeary gob ...

[seajae]

so much for joining the army to serve the country, here it is to serve those higher up the ladder than you. No soldier should be made to serve anyone apart from his general work at their unit, all these officers need to be told it is not on and if caught will be charged but that would upset the apple cart a bit too much as they all think they are too important to be told what they can and cannot do, heads are too far up their butts

[baboon]

42 minutes ago, seajae said:

so much for joining the army to serve the country, here it is to serve those higher up the ladder than you. No soldier should be made to serve anyone apart from his general work at their unit, all these officers need to be told it is not on and if caught will be charged but that would upset the apple cart a bit too much as they all think they are too important to be told what they can and cannot do, heads are too far up their butts

Hmm. Not having a go at you here, but remember the coup "these officers" and others like them pulled in 2014? Don't you think one of the reasons for that was precisely to ensure that they remain too important to be told what they can and cannot do...?

[baboon]

2 hours ago, rebo said:

So - one more lie of the toad in an endless list. Whenever it opens its smeary gob ...

Perhaps not (ahem)... Let's wait to see who is prosecuted for spreading false information...

[jerojero]

No more? Ya right ! A short while ago, wife's nephew spent his 2 mandatory years in the Army as a houseboy for some fat ass General. Thought it was pathetic, and the young man got absolutely nothing out of his service to his country. Simply wasted couple good years of his life. Elitism alive and well in the military and the big boys are liars in the article.

[pee paub]

My wife’s nephew was conscripted and now works as a part time driver for some military bigwig. He actually has lots of time off when he is not required. The only downside for him is that the bigwig pockets his salary for the days he does not work.

[chickenslegs]

The Deputy PM has made it quite clear: "There are NO servant-soldiers, just some soldiers who are borrowed from other units to be servants to their superiors” - clear enough?

 

As we know, things that are "borrowed" don't count.

 

 

[baboon]

Lest we forget:

“We didn’t stage a coup. It was just the use of power in administering the country through an act of coup only,” 

http://www.khaosodenglish.com/opinion/2017/09/16/no-coup-coup-dictatorship-democracy/

Oh, and the watches were borrowed too.

And he wasn't asleep when 'that' photo was taken. The photographer had captured him in the second he happened to close his eyes.

 

But hey. Anyone and everyone are free to believe (in) this man and the junta he is part of. Oh, and what became of 'I will resign if the people don't want me' after the online polls showed exactly that?

 

What a lying scumbag.

 

But of course I am merely a guest in this country and if I don't like it, etc... However I still have to share the planet with filth like him, so I will keep on objecting to the likes of Prawit whether he / they like it or not...

 

 

[scorecard]

4 hours ago, seajae said:

so much for joining the army to serve the country, here it is to serve those higher up the ladder than you. No soldier should be made to serve anyone apart from his general work at their unit, all these officers need to be told it is not on and if caught will be charged but that would upset the apple cart a bit too much as they all think they are too important to be told what they can and cannot do, heads are too far up their butts

Agree, and how different it can be country by country.

 

The majority of conscripts in Singapore receive very professioanal military training, up to date weapons, military strategy and more.

 

Plus the majority exit the army with a bachelor degree, and a big choice of subject areas to choose from. 

 

 

[scorecard]

1 hour ago, chickenslegs said:

The Deputy PM has made it quite clear: "There are NO servant-soldiers, just some soldiers who are borrowed from other units to be servants to their superiors” - clear enough?

 

As we know, things that are "borrowed" don't count.

 

 

A bit like saying 'if things don't change they'll remain the same'. A nonsense comment.

 

Surely the PM realizes what a liability this guy is...

 

[baboon]

13 minutes ago, scorecard said:

A bit like saying 'if things don't change they'll remain the same'. A nonsense comment.

 

Surely the PM realizes what a liability this guy is...

 

'We need to hang together or else we hang separately'.

Liabilities or not, they are in too deep and will have to brazen it out no matter what...

[bitcoinforever]

next door neighbor high ranking current general. anywhere from 4 to 10 a day doing everything possible. if i were a thai citizen i would be pissed, cooking,cleaning iron , uses military  trucks delivery service for him , and on and on. if you tell a lie long enough people believe, this is an old practice no one does anymore LIARS

[tomta]

8 hours ago, baboon said:

Hmm. Not having a go at you here, but remember the coup "these officers" and others like them pulled in 2014? Don't you think one of the reasons for that was precisely to ensure that they remain too impor...?

Indeed . And everyone who supported the coup should be considering now what they believed it would achieve and what it did actually achieve. What they were told its purposes were and what those purposes were.

[Prairieboy]

Taxpayer-financed slavery!

[Chris Lawrence]

"Private, stand at attention when bending over"

[AGareth2]

17 hours ago, webfact said:

the retired warriors

they are having a laugh

[tomta]

This latest episode is no surprise to anyone who is at all acquainted with the fundamentally corrupt and abusive nature of the   army .  It is staggering that anyone believed that such an institution  could put Thailand back on the straight and narrow.

 

Another questionable use of army resources is that of spying on their own people and using recruits to do it. A couple of ex-students of mine told me how they had done their part-time military service to avoid the draft. They went on a camp up at Kanchanaburi. They were offered the choice as students from an elite university of either going on a route march in the hot sun or  going to do some computer work. THey took the second option. They were delegated to look on the web for lese majeste, to reply in criticism of lese majeste, to use templates to spread nationalist royalist fervour etc. Ironically, later on they were politicized the other way. A bit like telling 18 year olds to go out  and find and suppress pornography. It won't  work

 

BUt the point is that the army is a fundamentally corrupting and corrupted institution  It was great to see in the BP today an editorial about these events that called without prevarication for the ending of conscription. It would be great to see this happen. It would absolutely undermine th

[tomta]

repeated post

[klauskunkel]

18 hours ago, webfact said:

public criticism of the personal-servant regime and prompting a fact-finding probe against the still unnamed officer – the findings of which should reach Army chief General Chalermchai Sittisart today.

Chalermchai to his servant soldier: "Go check the mail box."

[Lupatria]

The first fatal victim of a Thai army war will be room service for high ranking officers.