no fun under the sun

Left, right, left. There you master your movements, although your repetitive execution of stamping one foot after the other makes a sure dumb out of you. You pass by the bleachers, halt past the grandstand, and then wander again in the football field stamping roundabout like remote-controlled robots. You go shift here and on to the extreme side of the Oval without catching the core of the officer’s motives of forwarding and U-turning yet on fiery weekend mornings (you will have spent time more gainfully by joining a special offer team, brandishing CFC-containing aerosols and poisonous antiseptics in your neighborhood).
Yeah, you need this detestable Military Science course, you inevitably do, but do you suppose to deteriorate untimely simply by basking uninvited under the sun during Saturdays or, unluckily for you, even Sundays? Much as you want to return weekly to Malolos to reunite with the Loyolas and hear mass in Barasoain (in case you’re a Catholic), you are compelled to simulate warfare soldiers all day, wearing Type-A uniform and taking up wooden rifles which you can easily pass for paperweights or fuels. End of this, you exhaust your whole energy striding tediously in the fields for al eternity, afterwards your tongue sticks out up to your chin and your body perspires heavily.
As if masochists, you and your troop mates are made to suffer even greater: all of you get scolded for spitefully rendering your platoon leader’s favorite song “ Basang-basa sa Ulan”, thereafter you find yourselves pushing your palms recurrently against the ground. You hear an angered, deafening voice like an alligator’s from as far as 90 feet, stating, “Carry out this order: pagtatabasin ang buhok ng mga iyan!” Moments later, you become annoyed as the commanding officer begins examining your hair and poises to tatter it.
“Why cut my hair?” you deliberately question the officer, resisting the threat to your hairstyle. “It is just two inches above my ears,” you insist. “In ROTC, it is ought to be three,” he slings back, proceeding to his evil intent of carving a road map in your scalp to damage slightly your comely appearance. Soon enough, you see your raven strands floating like feathers in space and plummeting into the grass together with other cadets’ hair.
Sometimes, it is hard to say you deserve a place in the sun, isn’t it?