The Soldiers' 2nd Innings

Dear friends,
A review of the captioned book "The Soldiers’ 2nd Innings": click here
The reviewer has made a very valid point: the book does not contain any thing for our personnel below officer ranks. This lacuna has also been pointed out by some of my friends.

The book is,indeed, officer oriented. The reason for this is not far to seek. I have no first hand knowledge or experience of the problems which our men experience, and so I thought it better to leave that task to some one more qualified to do so. It is my belief that a RCO or a SL Commissioned officer should be motivated to produce such a book. It has been rightly pointed out by several persons that the soldier these days is quite different from the man who served in the army when we were in the units. He is well educated and has access to creature comforts like a fridge, TV set, washing machine and a motor cycle. Officers of my vintage did not have any of these luxuries at the start of our careers fifty years ago. An NCO retiring after about 20 or24 years service gets well over ten lacs of rupees as his terminal benefits and many of them do not know how to handle that kind of money. They need guidance.

If our soldiers can be given the necessary inputs and guidance, they can convert their military experience into civilian success. And when that happens, we will have lacs of ESM contributing to the economy of the nation. Improvements in pension and rationalization of terminal benefits are inecessary, and we must press for that twenty five year old demand. But what is even more necessary is the need to prepare our soldier for a second job or alternative vocation.

Lt Gen Chandele has summed it up very well in his Prelude to the book, He says, "Retired life can be enjoyed fully, if you have two essentials: "Enough to live on and enough to live for"
Now here is an offer
In case some one come forward to write a book for the JCOs and the NCOs I shall provide all the assistance which he may need to publish the work, including financial suuport.
Regards,
Maj Gen Surjit Singh (Retd)

Comments and suggestions from Brig Sukhwindar Singh click here

The Soldiers’ 2nd Innings by Maj Gen Surjit Singh (retd) & Lt Col Kanwal Dev Singh (retd) MacMillan. Reviewed by Randeep Wadehra

A majority of the soldiers in our Armed Forces, especially in the Indian Army, retire young. This is as true of the commissioned officers as it is of the personnel belonging to the Other Ranks (ORs). While a significant number of ORs — aka jawans — retire while in their thirties, officers generally retire in their forties and fifties. The latter, as this book admits, are economically secure while the former have to struggle in Civvy Street for their survival.

Written partially in anecdotal style, this book’s chapters, Angry Old Soldiers and In Search of a Solution to the Problem, deal with one-rank-one-pension-related issues. Another chapter, SWOT Analysis and Classification of Jobs, gives details of the careers that officers can take up post-retirement. There are separate chapters on career opportunities in the corporate sector in India as well as abroad. The book also outlines various pros and cons of writing wills. It also describes their different types, like joint wills, mutual wills etc, with their respective advantages and disadvantages.

How one wishes there was a separate chapter on career prospects for ORs whose educational profile has improved vastly over the years. There are impressive numbers of law, engineering and management graduates among these personnel who do not have the advantage of possessing "brass credentials" to impress recruiters in the civil sector and thus need guidance as well as inputs.