Part-time Sarangani Representative Manny Pacquiao has been promoted to a lieutenant colonel in the Army reserves, the same rank that my dead grandfather, who fought against the Japanese and, later, the Huks held when he was buried with military honors.
[President Benigno Aquino III] on September 21 authorized the promotion of Pacquiao from a reserve senior master sergeant to a lieutenant colonel. He skipped the ranks of chief master sergeant, second lieutenant, first lieutenant, captain and major.
You know what else he skipped? Officer candidacy school, National Security school, actual reservist service, and the whole point of a merit system. Oh, also, college.
Which, I guess, shows poor career planning on my grandfather’s part. He probably did not have to fight in the war, get a degree in Chemistry from UP, train in Fort Hood in the US, and teach at the Philippine Military Academy when he should have just focused on boxing instead.
All that nastiness about the Death March and getting caught in a Huk ambush could have been avoided, and my dead grandmother could have been spared a lifetime of worry over her husband possibly dying leading a Battalion Combat Team through Hukbalahap territory in Central Luzon if he had only had the foresight to turn pro boxer, I guess.
Seriously. Fuck everything about this.
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