Field Camp

Well I suppose I should update about field camp. I guess I'll just cover the few choice memories:

1. Discovering at the halfway point during the first route march that yes, it is in fact possible for smoke to come out of your shoulders. Copiously.

2. My first combat ration (lunch). Glutinous rice with chicken, I think, one of the better ones. The pasta rations were generally better than the rice ones though.

3. Horlicks malties. Lots of them. ^_^ And fruit bars and biscuits and Lipton Ice Tea.

4. Powder baths. Chilly but you feel clean (that is until you go back to coy line and shower and see just how dirty you have become).

5. Cat. 1 on day 2 catching us off-guard and causing me to run to the shed with my bootlaces untied, garters off and gore-tex jacket half-on.

6. "I will not dig a trench without my helmet!" and running round the con-wire.

7. Admitting to leaving my ET stuff unattended when it wasn't actually me (dammit I still keep messing up in front of the PC).

8. Combing the area for someone's washer.

9. 2nd route-march. Much less tiring.

10. Building bashas at night. Lots of shouting and arguing and frustration, especially due to alignment and spacing issues. Quarreled with my buddy but we understand each other better now. :D

11. Leopard-crawling platoon level down the entire line of bashas.

12. Taking a shit on the 4th day. An eye-opening experience (and very much nose-opening too).

13. Technical break and fresh rations (woohoo!). Never complaining about lack of variety in cookhouse food again.

14. Trying to find the idiot who ran from one end of the campsite to the other half-naked and without his rifle to hide behind a tree. Nearly destroyed our technical break.

15. Rain on the 4th night. Basha flooded. Waterproof/non-waterproof sides = nonsense. Hmph.

16. 3rd route-march. I am convinced it was more than 4km. Grr.

17. Taking a shit on the 5th night. It's assuredly much harder to shit when you can't see where you're shitting.

18. Sleeping on an open groundsheet and flat ground for the first time. Thought it would be the first night where I'd sleep more than 3-4 hours.

19. Thought wrong. Slept at 2200, rained at 2300. Wet and miserable. Whole section huddled in a circle to get warm (except Duan, that crazy guy; can sleep through anything). Sang Lion King songs. Whole company made small fires and ended up getting yelled at by Rusty/Hamster for late Deepavali.

20. Sentry duty 0200-0300 with Greg. Nice to sit under the training shed and be sheltered from the rain. Mwahaha. Turned out to be quite an interesting hour. Someone's platoon mates brought him in shivering and unresponsive, almost like hypothermia. Had all the commanders worried. Another guy rushed in panicking cos a centipede bit him in the ass. The medic treated this with characteristic indifference (i.e. "Go back, it's nothing to fuss about").

21. Waking up the medic after breakfast only to find that he was "out of plasters." Suuuure.

22. Taking a shit on the 6th day with people firing blanks across the road.

23. Digging shellscrapes. The most exhausting thing I have ever done, but the most rewarding night of sleep ever. Had some strange dreams that night.

24. Losing my grenade at BIC. Not my fault though, someone picked it up. Found another grenade later anyway. :D

25. Heavy rain right after BIC as we were marching back to coy line. Brilliant - just like a free shower.

I'm proud I went through the whole thing. Didn't report sick once, didn't take a "holiday." At least I can say that I did it.

SIT test tomorrow. How depressing, ahha.