Leaving for Brunei

Once again I am dishonestly appropriating the use of April 30th in an attempt to get my post archive to say "April 2006" instead of transiting directly between "March" and "May." Clever huh.

Well, nothing much to say... training is as it has always has been; I'm happy to have passed my IPPT and SEOC veto factors for pro term so I have not much to worry about unless they OOC me for performance/injury.

Going off for Lancer on May 8th. A bit nervous about the heat and the contour lines - the map is freaking scary. o_O But yes, I do plan on living to tell the tale.

Oh dang it my flooble chatterbox has expired.

Pro Term

Pro Term is here! Marched into SAFTI this morning with the junior cadets lined up cheering for us - makes me feel (very slightly) remorseful for what I might be doing to them in a week's time. Oh well. Everyone goes through the same thing, mwahahaha.

Our 23km route march was a test in every sense of the word. It wasn't physical but mental exhaustion that made the march difficult - the sheer boredom of having to keep walking in the dark, the feeling of wanting to fall asleep towards the end, the silence... actually, only platoon 2 was silent. Platoon 3 in particular went crazy with some kind of "brain drain" song, and sustained the single line "This is a song that irritates you" for the whole last leg of the march. That's resilience. I respect that. But yes, it did irritate me.

They did manage to cheat us of some distance - it's obvious we marched at least 2-3km more than 23km. Oh well. It goes down as a 23km route march for the symbolism I suppose. Although we should technically have 24, not 23 weeks left... strange.

The ceremony on top of Elephant Hill was fairly unremarkable - won't go down as the most emotional moment of my army career for sure... this maybe partly due to the inadequacy of the sound system. Still, it had some meaning - Dennis managed to engineer it so that we changed our epaulettes for each other again, as we did for the transition to service term. And the view was nice, can't deny that.

This route march also represented the conclusion of my use of my size-8 boots. They have served me well. I now have bigger fish to fry. Or rather, bigger boots to wear (size 9 Gore-Tex! whoo!). I don't really support frying fish, it's a bit unhealthy.

I have thigh abrasions the diameter of teacups. New record. Was waddling like a duck on the way back (incidentally, we bumped into Alpha Coy at the PLC SOC ground; Julian, you look very happy doing fatigue duty instead of running :P ).

So, the start of a new term and the end of a tumultuous but fulfilling one. Should probably define part of the reason for my use of "tumultuous" - am in the process of clearing 7 extra (actually, once you go above 4, it doesn't really seem like a lot). I'm happy and thankful that I've made it this far, but I'm also a bit sad about what needs to be left behind. Will miss the old Section 3 as we get reshuffled.

Pro Term presents a variety of new challenges - SEOC, Brunei, Taiwan, CSB, etc. I suppose the best thing to do is to take it one day at a time, and to look forward to all the long weekends we have been promised. Mwahaha.

Zebra and Spade

Just got back from platoon field camp. After "exercise cut" on Spade I was completely concussed, mainly because I'd only had 4 hours of sleep over the 3 days of Ex. Zebra and Spade. It's a weird feeling... you can talk to people without really thinking about what you're saying or doing. It's like your mouth is moving automatically while your brain has already shut down. Pretty cool.

Anyway was exercise PS for Zebra. That was fun... FBO all the way over 8km for about 6 hours before we assaulted. Was ok during the planning and movement phase... seriously, holding an appointment must increase your combat fitness by tenfold, otherwise I'd never have got through it. Assault was a bit cocked up since my reserve coordination was all over the place, but really it was my fault. Anyway we did win the battle in the end. ^_^

Carried home this weekend lots of sleep deprivation, a completely numb right big toe, lots of small cuts on my hands from mimosa (this from proning in the wrong place when I was MG gunner during platoon battle course), and of course a lot of shit that needs to come out. Interestingly enough there was an outhouse where we harboured. Who knows where the heck it came from. o_O

Oh well. It was a fun field camp, except for the digging part. I can conclusively say I hate digging and am really no good at it. Don't make me do it again, especially dehydrated and half-asleep. Argh.

Congrats to all the new corporals if you're reading this... have fun in ASLC. :P At least for you guys the end is in sight. I will (still hopefully) remain an OCT for an unbelievably long time yet. [whacks head against wall]

Well, that's it for now. Need to go get some sleep.

Something for February

Wow. It's been so long since I last logged in that it took me 3 tries to get the password right.

The time now is 1520 on March 5th (and incidentally the weather is clear), but I'm posting this for February anyway. That is because I would be bothered should the archive transit straight from January 2006 to March 2006.

Cheers. :D

OCS

The first and foremost thing I have to say about SAFTI MI is that they understand bread. It's brilliant. I think I'm being spoiled. Maybe I should request the introduction of wholemeal, otherwise I might develop a dependence on my comprehensive diet of white and butter.

Coming into OCS on the 19th of December (can't believe it's been 4 weeks) was a real culture shock - even more so than BMT. At least, coming from an international school background, I was used to moving about and meeting new and different types of people, which made my BMT transition easier. But when you enter OCS, it's not the different cultural or social backgrounds of the cadets that make integration a stressful experience - it's the fact that everyone there has spent some time in the army already, and everyone has their own way of doing things. This is especially true of the MOCCs and air force/navy regulars. For me, it was frustrating to have to unlearn some of the things taught to me at an earlier stage, and then to be forced to relearn methods that made little sense in the greater scheme of things.

Of course, I've since adjusted and things in that respect have become easier. After that, it was just a matter of accepting the higher standards of discipline and physical training expected of us as officer cadets. Right now, 34 more weeks seems an eternity away, and what drives me ahead on a moment-to-moment basis is not so much the thought of commissioning, but the idea of working for my own personal pride and proving to myself that I have what it takes to be a successful SAF officer. And if for some reason I don't make it to the end, at least I can say I gave it all I had and I was rewarded with all it had to give me.

I remember what I was like as a recruit; at least I'm not making the same mistakes as a cadet. I'm learning a lot - not only in terms of practical knowledge but also about myself and my potential strengths and weaknesses as a leader. And I'm quite proud of the fact that I can run 2.4km in 10:20, which I would have said was a crazy timing 3 months ago (and which is actually below average here, dang it). So, I'm working on it.

I'll also try to work on posting more often, since I did start this blog a couple of months ago with the intention of recording my NS life. Oh well. Shall now dash off to try and make the most of my weekend. Cheers.

(Incidentally, with regards to the starting of this blog, if you haven't already done so there's an interesting little unoriginal story in the June 2005 archives called "Billy and the Passionfruit" which could do with some reading. Have a nice week.) :D

POP: H05 S01 B09

It's true what they say, that when you look back you only remember the good things. Maybe that's why I'm finding this so difficult to write, since so many good things happened during my BMT experience that I can't hope to fit them all in here, much less do any of them justice. As for the bad things, well, let's just leave them locked in cupboard 13 for awhile.

There's a sign at TFT that we see as we book in every week - "BMT: It's not what you leave behind, it's what you'll gain in the days ahead." When I first saw it I was still a civilian, stepping onto Tekong with my parents with precisely that kind of mindset. I thought I would stand to gain something substantial from NS - what exactly I didn't know; maybe maturity, maybe greater discipline, maybe self-control and personal composure. What I gained was none of the above, yet something singular and completely different - friends, and hopefully lasting ones.

To my section mates especially - Shao Wen, Ibkaar, Nick, Aaron, Ryan, Greg, Duan, Enrique, Xavier, Julian, Nizam - thanks for making the whole thing so much more than tolerable. Congrats... we all made it. I'm gonna miss our bunk.

I don't regret any of my BMT experience. Not even that hellish first week as armskote 2IC, or consistently making mistakes in front of the commanders and PC (who I found, as time went on, to have his own problems and perfectly human flaws), or - actually - the whole first 6-7 weeks, during which I suffered from a tired combination of bad luck and simple blurness, but which now seem like a distant memory. I now realize that all those episodes were just passing moments and, looking back on the whole thing, I can say that none of them were as serious as they seemed to me to be, and that in the truly important things - in making friends and dealing with people and maintaining my own integrity - I've not compromised myself. And, in the end, I got the hang of things after all.

Nonetheless, if I may be so permitted to say, BMT is almost absolutely about what you leave behind. It's about no hair, no junk food, and lacking the freedom of civilian life. I don't mean that in a bad way - I just mean you learn to appreciate it all a little more.

I don't think I've necessarily come out of Pulau Tekong a better person. Still, I've gained a lot of lasting memories from the experience. Perhaps the one that encompasses them all, for me, would be our marching back onto the floodlit parade square at the end of our 24km graduation route march, high-porting our arms, singing at the tops of our voices and then finishing it by marking time, everyone raising their legs to a perfect 90 degrees, our sore feet banging convincingly onto the ground in perfect time; and then stopping and hearing Sgt. Elias say that finally, he has seen the true spirit of platoon 5. That feeling of pride and triumph and personal accomplishment, I think, will stay with me for a long while yet.

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.