congratulations on JASON! on becoming a 2nd Lieutenant! one bar now liao. see him must greet him SIR! and salute him. oh nooooo. hahhahaha!

nevertheless his hard work finally paid off. where most of us are already 3rd Sergeants by now, he finally got his first leadership rank after like, 1 year? good job jason!

so today afternoon me, mini, yan han, kai wen and yiling went for his commissioning parade at SAFTI MI. i must say, this is the first time i saw so MANY girls dressed up so nicely for a parade. i don't even see that much girls dressed much so nicely for my BMT parade, and for ASLC parade. but still. eye-candies. gahahahahahaha

pictures will be up soon! as soon as i can get hold of my sister's laptop... or get a freaking SD Card reader for my own computer. gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh argh.



oh look its 1.10am now. 13th Sept 2009. i've officially been in the SAF for 1 year.

one freaking year. time really files man. being a recruit just seemed like a few months back ago only.


this is the first post after my first book out from pulau tekong. Jaguar Company's Platoon 1, Section 3.

man. that island really brought back many many memories. i still have 2 notebooks in which i wrote about my life back then. one of them is compulsory to write as it acts as a journal, supposedly for us to "reflect" on our training.

the other is for writing at my own pace. there're a few entries which i wrote during my 6 days field camp, which proves to be the worst 6 days of my life. i shall type them out here.

Day 1

-8 km route march there. almost died on the way there. (yes i rmb this particular march, cuz the sun was blazing down on us plus the terrain was very uneven.)

-upon reaching, stood for about 15-20mins FBO (this was one stand i'll never forget. we just arrived but were not allowed to set down our field packs. the 15-20 mins lasted for what seemed like 5hours. the load on our back was very unbearable. you could see people fidgeting but trying to keep still if not we'll get more shit on us. never will i forget this.)

-all hell breaks loose now.

-given 10mins to pitch basha (basically, our tentages)

-of course, punishment again

-lessons

-at night, the first night i sleep without gortex jacket. freaking cold. (i absolutely cannot take cold weather =/)


Day 2

-lessons/trainings as usual

-rifle PT (physical training), then run around the compound. super shagged. (hell with morning PT, this could kill.)

-this is the day where it rained non-stop from Day 2 till Day 5.

-more punishments, of course.

-one asshole actually shat under a tree and didn't admit. as a result, all of us were punished in pumping position. (motherfucker didn't admit, we were treated to a treatment of push-ups and crunches. massive fuckings.)

-night time got walk. but halfway through it began raining super heavily..

-hence, sleeping with wet clothes + socks + boots..


Basically for Day 3 onwards our training got more intense, our fuckings increased, and of course our mind got more and more blank. pretty soon enough my uniforms smelt like the ammonia solution you have in your science chemistry lab. i swore it smelt EXACTLY like that, like your urine. no one bothered to complain, no one bothered to maintain cleanliness (what, come again?!), no one bothered to do anything.

Day 4 was shellscrape day. meaning we have to dig our own "graves". yes i cannot believed i dug from morning till evening. even then, it wasn't perfect. Day 5 was a surprise, cuz 10mins after we changed our uniforms, cleaned our rifles, we were treated to a mud bath.

technically by Day 3, 4 i observed something. most of us just sat down anywhere, anyhow. wherever we can find. no matter if its a puddle of mud, some squishy spot of grass, anywhere. and of course there'll be the soft SQUISSSSSSH sound once our butt comes into contact with the ground. disgusting huh.

Day 6 proves to be the best day of all, because by afternoon we were back in our camp. boy, i tell you, i never thought i would feel so emotional when i saw concrete buildings instead of trees. it feels so good to be back/near to civilisation where you can be assured that there's proper water for you to drink, proper resting areas, and most importantly, PROPER FOOD. not the shit-tasting combat rations we survived on for 6 days. that really made me take food not for granted.


BMT days were some of the best days of my life too. i found friendship (people like, Jit, my BMT Buddy, Kenny, Andy Low, Joel!), strength, and confidence. things i thought i could never do. most memorable was my 24km route march. the load was over-bearing. especially for the size of a guy like me, certainly that was an achievement. mind over body eric, mind over body. i passed out as a Private with pride. (although after the parade i went home and took a long 4 hours nap. my bed was the most beautiful thing that day.)


after that, i got posted to SISPEC's BSLC course as a SCT (Specialist Cadet Trainee). i was taught more advanced skills of an infantry section. Juilet Company, Platoon 2, Section 3.

there, life was slightly different cuz back in BMT, sleep wasn't what we were deprived off. our instructors made sure while we trained hard, we were also given sufficient rest. but here, if we could get 5hours of sleep, that was a good bonus. its mentally challenging as we would have lectures right after physical trainings, and no one was to sleep! unless you wanna book out on a saturday.

SISPEC was different in the sense that we were not treated like recruits. sure, we do get fuckings now and then but that's understandable since we tend to screw things up sometimes. there, i found friendship in Wei Chuan, Yong Lee, Jun hao!, Yu ze. especially Wei Chuan, always trying to guai lan and talk cock with me. haahaha.

life as a trainee might be damn tiring, but when you look back you realise how much fun you had with everyone. because everyone is subjected to equal loads of shit, you tend to seek comfort in the company of fellow friends and try to make the best outta it. you talk about what you're gonna do after you ORD, you gossip about your OC being such a faggot, about the platoon sergeant who acts like a sissy, about the latest issue of FHM with the 2 hot twins on the cover page.

all of us share everything together.


it was during this phase of training that i injured my ankle. i was running through the bushes and i didn't notice there was a depression in front of me. come to think of it, it was actually a ledge/kerb that led to this hole/depression but unfortunately it was covered with grass. i felt nothing below my feet and before i knew it.... OUCH!!!

the pain shot up from my feet to my ankle. very quickly, my face was scrunched in pain and i gave a yelp. my fren ran over and my sergeant (he was an asshole, seriously) slowly walked over.

eh, you. can anot?

-_- obviously not.. so i slowly limped back to the medic post... ONLY TO FIND THAT THE MEDIC IS SITTING ON THE JEEP AND MAKING HIS ROUNDS AROUND THE TRAINING AREAS.

i just lied down on the bench, trying not to think about the pain in my feet, and one of the storeman came over with a plastic bag and some ice. i took out my foot from my boot and began to apply some ice on it. OUCH OUCH OUCH.

worse still.... they didn't arrange for me to go back to camp to see the doctor. as it was the last day already, i still have to follow them for the rest of the trainings and board the bus back to camp in the afternoon. so i'm limping around, carrying my field pack and all my load.

talk about care for soldiers.... fuck that. no choice, i think they training us to tahan pain. rofl.

i was given 2 days rest (coincidentally that was over the weekend) and next monday... i sprained the same leg again. -_- only its a minor sprain, as the terrain i was walking over was uneven.

so when it came to doing my final SOC test, of course i flunked that. i was practically limping for some parts of the running! and the sad thing was, during my 28km march, i sprained a 1x GOOD TIME DIP DIP bad sprain. i was about at the 20km when i slipped on the rocky terrain and thankfully i grabbed my fren's arm before i fell. but the damage was done. heh my PC still think i chao keng... i limped for another 2-3km to the next rest point before falling out....


so after the 28km march, we had our parade. to signify the end of our BSLC course. i was dealt with a bigger blow... (at this point i rmb, it was 14 Feb 09, Valentine's Day! how sadddd)

i got posted to ASLC. nvm. CHARLIE COMPANY. i'm so fucked. that's the worst company to be in of all. haha it wasn't that bad after all when i found that soe also got posted there too! same platoon too!! we laughed at one another. i mean, well.... make ourselves feel better?

i endured 2 weeks of training there before i was declared OOC (out of course). my ankle couldn't take all the walking and running. sooner or later i would have fractured it, no doubt. but i still got to go through the weapons training. =D at least i got some firing experience haha.


and so i was delegated to doing sai kang in the company. heh no problem, there was soe there too! thereafter, i got posted to Military Intelligence.


life there was totally different. it being not a combat environment, there was no requirement for me to stay-in. no bunks for me. hell, not even 5BX in the morning. the only company and friend i had for (in my branch) was Weihan. haha man if not for him i supposed i would have died of boredom inside. there were still other good people too, like Ram, Gere (my upper study who taught me nothing but "go breakfast at 9am!"), John, Freddy, Keith, Kuman, Justin.. and the new guys Linus, Kevin, En Rui, Bryon!

and i was required to use my brain. as in, seriously, use my brain. instead of leading my men into combat, i'm required to perform some tasks using computers and maps. can't really explain it here, but yes, its different from the combat environment.

totally not my cup of tea. i'm looking forward to more chiong-sua, more garang stuffs but..... you can't really complain. my frens said they would die to have my vocation. haha. well it has its perks. i get to book-out daily. OTOT canteen breaks. air-con environment (though thats not a perk to me at all).


well, that prolly sums up my one year in NS. one more year left for me. just hope that it goes smoothly. no more injuries. who knows, i MIGHT get posted out to somewhere else again, if need be. you never know....


once again, congratulations JASON SIR!