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Monday, December 13, 2010 @ 22:15

Well, now that I've served finish NS, that which every young guy has to go through, does this make me a man?? I still remember Mr Glover talking about rite of passages in Sec school. Though that was a long time ago. Anyway, who cares about that.

Like I said above, I've finally finished my NS. 1 year and 10 months worth of suffering, fun, tears, happiness and whatever not emotion you can fit in here. It's been a blast. They say that before you enlist, you dread the very moment in which you enlist and shave your hair. But after you ORD, you don't want to leave. You still want to continue staying in the army not to serve, but to be together with the friends that you've made. I believed the former but not the latter before I enlisted. Guess what, I believe the latter now too. Call me converted.

The day I enlisted, 10th Jan 2008. The day when everything was going to change. I remember going to some market in Bedok to have my last breakfast as a free man before I went to the ferry terminal. Somehow my older brother was there with me, having given himself an off ( he was still serving the army at that time.) So we went to Pasir Ris, did the usual, went to SAF ferry terminal boarded the ferry and left for Tekong. I remember telling myself that BMTC was on an island so that people who wanted to run away from the place couldn't run away since it was an island. Anyway, after that, it was parents and loved ones to the right, recruits to the left. While the parents were brought on a tour, we went to surrender our pink IC. I remembered 1 guy who was looking at his IC the whole time before it was given to the two female ( Yes, there were females in that place ) for our 11B. That was just one of the many green items that we were going to receive. After that, we were sent outside the auditorium and some high ranking jock started to thrash talk us, trying to scare us by telling us how to sit, how to reply etc etc. Right there and then, you knew straight away that you've been chained to this cause for 1 year and 10 months. Anyway, after that, we went into the auditorium, swearing in (saying that we'll protect Singapore with our lives) etc etc. and then it was the final lunch with the parents. The lunch for that day was... Brown rice with some soy sauce chicken, some horrible yellowish vege and the taiwan sausage. It tasted like crap. That was just a foreshadowing of the food to come. The only nice thing was the dessert. Isojoy beancurd. That was the one dessert where it'll always disappear fast and you would have none if you came too late. And after that, goodbye parents, hello hell...

They took us to try on our uniform, pants, helmet, whatever not. Then it was a tour of our companies. Bronco company was mine. Section 4 bed 12. Yes I was the last guy in the platoon. Somehow I became the set com too after bed 1 OOC out of BMT. And let me tell you how much bed 12 sucks. Send arms, you're the last. By the time you send arms, the toilets will all be full and you;ll be the last to bathe. Anything that has a time limit, you'll have lesser time then all the rest and still be expected to do it as good as the rest. That suxs like hell. But luckily, my set com understands and I have an extra minute to do things. 1 min isn't much, but it's the thought that counts. We got to meet our bunkmates. My bunk consisted of 2 JJs, 1 RJ, 1 ACS IB, 1 MJ, 1 AC, 1 TP, 1 T, 1 SR, 1 NJ and 2 HC. Needless to say, I was the stupidest one there. But they were nice, or most of them were at least. We were section 4, the section that kena the most sai kang, but we did it together, that's what mattered. That and we had a rat in our bunk. But more about that later. They took us to cut our hair. Right before dinner time. And the worst thing was that we only just knew each other. After we were shaved bald, guess what, everyone looked the same and we went around calling the wrong people. We of Bronco company were under warrent officers, so everyone just assumed we were slacked. Yea right. 2 of my warrent officers were rangers, 1 was an ex guards man. Thnk that's still slack?? Which other company had their live firing before our first book out, field camp before their 2nd book out which was delayed? None other but Bronco comapany.

Live firing was... Eventful to say the least. Someone misfired, we all feared for our lives since they warned us not to pull any stunts. Luckily nothing happened. Field camp was excruciating for me. My bed buddy, whose a weakling, totally zoned out after the route march from camp to the first spot and when we moved to another area. Leaving me, one person to set up the bashaa and do everything while he just sits there stoning off into the distance. That and there was always centipedes in my basha. Somehow or other. Luckily, we didn't sleep on it or anything. 6 day field camp right, days 4, 5, 6 rained. No it wasn't a drizzle or anything. It was a downpour, with lightning, thunder, and what not. 3 mins after we started digging our shell-scapes, it started pouring. Try digging a hole, with a small shovel, with a heavy helmet on you, a rifle behind your back and having it rain none stop. That is more then enough to sap your morale. That and we were downhill, so all the water we had were flowing into our holes. The worst thing was that we had to prone in it. I promise you, I had never ever felt as depressed as I did then. Depressed and cold. After that, most of us contemplated giving up but our warrent didn't hear half of it. So we had to slough on with the camp and we did. We dragged our cold, soaked, depressed, shag butts back to camp on sunday. When everyone else was out having fun. But we had our own fun too. We had our one and only canteen break. Everyone ate their fill. I think the canteen vendors earned at least $500 from all of us. There were 3 companies there. All of us were starving. All of us wanted food. Girls won't know the feeling. Starving yourself for 6 days. Guys... Most will. At least... Those that hate combat rations as much as me. SITest was as bad as my time in SISPEC. People putting on a show in front of the sergeants but my sergeant saw right through it. He gave us a surprise ambush and he saw for himself what was happening. But other then that, it was ok. At least it didn't rain again.

And so time flew. I remember 1 incident that saw my whole bunk waking at 5am wide awake. There was a rat in my bunk. We all know. We even knew where the hole was. But we left it alone since it didn't bother us that much. But that fateful morning, someone woke up at 5am and saw the rat on our table. And so he shouted and all of us woked up cause we thought our sergeants were around. Then it was action time. We covered the rat hole and it couldn't return back in. So it ran the other way. Out the door. It jumped up on the ledge and jumped. No it didn't commit suicide. It just landed, picked itself up and ran for the drain. Super rat you see. After that, we didn't have anymore troubles with the rat. And so we finished all the required stuff to pass out and we did. But all we could have shouted was... "POP LOH!!" But what most of us wanted to shout was... "ORD LOH!!!!!!!!" And so we went our seperate ways. OCS, SISPEC and our individual units. Most of my section except 1 went to SISPEC and 1 to OCS. I got chosen to be sent to SISPEC. So off to SISPEC we will go...

SISPEC, school of infantry specialist. I absoulutly hated my time there. Not because the training was tough. It was because of the people there. All of them were putting on a show. Wayanging their way in front of the sergeants. And why? Cause there was this chance to cross over to the great and highly respected OCS. And most of the people who got sent to SISPEC really wanted to go to OCS. So everyone put on a good show and find ways and means to make the other person look bad. I didn't want to be an officer. I mean, I did harbour the thought when I was in BMTC. But I realize, officers are those that just hide in an office all day and do paperwork. Sergeants are the real ones who run the platoon. So ya, I didn't really mind being a 3SG. Of course, the real reason why anyone wants to become an officer is because of the 1k+ pay a month compared to a 3SG pay of $700. Of course, money is everything.

SISPEC was horrible. My section fought most of the time. The bunk is divided into half, right in the center. They were fighting over the most stupid things possible. From this to that to those. I just kept out of it. But we could work together. We won best section for the whole company for urban ops war games. So SISPEC was horrible. Just goes to show you the length at which people will go to to crossover to OCS. In the end, none of my platoon got chosen to crossover. So after SISPEC, I was sent to AI, artillery institute. And I f***ing hate the people in SISPEC. It's not enough that they made my life hell in SISPEC, even now, when I ord, they are still disturbing me by giving my number to their friends who call me everyday asking me if I want to earn some extra income by doing some shi* survey.

AI was fun. Mostly because we only had 1 outfield camp during the last week of the course. That and the fact that mostly by 6pm, we will be back in our bunk, free to do whatever we want until lights out. What we usually do in our bunks mostly involves going to other bunks and tau-poking the birthday guy. Mostly that happened in my bunk since it was june and my bunk were made up of people whose birthday fall in the june-july period. This one guy got taupok so badly that the number of people on him was as high as the cabinet that was next to him, IE around 10-15 people. He claims that after that happened, there was a depression of his body on his bed, the exact location of where his body was after when we taupoked him.

AI was fun in the fact that we knew that this was what we were going to specialize in, so we learnt it with much more vigour and focus then we did in SISPEC, since that mainly involved rushing the mountain, rushing to the enemy or rushing to our deaths knowing that the enemy was there. I have a theory. Infantry are there so that the enemy can kill a few of you so that they won't feel that bad when we arti the shit out of them. And in case you haven't realize yet, I was an artillery specialist. Though my weapon was the relatively small mortar.

In AI, I was in the worst detachment of all, det 1. And no, it's not my fault. Everyone in the course says that I'm actually the best out of det 1, the all-star det. It's the other 4 that cause my det to have the nickname. Sum ex was hell for me. We had to do everything a few times as my det was the slowest and the sergeant in charge of us wasn't happy. So we had to keep doing things over and over again. The other 4 were the bottom 4 for the peer evaluation program that we had. I was somewhere in the middle ok. So I was considered not bad ok.

There was this one guy in AI, who got hated by everyone. The reason being that he has never ever taken a single SOC except the first by always giving some lame reason like he sprained his wrist or he wanted to report sick. There was this one time, our last SOC test at the place and we were all shocked when he came down in the SOC attire. We all thought he wanted to run SOC but then he said he needed to do big buisness. The strange thing was that he brought all his gear back up to our bunk. Later, much much later, he came back down in admin attire and said he wanted to report sick, and the reason for him reporting sick was because his ass was bleeding when he did his buisness. Of course, that was just damn fake but the sergeants bought it and so he became known as the ass-bleed boy. In case you're wondering, he came in last in the evaluation.

Our bunk in AI was the sixth floor. That's right. 6 whole floors without an elevator. Try walking up and down six floors everyday at least 5 times. It's damn tiring, especially if you just finish your training and are shagged like hell. Best part is, we cannot leave any door or windows open since there was a spat of theif during the time period we were there. Imagine finishing your training, climbing up 6 stories and coming back to a bunk that smells like crap cause the laundry bars were inside the bunk instead of outside and that's where you hang all your smelly clothes. Yup, that describes our day after training.

Our free time in bunk usually was spent playing with rubik's cube or reading story books or doing whatever it is that was the trend then. Cause you see, no electronic devices with memory cards were allowed cause there was some super super highly classified as in know and you have to die that kind of classified. Na I'm just joking. I don't know the exact reason why but any storage device of any kind was strictly prohibited and they really do check your bags everytime you book in and out. But the 1 thing that will always happen every night was that we will order KFC/Mac. The point of fact is that army food sucks. Big time. Well except the few times where they do manage to cook something decent. But that's on rare occasions like Chinese New Year or Christmas. So most of the time, we'll just skip dinner, watch TV at the cookhouse (1730 channel 8 show) and go back to our bunks and order KFC. Always the 16 piece family fiesta meal. No change to that.

AI was the time where we went for nights out until we didn't feel like going out anymore. Cause all we had to do was ask for it and most likely it'll be given to us. Reason being because there really is nothing on at night for us. Except for 1 or 2 night training, our time at night is free. So usually I'll just take a train over to Junction 8 at bishan and walk around there waiting for 9pm where there'll be half price sushi. So ya, that describes my life story, waiting for half price sushi. There was a few times where it was damn funny of how you got our nights out. Once was when there was the movie screening of the mummy, money not enough and some other weird show. So we asked our sergeant major whether we could go watch it and the conversation went something like that:

Us: Sergeant Major, can have nights out to go watch movie??
SM: Huh? You want to go for nights out watch what movie??
Us: Money not enough.
SM: Why you all want to go for nights out when you all got not enough money??

This carries on for some time until someone else suggested the mummy.

Us: SM, actually we wanted to watch the Mummy.
SM: Today you all want to watch Mummy, tomorrow money not enough, then the day after leh?? The Daddy ar??

There was also this master sergeant whom we all loved, cause whenever he's around, we will confirm either have canteen break or nights out. So you see, it's not much of a special thing when people keep giving it to you. We did take it for granted until we got scolded damn badly by the Officer who nobody really likes. He held us back until 10 for some stupid reason. Just kept harping on the same point over and over again.

Can you imagine having a building six stories high, 8 if you count the "basement" and imagine outside the window, there is this tiny ledge that is just enough for 1 person to go out on. Would you dare to climb out of the window and walk outside the window just for the fun of scaring the others in the other bunks?? I wouldn't. But someone else did. And that's exactly what he did. He climbed out of the window and proceeded to scare the others. I tell you, he has balls. If it was me, I wouldn't dare. It would be tentament to commiting suicide.

And so I finish my training at Khatib. Posted to 40 SAR, the place which incidently is near my house, it being near Lim Chu Kang which is just nearby my housing estate. Yes, it's the place where all the graveyards are. And no, it's not an arti camp, it's an armour camp. That's why i tell you my NS life isn't that slack.

But life at 40 SAR isn't that bad I suppose, it had it's up and downs just like everything else in life. Most of the time, I was the last few sergeants to book out, beside my PS. Because I stay the closest to the camp so most of the time I'll volunteer to stay back and get things done. Of course, after you start doing that for a while, people will just take for granted that you're going to do it and without even asking you whether you have anything on, just force you to stay back. But do I regret volunteering for these people? No, I don't. I volunteered. Besides, people have eyes. They can see what you are doing and whose the one hiding away.

ATEC stage 1 & 2 was hell. The actual camp itself was ok, it's the build up to it. For ATEC stage 2, there was 3 field camp before the actual event itself. Zzz which is really crap since the field camp was much much tougher then the actual ATEC itself. But we did well in ATEC stage 2. We got a letter of commendation, all WOSPEC from mortar platoon. Take that, the only platoon who managed to impress the hard ass judges who are judging us. That and the fact that we keep coming under attack.

And to those of you who say being in armour is better then being in infantry/guards/commando, it's not. True, we don't have to route march wherever we go, but at the end of the exercise, we got to wash our tanks. Imagine 8 washing bays for a whole battalion of tanks, then I still have 3 weapons under my name. So by the time I wash my tank, lowload it, clean my arms, settle everything, I'll reach my bunk approx 6 hours later then those who go back first if I'm lucky. And the next day, I have to wake up the exact same time and do all the same things, so no, I don't agree that being in armour is better.

After ATEC, we slack for a while, but after that, it was NDP. My unit was involved in NDP so that means saturday burned. What do you expect? NDP is done by NSFs. Free labour what. Anyway, I was under confetti. If you were there, I was responsible for shooting out those stupid little bits of paper at the end of the parade. Which is honestly a waste of money. Zzz, people don't even appreciate. I got scolded for doing my job. But then, you're in the army, you can't scold them back even if you are in the right. That's the way it is. But NDP was fun, free KFC, free girls to see and we got to watch the parade 20 times?? Maybe more.

Life in camp was ok, we only had to be on time and do our duty properly. Talking about doing duty properly, I signed 5 extra for doing my duty properly. Fking warrent officer. Let me start at the beginning. See, it was a saturday and I was doing guard duty. Anyone who does guard duty will tell you that whoever comes in, you have to question them and ask what they're going to do. So at around 8pm, there was this car that wanted to enter the camp. Inside was this fking warrent. So since he's from another unit, I've no idea who the hell it is so I start questioning him. I asked him what he wanted to do and who he was and etc etc etc. So that fker got pissed and started scolding me, telling me that he's some warrent from the unit in my camp and start demanding that I let him in. I didn't let him in cause he didn't want to show me his camp pass, so he continued scolding and scolding and he took my name down and next time I know, my CSM ask me to sign 5 extra. WTF right? I was damn pissed when I got it but then, whatever lah. As long as you got the rank, you have the final say so I have to LLST.

Oh yes, in case you're wondering, I do have a license. Hahaha. Not a car or motobike which everyone has, I have a tank license. One of the many courses that we had to go for was a tank driving course. So I went, and I passed. Got a tank license. How many people have that?? And it's damn fun. You don't have to watch out for anything besides people since it's a tank, it can run over anything. Haha.

It's no surprise to anyone in my platoon that I can click better together with my men then all the other 3SGs. I have no idea why that is the case too. My men says that it's because I can put myself into their shoes and I treat them as my friends, not as a commander/subordinate relationship. I guess it's true. If I have nothing for them, I'll just ask them to go back to their bunks and sleep. But usaully, this got me into trouble with the upper ups, but usually I told them to go stuff their **** into their ***. Haha. Of course, this just got me into deep shit but who cares.

I've ORD-ed on the 9th of November 2009 or 09/11/09. That was 6 months ago. I've moved on since then. I've got a camera phone now, I'm carrying a thumbdrive with me wherever I go now. I'm happy that I'm free from that place... Yet I'm still sad... Doesn't make sense no? It's alright. It doesn't have to. I miss my time spent in the army.

My advice to anyone who reads this and is about to enlist for the army, Go in with an open mind, don't be afraid to learn more about killing people (Cause that's what we're really doing). Go in with an open mind, and have as much fun as you possibly can. Don't listen to what others say about army. Go in and make your own choice by yourself. I'm glad I made my own choice instead of listening to what my older brother said. I had a lot of fun, and I'm sad to say that that part of my life is over.

My whole army life, all at least the parts that I think it's safe to type out. Took me close to a year to finalize everything and proof read it. I enjoyed myself to say the least. Of course I do. Who wouldn't??