Happy Year of the Pig everyone. Gong Xi Fa Cai! Hmmm somehow this reminds me of the (rather lousy) decorations we did at the Officers' Mess, The Scabbard, sometime back.
And so it's already Sunday night, and Field Camp has been over for two days already, and yet the aches in my body, the swelling in my leg, the uncountable insect bites, as well as the camoflage cream still stuck in the fingernails remain. I'm feeling kinda liberated since I have, in the past two weeks' confinement period, cleared two of BMT's three major passing criteria, while placing myself in good stead to clear the third (IPPT). First was live range last monday, where I flunked the night shoot due to the barely visible targets. Oh, and did I mention that the sign in the Armskote should be replaced? It's amazing how one small typo can make such a huge difference in meaning... for the poster with the safety message says "Better safe then sorry". Anyway, I digress. Second was the IPPT diagnostic test, in which I obtained a Silver, up from a respectable Fail grade. My 2.4km timing improved from 12:10 to 10:15 so that left me feeling rather pleased. I hereby dedicate this to my recently deceased pet tortoise =(
Anyway, in between the two events, I was randomly chosen to perform regimental guard duty, and was lucky enough to get prowling duties and go on patrol, instead of performing sentry duties at the ferry terminal. Well, "lucky" here is a subjective term, since I had to walk a grand total of roughly 14 km in one night in my LBV instead of merely standing there. However, I would rather walk around than stand around and stone for two two-hour shifts, so I consider myself lucky. We were lucky to have cleared our live range in time for our first guard duty, and therefore we could look cool carrying our AR-15s instead of rotans and rattan shields. Guard duty was more fun than I thought, as Jun Wei and I walked about, scanning digital scanners at our checkpoints. Every two hours of prowling, we get a break in the guards' bunk, where the 19 of us helped ourselves to night snacks which were sufficient to feed an entire platoon.
But what is guard duty without supernatural encounters? Ming Kai and Eng Meng were designated Prowling Detail B, while Jun Wei and I were Detail A. We were each given a walkie-talkie (which I held, while Jun Wei held the scanning device) to communicate with the HQ at the Guardroom, and off we went. However, at about 10pm, I received freak radio signals which were interrupted by lots of static. Amidst the static, I barely made out reports of a wild boar sighting, and I assumed that the signal was sent by Detail B. However, HQ contacted me requesting for me to repeat the last message I transmitted, when I did not send any. It got more confusing after a while, such that HQ (which was Corporal Wong, by the way) got frustrated and demanded that both details send a report back to HQ. And so I reported that I did not send any signals. Surprisingly, Ming Kai also reported that Detail B did not send any messages.
That was when the voice of a Malay man broke in and reported that Prowling Detail C was safe, and that was freaky. Firstly, the guard duty personnel that night were all Chinese. Secondly, there was no Detail C. We ignored the signals, but some weird screeching sounds came out of the radio signal, followed by some screaming, and then, barely audible cries of help from the Malay person. "Help, sergeant, help!"
And so we rushed a little, and when we eventually got back to HQ, we affirmed that both details have not sent any such singals back to HQ. We also got no explanation as to why this occurred.
Spoooky. Well, actually, not really. Turns out that it was people over at the mainland's ferry terminal who were toying with the radio signals. Moral of the story? There's nothing to be afraid of; it's always people scaring people ;o
Going back on topic about the three main passing criteria of BMT, the third one was our Field Camp, which started on the 11th. It started off with a gruelling 8km route march in Full Battle Order, with the Field Pack and helment making us look like Ninja Turtles. Once we arrived, there was little time to rest as we had to immediately pitch our bashas and dig out the accompanying drainage. Just as I was digging, a few of us got called off to meet Sergeant Jonathan... and it turned out that we were the chosen ones to build the latrine, aka the outfield toilet. Woohoo, true blue sai kang warriors (shit job warriors).
The latrine was a pain to build, and it took the whole day for us to construct it. We took turns digging knee-deep pits, and I put up haycloth which would give shitters privacy as they go about doing their business. As we dug, we uncovered spiders, earthworms, maggots, millepedes, centipedes... yeah =p
The next day, we woke up at 0545 and after a quick warm up we went for a run on a rocky path in the darkness, so you can imagine all the tripping up and stuff. That was to be our daily morning routine, as the run got progressively harder, and eventually we ran in our long 4 uniform instead of our admin t-shirt, and had to wear our helmets and LBV too. Mornings also included massive tekan sessions, simply because we left rubbish behind in our campsite, left shit-holes uncovered after we shit, and did not wrap up our belongings in our groundsheets properly. The result? Leopard crawling down the hill beside our campsite, across our campsite which was really sandy and rocky, and had tree roots everywhere. >.o
Other morning activities included super-extended basic exercises, where we had to constantly restart our 20 counts of 4 jumping jets and crunches and stuff because close to 200 of us could not do the exercises in unison without counting out the timing, which was of course near impossible to achieve. For our efforts we were rewarded with high kneels with rifles over heads, and more leopard crawls, across drains even =)
Ok, before I scare all you April enlistess off, Field Camp isn't all PT and stuff. There's a fair share of fun too. That came from our individual field craft (IFC) lessons and battle exercises. By day four we were all somewhat well-trained in the rudiments of field combat, and were familiar with silent hand signals, movement formations, and field commands. And so we set off for our Battle Course on day four, which was basically just a free-for-all battle between all 16 sections from the four platoons of the company. That was immense fun. All sorts of battle situations could arise, and it was fun responding to each and every one of them... like getting my leg "blown off by a grenade", before I was evacuated by two fellow section mates, before artillery came down and wiped out all three of us. Like deciding on my own to take guard on the coastline, only to get ambushed by a group of four enemy contacts, but not before I alerted my section to the enemy presence so they can mount a counterattack. Like proning down darn near an ant's nest as we charged through the jungle. Like shooting our own teammates because everyone looked the same in our uniforms and camouflaged faces. Like flanking our enemy, only for us to be flanked in turn. Like assembling lots of allies, and attacking a platoon four section when we outnumbered them 4-1. Like lying in wait in superior positions for half an hour without any enemies passing by. The possibilities are endless and that's the fun of it all. So all you JC-1 Counterstrike players, you guys have another year before you get to do the real thing hah. Shooting live rounds at live range and blanks in exercises is nothing like clicking the left mouse trigger dudes.
That night (or was it the third night instead? *shrug*), we had a night walk, which was just bashing through thick undergrowth in pitch black darkness. After we got back, it was 1/3 alert. Our campsite was stripped down, and everyone assumed firing positions around our campsite. We had to take turns to prone down in front of our field packs, facing out from the campsite and pointing to "hostile outside territory", to guard the campsite. Every one hour of stoning there was to be accompanied by two hours of rest before our next shift. That night, we had to sleep in that postion as well, right on the grass without a groundsheet beneath us nor a shelter over our heads. Fun. No, I'm serious this time, and not being sarcastic. That night was when I got all my ant and mosquito bites, while Yisheng got his snake bite and went back to the school to see the MO the next day. He must have used too much Prickly Heat to ward away the insects, only to attract the slithering things. Heh.
Day Five was Shellscrape day, so it was all digging and pretty much nothing else. Basically we had to dig a pit where we could lie down in prone position in our LBVs, huge Goretex included, and place our field packs at our legs without anything being visible except for the tip of our helmets and the top of the rifle. So we dug... and dug... and dug...
And Day Five was the lowest point in my entire Field Camp, or even NS life so far. The day was "tactical", which meant that we had to observe field discipline or risk detection by the enemy. As such, no shouting of orders. Should someone receive an order from the commanders, he had to pass down the information to the entire platoon by whispering from person to person. Naturally, some stuff tend to get lost in translation. As such, what was to be an artillery drill and a command for everyone to be in their shellscrapes at 100% alertness becamse a message to prone down in the shellscrape once done with our work by the time it got to me. As I was looking for my arc of fire sticks because I thought I still had time, a furious PC spotted me still out of the shellscrape and told me that I would have just killed off the entire platoon should this be a real-life war situation. That was how I got the whole platoon into trouble, for showing f**-ked-up attitude and not echoing information properly. Just when I was feeling guilty and all, a moment's carelessness caused my rifle to get stunned by Sergeant Jonathan. I was lucky to escape confinement unlike the many many many others who have lost their rifles before, but it was disappointing nonetheless, for I prided myself on taking care of my rifle at all times. To top it all off, I barely slept that night as the shellscrape was really uncomfortable and I was a poor sleeper (plus, I received quite a few ant bites since there was a tree perpetually carpeted by ants near my position, and we were not able to prickly-heat the tree properly in the day). The next morning, someone f**ked up something again, and the PC was even more angry this time, to the extent that he declared that he would give up on us from then on. All the physical fatigue, the guilt of sabotaging my entire platoon the day before, as well as the disappointment of disappointing the two commanders I respected the most (Johnathan and Jonathan, not to be confused with each other) made my morale rock-bottom.
The last day, we had our Battle Innoculation Course (BIC), which was the final event in our Field Camp. Basically, it was just a lot of crawling while they shot machine guns over our heads. Very tiring, but the sheer satisfaction of completing it and our Field Camp made it all worth it.
Lessons I drew from it all? I must say Field Camp does make you realise who are your true friends, and who are the truly selfish individuals. It's much like what our PC said. Great thanks to Meng Hwee, who helped me immediately after he was done with his own Shellscrape when he could be taking a well-deserved break. Great thanks too to Su Sian, whose Shellscrape was deep enough but had a total lack of shape (heh no offense), and yet he helped me out with digging before he went back to complete his own work. In addtion, I think overcoming my low morale on day five was the hardest part of the camp, and I think I've grown from that experience. In fact, I ended up being one of the people encouraging other people on as we marched to the venue for our BIC Grounds.
And so BMT seems to be ending soon from this side of the Field Camp. The Situational Test is coming up on Wednesday. Let's hope I'll do well!
BMT - it's not about what you get from it. It's about what you will gain in the days ahead.
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kheng yong; 19th dec 88
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