Several key events have passed in the past week or so. First we had our FIBUA lesson at Neo Tiew Village. Somewhere very ulu. Anyway, FIBUA, aka fighting in built up areas, is also known as urban ops. Basically, it involves fighting in urban settings, instead of conventional jungle warfare. Personally I feel that this is much more relevant to Singapore than jungle ops, since we're highly urbanised. But oh well, what do I know =)
The buildings were built much like the buildings of Changi Village. The apartment blocks, or rather shophouses, were four stories tall each. There was a market square in the middle of the village, flanked by the shophouses and a cozy-looking little playground. The village was also somewhere near Jalan Bahtera, near to the Scouts' Sarimbun Campsite. I still recall seeing Neo Tiew Village whenever we passed by the place on the way to Sarimbun heh.
We practised movement and contact drills, after which we broke up for practice, and fighting in groups (and eventually sections). Blank rounds shot in the jungle sound rather soft, while thunderflashes were relatively louder. However, put these in the enclosed space of an empty HDB room, and the magnitude of the sounds will increase drastically. We learned this the hard way as a thunderflash shook the entire room and left our inner ears in pain heh.
Unlike jungle warfare, we actually found it really fun, especially the missions, where we were to clear an entire floor (of four units) of enemies. Deng Si, old bird Mustaffa, appointed section commander Abbas and I combined well to clear three whole units with no casualties, with Mus and I the pair taking out most of the enemies. The fourth unit was disastrous though, for we were greeted by a grenade (lol yakult bottles passing off as grenades) immediately upon entry. We each dived for cover, but sadly Deng and I jumped into a room with Angus as the enemy, and got killed =p
This tuesday evening was our 28km graduation full-battle order route march. We started off at 2130 hours, and marched to NTU, back to SISPEC, back to NTU, and back to SISPEC. Unlike route marches back at Tekong, we had the luxury of walking on relatively smooth trails, and lots of roads this time. However, the area near the School of Biological Sciences has a terrifying uphill climb, and that never fails to wear us out. We weren't allowed to sing once out of the camp though, for fear of complaints from NTU residents. It's funny how we burst into song every time we cross the gates heh. As we marched through the night, we got incredibly sleepy after a while, and people hor-lan-ing wasn't uncommon. In short, we were almost sleepwalking, such that when the pavement had a curve, we continued walking straight, and therefore walked off the pavement without realising it =p
The march was no joke - it was gruelling. People started having aching knees, back aches, blisters, abrasions, and other assorted problems. We started out with a fighting fit strength of 24 (out of 36 in the platoon. how sad.), and finished with 22. John fell out due to an asthma attack, Zhi Hong fell out due to some problems with his heel, Su Sian took a ride on the land rover for a while as he felt unwell, while Kenn almost hyperventilated. I started having some serious abrasion after 16km, but with some encouragement I walked the remaining 12 km. Mus told me he respected me for perservering on, and I felt really proud to have completed the march.
The march ended around 6:15am, and after resting for about 15 minutes, we marched straight into Chevron's Square, still in our FBO. There, we had our Chevron Presenation Parade, where we were presented with our Corporal ranks while award-winners like platoon-best Mus were given their various awards. The rest of the day was spent sleeping, area cleaning, sleeping, returning of equipment, sleeping, settling administrative matters, and sleeping heh. Unfortunately our company refused to disclose our posting results, so we had to wait until Friday, SISPEC Anniversary Day, for our postings.
Fast forward to SISPEC Anniversary Day. Our company was in charge of the whole celebrations, and our platoon were also in charge of most of the events on that day. What a pity though, as there were hardly anyone to cheer us on in the various competitions since they were all around SISPEC seeing that the events ran smoothly. Our platoon took part in the Drill Competition and War Cry Competition, and I must say our War Cry showed a lack of pride, as usual in our company =p
Still, while there were several hiccups in the drill competition, we got third overall. Staff Faizal did tell us to try our best for first, if not we must at least get sixth. But there were only six companies. Heh.
Anyway, we finally received our posting orders. Meng Hwee and Hua Ming were posted to the Air Force, so it's gonna be relaxing for them for the rest of their 2 years. The majority were posted back to SISPEC for their Advanced Section Leaders' Course, and they were therefore stuck in the infantry. You can easily see their crestfallen faces as soon as they hear that they were staying in SISPEC. The majority of the remaining people were posted to ATI, aka Armour Training Institute. John was the sole dude who was lucky enough to be posted to be a Medic Spec. You Jin and Zheng Jie will be going off to 6SIR (Singapore Infantry Regiment) to be Recce Scouts. Lowell, who laughed at many of us since he believed he was going to disrupt to study Medicine while we were doomed to go to ASLC, received his posting order to ASLC to the cheers of the entire platoon. Yao Wen went to Signals, Gabriel should be going to the Provost (Military Police! How lucky). And that was the posting results of everyone in brief.
Myself? I'm the only person in the platoon, aside from Yan Zhi, who has been posted to ETI, aka Engineer Training Institute. It's at Nee Soon Camp. Yeah, so I'm gonna be a combat engineer heh. I didn't expect to get such a posting. In fact, I was misled by all my section mates, platoon mates, and old classmates to believe that I was very likely to go ASLC. So I guess that proves them wrong ;o
Reporting to Nee Soon Camp on Monday. Hope it's gonna be a great new chapter in my army life!
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