finally i'm back! its been 2 weeks since i last touch this com...and it certainly feels weird.atleast i still remembered how to type!
field camp rox! its like...another NPCC ATC camp la...jus that in the 7days i was out in the forest of tekong, i had no bath n no proper tentage to sleep in, and no proper food.but what's there to complain? i get to play counter-strike! haha. i guess the saying "army will bring a whole new level of filth" is absolutely true. all 3 sets of uniform (yes...i wore a set for 2 days) i wore in the 7days of field camp were so filthy, my mum said they stink so bad she had felt like vomitting 3 times.and after more den 10 times of manual scrubbing, a new pail full of water was still grey and murky (even still brown w mud)! that's how filthy the camp was!
another thing which made the field camp exciting was how to sleep without being bugged by...bugs. i was so unfortunate that the area where i had to build my basha (its a tent like thingie la) was jus beside a tree (at oil palm for the army dudes) n everyone knows ants and the likes love to build nests near trees.hell...i woke up with ants crawling on my hands la! and because i was so dead tired each they, i was practically motionless and ignorant to the ants until i actually felt pain frm their bites...guess they really tot i was a tree trunk!
hugging a pillow to sleep is so different from hugging a rifle to sleep...and its super uncomfortable! the sergeants love to play a game called "thief and thief"..its a competition b/w the sergeants to see how many rifles they can steal.a sergeant incharge of platoon A will try to steal rifles frm recruits of platoon B...and the sergeant of platoon B will do likewise to the recruits of platoon A.haha...sadistic rite? n whoever wakes up without any part of the rifle (yes...they don't steal the gun, they steal small parts of the gun!) will be automatically volunteered for guard duty the other night.imagine being freakin exhausted from a whole day of training...n now u can't sleep! lucky for me...i hugged it so tight my uniform smell of rifle oil most of the time!
i know yaozong hates combat rations, but honestly it taste pretty alright! apart from it looking VERY VERY much like vomit and probably smelling exactly like vomit, it actually taste like cook house food.haha..or mayb i was jus super hungry each meal time that i couldn't tell the difference between eating rocks and sand and eating combat rations.haha.but yellow curry rice definitely ROCKS! hell...i'll do anything to hav yellow curry rice all 7 days!
the best part of field camp, though, was playing Counter-strike! not exactly counterstrike...but we had fire movement. for the uneducated, its simply movement of a section (or group) in combat situations lor...and i was so fortunate (or unfortunate) to be made section commander almost ALL the time.that means i constantly have to shout at my group mates to ask them to hop, run, jump, leap and the likes from tree to tree, from bush to bush and stuff...jus to that we can over-run the enemy.haha..it was damn fun sia!! and the creme de la creme of it all, was firing the M16 at auto!! (shh...no one is supposed to fire at auto sia...my sergeant jus wanted us to relax and have a little fun so he quietly allowed..so shhhhh!) it was freakin fun sia...totally orgasmic! haha...u should try it to know what it feels like!
in any case....the lowest point of demoralising came when we had to dig trenches and the likes.hell...digging in solid CLAY is not easy, but digging with my combat gear on (yes...helmet, webbing and rifle) is seriously irritating! i digged til my hands blistered like no one's business, and we had to put camo on EVEN FOR TRENCH DIGGING!! hell..what's the rationale sia!! camoflage cream for 7days NON STOP is irritating !! n i was so unlucky, the place i dug for my shell scrape happened to be where ants decided to make an underground tunnel! man...u should see the ants coming out of the ground sia..hahaha.like a fountain of black.so...naturally i got bitten by ants when i was sleeping la...and till now my left ear still hurts (and still slightly swollen) frm the bite.ouch...
but as i've said...field camp was totally fun! haha...its way more fun den JC1 orientation sia...
but....SIT test definitely sucks!
SIT test (situational test la duh) is a test where they (theoretically) give you the environment to think under stress and under pressure. in my view...its a test to see who is the most wayang and a test to see how straight u can think when u are shagged. and when i say shagged...i totally mean shagged.its a 3 days outfield test, which means 3 days in the forest again (sian..). the 1st day rocks...cos we had our 12km route march (hell..it was orgasmic-ly tiring!) n after that...lessons.lucky for me (or unlucky..) i became a navigator..and the whole day was spent learning how to read map grid references, compasses and the likes.typical npcc work la...so that's the lucky part.the 2nd day was the real start of the test, and all of us were split up into different details of 14 men each, so the chances of seeing ppl in ur own platoon is like....3 out of 13 at most? which means u have to work with ppl u dun even know sia...which was a challenge.but the real challenge came when i found out who the sergeant of the detail was.sergeant khairul is an ass..haha.he was a sprinter b4 ns, n he loves to make us run.right from the start we were made to do fast march...but in his case, he marches quickly and the rest of us jogs with him...kao he has legs longer den junyuan's la! and he's so fast we really had to jog to catch up...no point opening ur pace and moving at his pace and stufff...cos u'll never catch up!
being the navigator...i had to find my way around the SIT test area...which was no mean feat since the entire area looks the same sia! imagine immensely dry and tall yellow bushes...hardly any trees...and the map has to grid readings and stuff, and the paths on the map does not match those on the ground since anyone can start a new path on those kinda of terrain.haha.so in a way i struggled at first lor...but we still got to our checkpoint looking immensely shagged (thanks to jogging abt 1km with fieldpack, rifle, helmet etc etc). at checkpoints, we are given a mission to complete b4 the main mission, and at each mission an IC and a 2IC are chosen to lead the men...but we being JC ppl tend to talk alot...and i mean ALOT.this test shows the MOST wayang side of alot of ppl sia...in front of the officer grading us, some guys will talk alot n give hell lot of ideas...try to pin down others and boost himself up, come up with all sorts of stuff to make him look like boss.but when it comes to walking the walk, he trips and falls flat on his blardy face! hell..its so much a wayang party, after 2 stations i decided that i'm jus gonna present my idea to the IC, and let him decide since too many mouths make no progress. i simply hate those wayang shitheads sia...they can talk so much crap about how to tie the poles together and use them as bridges or what not, but when it comes to tying the knots itself, they look at each other and start commanding ppl to tie, w the expression on their face which tells me they simply hav no idea how to do what they jus said. so its up to me n some uniform grp ppl who knows abit more abt knots to do the tying while they claim glory for their superb idea.what the f**k. if we had to climb up a 3m wall, they will come up with all sorts of ideas and suggestions and start ordering ppl arnd, but i don't see them climbing or building the structures to aid the climbing...i see myself dragging my balls off a pole so that i can get up that wall! lucky for me...my detail has a few pragmatic and hardworking ppl who can talk the talk, but more importantly walk the walk..n not like those wayang asses.
that aside, we completed most missions...but the missions were not the tiring part...its getting to the checkpoints! the checkpoints are all within 200m radius (500 at most), but the route they chose for us means...we have to walk round and round the base camp area jus to reach the check point! (only those who been thru the test as navigators will know..) n sgt khairul, who loves to claim he's god or sth, simply loves arti drill. arti drill (artillery drill) means...u have to run like a dog la! haha...and we really ran like a dog sia! we have 6 stations on the first day...and we had arti drill 5 times! meaning...5 out of the 6 stations we arrived looking like dogs! drenched all over...panting loudly with our tongues hanging out...some even on all fours...don't we jus look like dogs? haha...that's how tiring it was sia...n when i say tiring, i seriously mean tiring! for a guy who run 2.4km at a modest 10min 21sec, those arti drills left me half fainting each time, n by the last few metres, i wasn't even running straight, i was drifting frm left to right la...that's how tiring it is!
not only did we do arti drills, we had 2 leopard crawls, and 3 casualty evacs! hell...the officer loves to choose the biggest guy as casualty, and we had to run with him on stretcher la! it definitely looks like some war scene in Saving Private Ryan la! u really must try it out to know what i'm talking about. for the sake of those who have yet to go into the army, i'll not talk about the missions since it will take the fun out of trying to plan for it..but 1 day of that is enough to make most ppl faint...imagine i had 3 days of that! i can still feel the weight of the LAW gun on my back sia...n i still cant get tat vomitting feeling out of my throat..yuckz.feels like i've vomitted 10 times la..
in any case, i passed the navy selection board! they actually accepted me as a naval combat officer! so now...all i need to do is get into OCS and get atleast a silver for my ippt, and i'll most prob sign on as a naval officer lor.but the selection board really sucks..imagine me, a recruit (a piece of shit la in fact) sitting in an enclosed room facing a Lieutenant Colonel, a full Colonel, a Captain n some big shot at the manpower base...n the LTC was asking me so many questions i couldn't think straight..n pressurizing me while the Colonel sits there, watching, unmoving. sounds like an interrogation room? hell...it feels like it la!
LTC : "why do you want to join the navy?"
me: "sir, because i think its a refreshing and exciting challenge, and i would like to experience it for myself and take it as a great test of my personal abilities"
LTC: "but why the navy? you can go to the army, airforce, be a teacher, a carpenter, or a florist what!"
me: "erm..sir, cos i like the sea? n i think joining the navy will be a great personal experience i want to have"
LTC : "so what if you like the sea? go swim lor.."

what the f**k sia...what kinda questions are those? after the selection board interview...i tot i totally screwed it up.but guess what....they actually said i passed !! hell yeah! haha...i was totally taken my surprise la...cos they said in the entire 58th batch of BMTC recruits, all 2000plus eligible botaks, they are taking in only about 20.and 11 of those spaces are more or less taken by the scholars from hawk company...n i'm one of that 20! cool ain't it? oh well...dunno la.hav till march 7 to decide sia...so any views on whether i should sign on or not?
1 more week to pop sia...can't wait to get out and move on! but just when i'm gettin to know my section and platoon mates better, we have to go our ways.suckz ain't it? oh well..that's life i guess. kinda regretted doing many things in life, and kinda regret even more for not doing many things ( the effects of being tired in camp...u start stoning while looking at grass). but on reflection, i've always tried to put in my best (not in studies la i guess...but in everything else) n i've more or less done all that i could possibly do...mayb i'm jus unlucky in life? or maybe i've always been foolish to give my heart's worth of time n attention to things (and people) that actually do not deserve so much effort...n at the same time neglect those that i should focus more on? hmmm...