Wow... It seems like a very long week this week. On Monday, we had our Platoon Live Firing. I was praying for a easy appointment, for example, firebase. To my relieve, I am part of the firebase. I am one of the M203 gunners who sit on a sandbag on top of the knoll! Haa... I don't even have to prone down on the wet floor. Those who are not firebase have to do the fire and movement drill, up the other side of the hill. From my direction, I am able to see them moving up. Looks very shag to me as the slope is quite steep.
Even though I do not have to prone on the floor, I am still soaking wet. It rained for the whole day and I was drenched during the morning rehearsal. In the end, I got abrasions. What a terrible experience. As a "reward" for that, I got the chance to fire off the White Star Illum. Best of all, it is not 1 White Star Illum, but 4 of them! What a chance. The tip of the White Star round is white, twice the length of normal grenade round. The experience is unexplainable. One word to describe it - Shiok! It feels better than firing the TPT (training purpose) round, aka, Curry Powder. Of course, the real grenade round explosion feels good too. But we did not use that during this live firing as it is quite dangerous.
Luckily, my abrasion is getting better the next day after I applied medication the previous night. Tuesday is the day we are heading back to Pulau Tekong for our POI (Protection of Installation). The Wing is divided into 2 platoons. Platoon 1 together with half of Platoon 2 and Platoon 3 with the other half of Platoon 2.
So now, new Platoon 1, Red Force, which I am in, is located at the Old Malay School and new Platoon 2, also our enemy, Blue Force, is at the old School Camp 2. This is also my first time having to sleep on concrete ground with shelter in Tekong for 5 days. It seems like a chalet. We are allowed to shower in the toilet. Best of all, we do not need to dig to shit! Proper sanitary system. This is what I called, civilization! The platoon is further divided into 6 sections. Each will have a mission and each mission is 8hours long. There are 6 missions spread across the 5 days during our stay; Ambush, Fighting Patrol, QRF (Quick Reaction Force), Reece, PAC/VAC (Personnel Access Control/Vehicular Access Control), and POI (which consist of sentries and prowlers).
My section's first mission is Ambush. It is a night mission therefore we have to be very tactical. Along the way to our ambush location, we had to look out for any enemies. It is one of the most enjoyable missions out of the 6. Along the way, we met enemy's Reece team. At first, we thought they were the fighting patrol, therefore, we took cover in the vegetation immediately seeing them in front moving towards our direction. When they were moving pass us, we fired at them, they ran. Later on, we then realize that they were not our primary target. What's even close is that before we attacked them while we are in hiding, they stopped right in front of us. One of them was even standing beside one of my friend and was talking, never even realize our existence! Haa...
Then, we continue to move on, and we also met the enemy's ambush team. Why do we always get onto the wrong target? Moving on to the ambush site, this time we could not be wrong because there will only be 3 teams moving out of their installation for missions. It is always the ambush team who wins the battle for training purpose. We have to go through the motion and let the enemy learn how to retrograde from an ambush.
The next mission is Fighting Patrol. This time, I had the chance to be an enemy. Not enemy of the other platoon but a group of people who try to disturb the operations of our own installation. So a group of us acted as terrorist with rifles, infiltrate into the installation and killing the Red Forces. It is very exciting even though we were killed in a very short while. Then here comes the FilmCrew. We were requested to run the whole scene again for them to film. Being enemy in the installation is a good advantage. We had a lot of sleeping time. I think I slept until I got a headache.
Third mission is QRF. It is also another slack mission. We were only activated when enemy, like the terrorist attack, is attacking our installation. This time, we were dealing with riot. When we went out to catch them, I was pulled away from my team and became a hostage! But it is also quite good. I can sit in the Rover and enjoy the cool breeze when the Rover moves.
4th mission, we did Reece. It is one of the most tiring missions. We have to go all the way to Camp 2 and get up-close to their installation to get information of their POL. I even ran out of water halfway through the mission. Worst, we were contacted twice and we had to run very fast to take cover into hiding. The first contact is when the enemy saw us walking along the road. The second contact is when someone at the PAC or Sentry saw Kelvin leopard crawl. A few of us fell when we tried to escape. That a shag mission. But in the end, we managed to get the information we needed. Lt Enric lost his map during the Reece mission. But the map was found by me when we had to take cover into the vegetation when a Rover is approaching on the way back to our Red Force installation. What a luck he got. If not for the Rover, I guess his map will be lost forever. By the time we got back to camp, it is already past midnight.
I managed to sleep for 1 or 2 hours when I was waken up by Conan, telling me that I am the next mission, PAC/VAC, section commander. At last I had a commander appointment since I stepped into OCS. PAC/VAC mission is simple. There is nothing much to plan except to organize the time table for shifts and the things they need to know, do and react. My mission was cut half way. We were told to retrieve all the concertina wires around our installation perimeter. We were also briefed we had our last and finale mission. We are going to send out a platoon size out to infiltrate and attack the Blue force, so do the Blue forces going to do to us. I am now part of the POL force doing sentry at on of the OP, Observation Post.
I heard stories about the Old Malay School, scary stories. I never expect to experience it during the stay. But that night, it creeps me. During stand-to, I can hear drums, Malay drums. At first, I thought someone from other OP is hitting the ammunition crates. But as time goes no during stand-to, the drums come to make sense. It is Malay drums we normally hear during weddings or special occasions. Beep beep beep, whistle signaling us stand-down. After the whistle stops, the drum stops. Creepy. It comes from a distance, most likely from the FIBUA (Fighting In Build UP Area, normally we used this to represent a build up area) village nearby. Not only I heard it, everyone in the Malay School heard it. It is not once, but twice, during another stand-to and stand-down.
Forget about the music I heard, it is very distracting. At night, visibility is poor. That’s why NVG, Night Vision Goggle was invented. The whole night during the mission, I was quite active. I used the NVG to scout around the area for any movements of the enemy. Looking through the NVG is fun; it is even amazing when I point it up into the clear dark sky. What do I see? Stars of course! I see hundreds and thousands more stars from the NVG than from naked eyes. The stars are beautiful. I could not think of any other words to describe it. It even the faintest stars were brightly seen through the NVG. As a astronomy fan myself, I enjoyed looking up the sky so much. Looking at stars through NVG stands second place before looking up the sky for shooting stars which I experienced when I was in rural Thailand more than a year ago.
Blue Forces arrived and tried to get into our installation, but were killed twice as we kept throwing grenades, simulated by light sticks, at them from high ground. They were completely wiped out as they concentrate their forces at one of the gap around our installation. Therefore, we were banned to use grenades and allow the enemy to infiltrate for them to go through the motion of having to attack us in FIBUA and over-run us.
After the mission, we retrieve most of the stores we needed to bring back to mainland and went to sleep. We moved out in the morning by Tonner, took a ferry to mainland and bus to Wing line. Cleaning the rifle is a tough job, especially pulling through the barrel. The carbon was very thick. Luckily I cleaned the other parts of the rifle in Tekong. It is much of the barrel to be cleaned. Later, it is book out after lunch!
Saturday, I spend my whole day resting at home. Sunday, at last I can have a whole day out shopping at Causeway Point with Yong Kang. I bought a few VCDs and music CDs. Time always seems to past so fast during weekend.
Now, Monday, I have to book-in at night. My buddy, Jeffrey, have to book-in by 3pm for his 16km road march he missed the other time. Oh well, that’s all folks. Time to enjoy my last few hours at home.
tata...
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