At Last!

What a wonderful feeling to be out in the civilian world, shopping, eating and freedom to walk where-ever I like, except restricted areas and live firing areas... haha... I have being waiting for this day to come since 2 weeks ago. Last Sunday's night's off wasn't counted as a book out. Such a short period of 5 hours, I can't even go anywhere beyond Woodlands, where I stayed in.

For the past 2 weeks, it was a difficult and stressful period for most of us. A lot of things are going on concurrently. No chance to rest and no time to waste. Ex. Milo past and a day later, Ex. Safari. Ex. Safari is all about gun drills. Everything we learned during the weapon phrase are now put into practice. We had 7 sets of appointment holders on 7 different deployment grounds. It is so tiring to move off from one place to another, loading and unloading stores, 7 times every 3 missions.

Imagine doing so much work during deployment. Some of us even hold double appointments. So many things to set up. During the first 6 sets of deployments, I helped out in setting up the Telejays (wired communication system), and also action front the guns. I felt like a signaler but quite fun though. Telejay is the best communication system without the fear of having enemies to hear what you where saying. But once the wires are cut off, the communication system link will be broken.

Blue beret! We got our blue Beret on the last day of Ex. Safari, Thursday. It was a day; we are officially part of the Artillery family. We are now trained gunners! Once a Gunner, Always a Gunner! At last! Common phrase is coming to an end.

tata...

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A very short weekend

I was back at home just 2 hours ago and am going to book-in to camp in another 3 hours time.

It had being a very busy week. Preparing stores for our Ex. Milo, which is our FO (Forward Observer) live firing, calling for mortar fire exercise. During the exercise, we had a practice on calling for mortar fire on enemy's location. After the practice, we had a test. I scored quite well for a test during the exercise and therefore was asked to perform another, more complex mission. I was so anxious and lost when I was revising on the voice procedure for that mission and what makes the mission even more challenging is that it was a night mission. Therefore we were task to use illumination mortar bombs. Why is it difficult? Because the method for calling for fire is much more tedious. But I was lucky that night. Even when I used the illum mortar bomb, the enemy's location could not be seen clearly due to fog. I might not able to get the range and direction of every bomb landing spots, as a result, the mission was ended. But I had to complete the mission the next day, which is this morning. All went very well. At first I was quite anxious and kept saying the wrong voice procedure, but I regained confidence after a while. Very Very Good Shooting, End of Mission, Over. All the bombs landed exactly where I wanted it to be.

One sad thing about this week is that we were punished for not having to ensure that there was someone doing his sentry guard duty at night during Ex. Milo. We were given a confinement this coming Saturday. Another weekend is gone. Next, was my SOC. Remember that I did fairly well for my SOC in OCS? I got 8.42mins back then. But On the test on Tuesday, I did not manage to pass my SOC. Not because of my running timing, but was my stupid carelessness or forgetfulness, which caused myself to fail my test at one of the obstacles. I never failed a single obstacle before. That was my first time failing a SOC. I kept asking myself. Am I able to commission as an Artillery Officer on 1st October? Until now, I could not answer that question. It is very unpredictable during an Officer Cadet Course.

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A small small gathering

It had being a long long time I have not seen some of my poly friends who are studying aboard. Fangyu, in Liverpool and Chi Hang in his hometown, Hong Kong. Both are studying Architecture. Yesterday, we met up with them, who came back to Singapore for their work and holiday, together with Aiting, Carol, Anqi and Huiwen for a Dim Sum buffet at the Teahouse, China Square. We talked about our work, studies and some past memories during the poly days. It was a day we recall our happy days in poly.

In the evening, Chi Hang left us, moving off to catch his bus to Malaysia for his holiday with his family. The rest of us, we stayed in the Teahouse and chatted until we were asked to leave because the restaurant is preparing the tables for dinner. We headed to the Coffee Club for a drink and continue chatting until about 8 at night. We left Coffee Club and Fangyu too parted from us to meet her brother.

The rest of us, walked from Raffles Place to City Link Mall, passing The Merlion and through Esplanade's underpass. Where are we going? Lee Hwa Jewellery. Huiwen bought a pair of earrings for Mother's Day present. Carol parted from us too. So now who is left? Aiting, Huiwen, Anqi and me went to Plaza Singapura, wanting to catch a show. But weekend is always a weekend. The seats are selling fast that the movie we finally decided, Kungfu Mahjong, left only the first 3 rows. Too near to the screen, we did not go ahead. So, we decided to sit down somewhere for a drink, again. We settled down at Rocky Master, just outside Plaza Singapura. Girls are always girls. So many things to talk about. We chatted till about 11.30pm and decided that we should start to move off to catch our last train. Off we go and it marks the end of our day.

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Going nowhere

I am totally exhausted after this whole week of training. There is not much admin time for us and we did not even have enough sleep every night. Where should I start? Actually I had a lot of things to write but I do not know how to start.

Let’s talk about my weapon training phrase. At last, we ended our weapon training phrase yesterday with a small celebration marking the end of the 2 training weeks with dumplings. Also, the weapon training wing bought a 3 kg birthday cake and cards for those whose birthday falls in the month of June. So kind and warm of them to organize such an event for us and we were deeply touch. I feel so good to say goodbye to the tough days of training but it is sad that we are now unable to play with the guns. In-fact, it is much more interesting than the classroom based lesson. But also, classroom based lessons also have their pull factor, air-con!

On Tuesday, I had my IPPT retest again. I hate it a lot. But at last, I am able to get silver! Yeah! I am richer by 100 bucks! haa... But I am really sick of doing the same thing again and again. If I am not wrong, there will be a retest again until there are a certain percentage of people getting gold in their IPPT. Until now, only around 50% managed to achieve gold. Why must the Head Gun be so persistent in the percentage of gold he wanted to achieve? Putting his glory over our suffering.

Thursday morning, reveille at 5am. Fall in time at 5.15am. Why? SOC orientation run at Nee Soon camp. We were brief that the SOC ground is good and the run down route is perfectly flat. But when we were there that morning, we felt cheated. The run down from the starting point to the low wall was not flat at all! There is upslope, down slope and upslope again. Running the first 700m is already a nightmare. I could not get my pace right especially after we did a full orientation run down of 1.5km + about 700m back to start line before the actually full run down with our load and rifle on. I could not get my legs to run. It really turns me upside down when I knew that I could not be able to hit my 8.42mins timing in OCS. What is worst than failing SOC? Injuring my back again. I hate to jump down from high platforms. It is a great stress on my back.

Today, of course is book out day. It will be the last book out on Friday until 3 weeks later because I am going to have exercises on weekends. Booking out is always everyone's dream. But today is like a nightmare. Or maybe I should say an unforeseen one. We had our FireGate test which is sort of a computer program test. It is a program we used to communicate with each other. Telling more about the system, I have to kill you. haa... Anyway, we did not expect the test to be in such a format. We were not given a brief on what the test paper is going to be like and how are they going to grade us and what we are suppose to do. The only thing we can prepare is to remember the steps to click and how the mission is going to be executed. Ah... just hope I can get at least a pass.

Today's admin time is long. We had a lot of time to clean our bunks and also, sleep. But of course our main priority is to make our area clean. We spend 1-2 hours just to clean up the whole place. This is the only time we were did such a thorough area cleaning. And we had put in a lot of effort into it. But what we get in the end? Scolding and punishment for not clean enough. Why? Because the instructors pick on small hidden corners for dust. Why are instructors so picky on such things? Aren't them a cadet or trainee before? Aren't they feeling the same when their instructors once did such things to them before? Why can't they be more understanding than just to punish us and lecture us? What did leadership studies thought them? Why are they teaching us leaderships when they did not follow? Why did they use good leadership examples of personnel when they are not able to portray an example?

Ok. All I want to say is for those who are going to be an instructor or leaders in the future show your concern to your men. Show them that you care for them. Never treat your men badly, or else you will see where your men will stand. Training is training. But just a simple area cleaning for example, it makes us dislike the way our instructors run the place. We are treated just like recruits, or even worst than them. I think I had being saying this quite a few times already especially when I was in OCS. In Khatib camp, life is worst than infantry training. Artillery officer cadets will worry about being OOC, Out of Course, due to examinations. True, we always worried about it. But how likely the chance is? Very low. But now my concern is on my SOC. My first time after BMT days, I am unable to clear the swing trainer, aka monkey bars. I am so worried about that. The bars are so slippery that I could not get hold of the grip for long. Now as an officer cadet, my only thing to look forward to is every to pass by without any troubles and problems. And also if I every get OOC, I will not be sad about it. At least I have put in my best in my training.

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A busy week

What a busy and exciting week I had. Even this weekend is such a busy and wonderful one.

I got my exam result for last week's test and managed to pass by 0.5 marks. What a relieve. The passing mark is 60 over a 100. That meant I do not need to stay back on Saturday for a re-test. In that paper, I did a lot of careless mistakes which I should not have done. What a waste that I did not manage my time properly in this exam.

For the whole week, I did not get to wear my smart 4. The whole week is all about gun drills. We got a lot of drills to learn. More and more things are coming together. This coming week, we are going to learn camouflaging of the guns and then combining all the drills with camouflaging together. It is actually very tiring especially I had my IPPT training on Thursday, as a result, my whole leg is aching. Cleaning the gun is another nightmare. Pulling the brush through the barrel needs about 3 people to carry out the job. Not easy, really.

We also get to drive the gun but only forward and reverse. It is actually only a orientation drive to allow us to feel how it is to drive them. What a waste that we are not qualified and required to know how to drive them. But driving a car is much more fun than driving the gun.

Being out in the field learning all the drills, pimples are growing at such a fast rate that I could not recognize myself... hee... just kidding. I want my pimple free days back!

Yesterday was a long day for me. In the morning, I met up Edwin at Expo Exhibition Centre for the IT Show. Before that, I met one of my BMT friends, Alex Neo, at Tanah Merah MRT station. He too was going to the IT Show. What a small world. In the afternoon, I headed to Bras Basah to meet up with my Artillery Syndicate’s friends for lunch at Jack's Place. The reason why we are there is because, Yap, one of my syndicate mates wanted to eat steak. He had being talking about steak for the whole week and he wanted to eat it this weekend. So we arranged a syndicate outing at Jack's Place. After lunch, we went to Suntec City Exhibition Centre for the Book Fair. So many books are on offer and I bought a Australia architecture book at only $4.50, halved price. What a bargain. Also, I wanted to buy The Singapore Story, by Lee Kuan Yew, but did not. I do not know why but there is always something pulling me away when I wanted to buy anything. Even until now, I am still looking for a wallet to replace my old one for months.

At 6.30pm, I met up with my polytechnic friends for dinner at Suntec City's Swensen's. I was expecting quite a lot of friends to come but only 14 could make it. But it is quite a good one thanks to Aiting who organized that event.

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