Was packing my army stuff and I tried to look for a shoe bag to put my boots inside since I was gonna book in later in my normal civilian clothes.
Found an NJ shoe bag and opened it, only to realize that my climbing shoes and chalk bag were inside.
Damn I can't believe I actually forgot all about them... What has army done to me? I almost replaced my climbing shoes with my boots but decided to just leave the climbing shoes where they belong. I'll never let army replace my past passion... Soon this 2 years will be over and I can get back again :)
Spent the 1 week block leave quite meaningfully, meeting up with the NJ classmates and climbers and going for interviews.
Had my NUS law interview today. I think it was okay even though it was difficult to remain firm on my stand because the two interviewers kept trying to shoot down my points with their rebuttals. But I'm glad I didn't screw it up and hopefully I'll get selected to read Law in the end. Going for the written test tmr and I'm planning to use the SP GP skills to do my essay heh. I guess she was really right that GP is a life skill and learning/appreciating it doesn't stop even after you receive that grade on your A level cert.
Also went to see the climbers take part in NSSC today. All of them have definitely improved and some are climbing stronger and better than I expected :D really proud to see the team progress so much...
Felt quite sad though because the new batch of climbers didn't know who I am, one of them even said "who's Joshua?" When someone called me or something. i'm not angry at them of course, I just felt like I missed out on so much that the team that was once so familiar to me now feels so foreign. So here's a big _|_ to army :) but aside from that, I think this also signifies that it's time to move on with life and just get this damn two years over with so I can get back to the climbing scene again, even if it means starting all from level zero.
So army life begins again on Monday. Going to spend the whole day packing all the necessary stuff... Oh yeah, for those that don't know, I'm heading to Specialist Cadet School (SCS) feeling quite excited and sian at the same time. Excited because I always wanted to go to SCS as I think the role of a sergeant suits me a lot since I hate being a no action talk only. Sian because... Who wouldn't be sian of booking in again? :( I just hope that the friends I make inside wont be those type that feel damn sian about not making it to OCS and then don't give their 100% for SCS training... Because honestly, that just shows that they only want to go to OCS for the prestige. OCS or SCS, you're still a commander and you still have to lead others. In the end, we're all nothing but conscripts that have to serve our country, so don't whine about not getting into OCS because all this is only temporary and it won't determine your future at all once you ORD. Anw, BMT has really prepared me well and I think through it I learnt what it takes to be a good soldier, so now it's really the time for me to excel now that I have adapted and I hope that through SCS, I will come out physically and mentally stronger than ever before. "With Pride We Lead!"
Ok I think I'm gonna sleep now cause I've got a damn bad headache.
so the last week of BMT was mostly spent on rehearsing the graduation parade and a hell lot of area cleaning and returning of all our SAF equipment that we aren't allowed to bring home with us.
Then it was the 24km route march (which was only 16km for me since I was an outlier as I did not complete my 8km route march).
just one word to describe it: SHAGGED.
I'm glad I completed it in the end, even though I wish I could have done the whole 24km with all my buddies.
the parade went well too, I felt really proud to be able to throw my jockey cap at the end, which signified the completion of my BMT. I think BMT really did help me adjust to army life and I feel more prepared for future unit life. At least now I get a better sense of what it takes to be a good soldier/leader in the army. Very excited to find out where I get posted to next this coming friday afternoon! :D
felt really bad though that some of the climbers and my JC classmates took the time off to see my graduation parade and yet were unable to find me. I had no idea they were coming and only realised it when I got home and checked my phone, which by then was too late :( so in the end I only managed to take photos with most of my section mates and my family members. I tried finding chee, nic and gavin but couldn't find any of them. it was just too damn crowded and in the end I left with my family. sigh. if only I stayed longer...
kinda sad that it was probably the last time I would be seeing most of my platoon/section mates. Nevertheless, they'll always be remembered, because they made army more bearable through the fun and laughter.
MY BUDDY OUR TANKY
I hope he gets into his dream unit of becoming a tanky haha. Really glad to have a buddy like him, going through all the shit army threw at us and talking cock with each other all the time. Helping each other when the other one is struggling, sharing food/toilet cubicles and almost everything else, laughing and joking about random shit. going to miss this guy a lot for being the best buddy I can ever ask for!
I'm feeling quite sleepy now so I'm gonna end off really soon..
hope to spend this 1 week block leave meaningfully. it will be the longest damn break i'll ever get from the army during my 2 years of service.
KK FUCK THIS I NEED TO SLEEP STUPID ARMY MAKE MY BODY CLOCK TOO USED TO LIGHTS OUT 2230
Yeah I know I didn't blog last week when I booked out.
So I'm gonna blog about the past two weeks :D
luckily I pen down all the daily happenings on my army notebook when I have the time...
25 March, Monday
Practice Shoot at the Live Firing Range. Don't want to talk much about shooting because well... I didn't have a very good experience at all. It was partly due to the extremely long waiting time and the fact that the laser on my rifle was not working, so my night shoot was screwed up.
26 March, Tuesday
The other platoons went to the live range to do their shooting test, whereas Platoon 4, which is my platoon, stayed behind in coy line to clean rifles and slack.
27 March, Wednesday
It was the live firing test day for me and it didn't go well at all. I don't want to talk about it, but let's just say it was as screwed up as the practice day for the exact same reasons, if not even more screwed up because of even more reasons which involved me making stupid mistakes again. Kinda ironic that even though I like guns a lot, I didn't get marksman. But it doesn't matter since there's no $ or badge for the BMT marksman. I shall just work harder when I do the Advanced Trainfire Package (ATP) in my future unit after I POP.
28 March, Thursday
Battle Inoculation Course (BIC)
Ok that day was really fun, probably the craziest and dirtiest day of my entire BMT. It was raining like crazy when it was my turn to do the course since I was in the last few details, so the other lucky bastards from the earlier platoons were damn lucky. It really felt like a real battle with the sergeants firing live GPMG rounds above our heads. Leopard crawling through the fresh mud was... FREAKING FUN.
So when it was our detail's turn, we went to draw the blank rounds and headed to the trench waiting area. It was raining damn heavily and I think it was a thunderstorm. So our visibility was really bad that day. In the trench, we waited for the signal to push ourselves out of it (like the low wall style, like how you would get out of a swimming pool) and each of took one lane, with our buddy in the lane beside ours as we were to do the course in buddy level.
The moment I got the signal and emerged out of the trench and saw the whole muddy path ahead of me, only two words crossed my mind.....
CHIONG SUA
which I really did because I immediately went into prone position on the muddy ground and started leopard crawling as fast as I could to the first checkpoint: the Y Shaped tunnel.
So there were two entrances to the tunnel, I took the left entrance and Darren (my buddy) took the right. The two tunnels would then converge in the middle to form one tunnel which we would emerge out of one by one. So I crawled ahead of Darren towards the next checkpoint: the Room.
When both of us reached a certain distance away from the room, an enemy target board suddenly flipped up at the window and I immediately took aim and shot two blank rounds at it. Darren was supposed to shoot two rounds at it too but he forgot and by the time he asked me what he was supposed to do the target board already went down LOL
Then we took cover behind the perimeter of the room right outside the door. I gave the Fire Command Order (FCO) and then both Darren and I stormed the room. Inside the room there were three target board enemies at each corner. I shot 2 rounds each at the two left most targets and Darren covered my blind spot by shooting 2 rounds at the right most target.
After clearing the room easily, we had to make a 4 second dash together towards a car ahead of us and then prone down and leopard crawl the rest of the distance to take cover behind the car.
Then we leopard crawled even more towards the ending trench, where we were supposed to go into the trench and engage an enemy target board in front of us for 45 seconds, so I just shot all the rounds given to me at the target board lol.
And that was the end of BIC. Overall it was super fun but I never want to do it again (at least not in the same weather condition) because washing and cleaning all the equipment back at coy line was a pain in the ass. My entire green uniform, vest, rifle and helmet was filled with sand and mud and the green and black camo on my face became brown LOL.
good thing was that we got to book out that night because the next day was GOOD FRIDAY! Public holidays are like gems in the army.
29 March, Friday
GOOD FRIDAY! Went to eat carl's jr with some of the climbers after such a long time, then went to climb with them at OS. Kinda glad that I am not as cui as I thought yet, but I know eventually the drop to zero will come.
30 March, Saturday
Had dinner at nex pizza hut with the OAC EXCO except zy who couldn't make it cause he had to work :(
31 March, Sunday
Slacked the whole day and booked in late at night at 2130.
1 April, Monday
BPSC (no idea what it stands for) Judgemental Shoot
we learnt how to do guard duty and how to engage any intruders and we had to practice many times. it was quite hilarious because the sergeants made everyone shout "SIR STOP SIR" one by one and some people shout until damn funny LOL. basically when we saw an intruder, we had to be aggressive in our tone and tell them to stop. If they don't stop we had to reload and repeat the same warning. If they still continue to approach us then we would cock our weapon and then shout "SIR STOP OR I'LL SHOOT" then we will fire a warning shot in the air. and once all that fails, we would fire a shot to the intruder's limb to disable him.
then we went to the IMT electronic range to do the scenario. It was like an arcade FPS game cause we had to judge whether we had to shoot or not shoot the virtual person. And if we killed anyone by accident (we were only supposed to disable intruders, not kill) we had to knock it down immediately LOL. luckily I didn't kill any of those virtual idiots.
Then we had our last swimming lesson which was damn short cause we only swam 4 short laps -.- but it was still refreshing to swim that day cause the weather was extremely hot. dk which commander said it was 39 degrees on tekong that day LOL.
after that it started RAINING. the weather in tekong is insane. so our scheduled SOC test (standard obstacle course) was postponed to Wednesday instead.
So instead, we were told that we were going to have our 16km route march that night -.- so we all went to prepare everything, like packing our field pack equipment and all that. And when everything was done and every single one of us was lined up ready to march off, our OC sir trolled us and told us APRIL FOOLS LOL. so thankfully we didnt have the march and it was really going to be on Tuesday, so we were using that Monday night as a preparation for the REAL march the next day.
2 April, Tuesday
16km route march. This time we started out quite late in the evening due to inclement weather. We were also marching as an entire school, so the other 4 companies were marching along with us too. I only marched 12km because I was lagging behind the rest by 1 route march. But it was really tiring for me because once again the field pack was damn heavy for a small sized guy like me. However, I am glad I did not give up despite many others falling out because they could not take it. The thought of giving up never crossed my mind because I was determined to complete my march and not to lag behind any further. There were times my shoulders and back ached so much and I felt as if my legs were going to give way, but I pressed on and gritted my teeth, telling myself that I will never give up unless I am going to die and I will still live to see tomorrow. And once I survived that march, I can look back and tell myself that I can achieve even more.
So at the 12km mark where I ended my march, we had bananas and 100 plus (SHIOK!) and then the others rested for half an hour before proceeding on with the remaining 4km.
wish I could join them, because I felt that I still had some fight in me to carry on :) I also hope that I can march 24km during the POP instead of 16km. I want to POP with pride like the rest :(
3 April, Wednesday
our last BCCT (basic close combat training) lesson. we learnt how to engage an opponent using our rifles :D didn't know that with just a little bit of effort, the rifle can be damn lethal.
we also had our SOC Test. I chionged all the way and cleared all the obstacles easily, and even though the last 300m run down was damn tiring and I was panting like crazy, I didn't stop and went all out for it. In the end I am very satisfied with my timing :)
Then it was recruit's night. Viper didn't have enough S and M size shirts and so, I, being the second last bed in the last section of the last platoon, had to settle with an L size. Just imagine. ME. wearing an L size shirt. dafuq. Even my sergeant laughed at me -.- fuck. was quite pissed that some selfish bastards that can wear L took S instead and didn't want to switch. But oh well, I won't be surprised because army has all sorts of people that I will like/hate. So I guess I'm never wearing that shirt ever again even though the design is nice.
Recruit's night was really fun cause the performances made us all high. The two ah boys to men actors the malay guy that kana marked and lobang came to sing the two theme songs to us. I think the song "Brothers" is very meaningful. My favourite part of the song lyrics is:
now as a boy in Singapore, we have done our thing,
after finishing, wonder what the future will bring,
will we still be close after time passes by
or is this really the time when we say goodbye
nobody really knows but as time goes
we all realise what matters is that
we were bros at one point in time
we were all we had
sharing everything from soap to bread
4 April, Thursday
We rehearsed for our graduation parade next Saturday (POP LOH!) which will be held at the marina bay floating platform and we're gonna march our 24km there from friday night till saturday morning :)
then there was drills competition, but the second part was cancelled cause a thunderstorm started.
went back to coy line and we slacked. 21 out of 61 people in my platoon reported sick cause all the high key events of BMT ended alr and parade rehearsals are quite sian lol.
I booked out last night in preparation for my PSC psychometric test this morning. met Leon at the test too. damn long never see him and it was good to catch up on old times and tell him my army stories. hope I can get a chance to be selected for the PSC scholarship! excited for both the PSC scholarship interview and the NUS law interview :)
going to go off and slack now. maybe I'll blog tmr about other matters.
