6th week

And just like that, the 6th week of foundation term is almost over and there's only 2 more weeks to go. Although I found it extremely fast now that I look back at it, I'm quite glad that I met these bunch of section mates even though I'm not close to all of them. And my buddy for motivating everyone including me with his crazy antics which really cheers me up. Even though i'm not as close to him as I was with my BMT buddy, I think he is a really funny guy that just brightens up everyone's day and boosts all our morale. He may or may not read this, but thanks GJ for being my buddy and being the one that remains positive and hilarious through all the tough times in SCS :) I never knew someone else instead of me would play the retarded joker in a group of friends. But I guess I never took on this 'role' in the army because I am a different person in camp. I think I'm more serious and reserved because I tend to be focused on training too much. Don't know if that is a good or bad thing...

Time to sleep to prepare for live shooting of matador and M203 grenade launcher tmr. Going to wake up super early again. Today was a great day because everyone was in high spirits :D I just wish I wouldn't think so much. It seems as though when my army life is going great, my civilian life isn't. They're never both good at the same time. Sigh. I guess you can't have the best of both worlds. Sometimes it's as if I can talk to my army buddies about anything and they'll understand, sometimes it feels as though they are strangers. Sometimes it's as if I can talk to you like you really care, sometimes it feels as though I am just a forgotten memory. 

Zzz. Time to recharge. 

Climber first, soldier second

Finally climbed today with ken, zy, Sam and xx at CA after such a long time. I'm still on hiatus mode but it's nice to touch tiles every once in a while. It's pretty obvious now that my climbing standard has dropped to zero but I'm okay with it since I expected it. Can't wait for ORD and start my 7 months of intense climbing training after that and really get fit. Not the kind of fitness the army trains zzz. Heh still have a long way to go before ORD though. Dreaming about it too much. Anyway, served my extra guard duty today. Glad it is over. I shall try my best not to make any mistakes again cause it is fucking sian to sign extra. 

Going off for a family dinner with my father's side. Overall this weekend was well spent despite having to serve an extra. All it takes is just a simple meet up with friends to make everything worthwhile and to brighten up this dull routine life. 3 more weeks left till the end of foundation term. All I pray for is to not get into infantry. 

zero morale

Delta. Mike. Low.

That's how you report on your morale when using a signal set.

But honestly, my Mike is currently at an all time low. In fact, I think I have no morale left at all.

Aside from having to sign extra and serve guard duty for the whole of friday tmr, recent events have also pissed me off.

I shall not elaborate much because it is very hard to explain, but to summarise it all, my section was very close to getting confined for the entire saturday this week. that meant that I would not be able to even sleep on my bed at home. Fortunately, our PC gave us a lighter punishment of having to book in earlier than the rest of the company on Sunday which was a big relief for us. To explain this whole situation, I will tell a short story:

A murderer from another planet that legalizes murder walks into a village and starts killing people secretly. The authorities are unable to figure out who the murderer is, so they decided to just kill everybody in the village to solve the problem.

It is up to you to interpret what exactly happened to my section based on this story. The point I want to prove here is that the way the authorities handled the murderer case was unjustified and cruel.

This whole incident made me lose a lot of motivation to serve my NS. It made me question the effort I put in. The blood and sweat that all of us have to sacrifice because we are forced to serve. But in the end we still receive unfair treatment. To be honest right now, I think once I ORD and I look back on my army days, I would still think it was a waste of my time. In the end, no matter what unit/command school/vocation, we are all still nothing but a bunch of conscripts. Dispensable and unappreciated by the people up there.

I can't believe just three months ago before I enlisted, I thought army was going to be fun and exciting. How terribly mistaken I was. Maybe the army is fun, just not the army I'm in.

and I can feel my climbing strength ebb away again. I think it is now almost zero. Just like my morale. Maybe I get my motivation to live from climbing.. deprivation isn't good at all :( tried doing pull ups recently. I tire out at around 10. Which is really bad because I usually tire out around 15. I don't know if it is because of field camp that made me feel weaker, because that's the case for a lot of other people. I doubt it is though. I think I really am losing my climbing edge and the pull ups are just going to plummet till I just do 12 just to get the damn gold standard for IPPT. But what's the point of pushing so hard to get gold anyway? Why the heck do I have to put in 100% for the army? I have gained weight recently which is a good thing, but I don't think it is muscle mass. Climbing helped me to put on muscle mass. I doubt this stupid two years can change me that much, maybe at most make me more combat fit.

Field Camp

Got quite a bit of admin time now so I'm gonna blog about the recent field camp I went for. 

Booked in last Sunday night, had force preparation on Monday and it was finally off to Tekong island on Tuesday for field camp. 

Day 1, Tuesday

We woke up damn early, i think about 4am. Had our last proper meal of breakfast at the cookhouse, then loaded up all our equipment to prepare to set off. We took a bus from our coy line to the SAF Ferry Terminal, then we boarded the infamous penguin boat to the forsaken island known as Pulau Tekong. Upon stepping foot again on that place, a wave of nostalgia hit me. Just not so long ago, this island was home/hell for me. Just not so long ago, I came in here in civilian clothes, uncertain of what to expect for BMT. Now I alighted in my no. 4 green pixelised uniform, with a heavy field pack on my back, wearing my IBA vest with loaded magazines in the pouches, carrying my SAR21, donning the rock hard helmet, with a face streaked with camo paint, and a MATADOR rocket launcher balancing steadily on top of my field pack. I was every bit transformed into a soldier, and here I stood back in the same place where it all began, where it all changed.

We gathered at the parade square and awaited further instructions. Along the way there, I spotted some sergeants from viper coy, back in my BMT days they weren't my direct sergeants, but seeing them felt quite heartwarming that I was training to be one of them now. I smiled at them, and some of them looked at me with a confused expression, as if trying to decipher who I was as they probably saw my face before. After warming up, we started the 8km route march to our field camp site. The ferry terminal at tekong was in the extreme west of tekong. And yeah, you guessed as much, my field camp site was in the extreme east. Why? Because i'm in Lima Company, that's why. While other companies marched a pathetic 2-3km to their sites, we Lima cadets marched tirelessly under the oncoming rain to ours. At the start, I carried the matador. But after around 2-3km, it was just too heavy for a small sized guy like me and so I passed it on to one of my section mates. A few people even fell out because of reasons like hyperventilation which was very serious. I felt out of breath and times because of the lack of rest time and the unforgiving load on my shoulders, but I was determined to not give up at all. It was just the beginning of field camp, I won't give up so easily. We shared the load, tolerated the pain, overcame our exhaustion together, and eventually we made it to the field camp site. 

When we reached our site, we were immediately deployed into the jungle and we were then assigned our shell scrape locations. My shell scrape location was not bad, even though it was secluded from the rest and I only had one section mate, John, beside me. And apart from this annoying hornet that flew around my area all the time, it was quite a good location. 

So some of us began digging, while the rest that were suay had to dig the latrine point, set up the comms line and many other sai kang. Fortunately, I wasn't appointed anything. Not that I like to siam sai kang, if I was appointed to do it I would definitely do it with no complains. I started digging like siao, because digging a shell scrape is and maybe my only worst army skill. I take too damn long and I don't dig deep and wide enough. This time, I was determined to make it perfect. Or at least not as screwed up as my BMT one. Moreover, knowing that this was going to be our bed for the next 4 nights made me even more motivated to dig a proper one. It wasn't going to be like the one night stand in BMT. This had to be the real deal, complete with sandbags and accurate depth and length. 

I digged and digged and digged. But in the end, there was just too little time as the sun began to set and darkness sets in. And trust me, in the jungle, it gets dark damn fast. Just imagine you are suddenly wrapped in a blanket and blindfolded. That's how fast and how dark it can get in the jungle. And so I continued digging with the aid of my torchlight, which was damn inefficient. But soon, my torchlight died on me, along with my strength. I was too tired, and I knew I had reached my limit. I was about 50% done so I guess it was quite good progress. Besides, some people haven't even started theirs yet because they had to do sai kang, and so I'm quite lucky to get this head start. Since many of us couldn't dig in time, we were instructed to gather at the platoon tactical HQ (which is still in the forest) and immediately I crashed there from the day's tiresome activities. 

Day 2, Wednesday 

We had some navigation test called Exercise Wanderer. I can only describe it with one word... Disappointing. Well not just at the whole activity's planning, but also at myself. I led my detail of 5 of my other section mates and it was a big screw up on my part. I managed to find checkpoint 1 even though the instructions given to us was the wrong azimuth. Instead, it was the back azimuth that pointed in the right direction of our checkpoint. And that made us waste about 1 hour, which also set the overall low morale for the whole team as we had a bad start. To make matters worse, because we forgot to shade the military symbol and only wrote down the code number, we were instructed to head back to checkpoint 1 again to do so, when we were already at the log point feeling so damn tired. Moreover, we couldn't find checkpoint 2 even though I was damn fucking fucking fucking fucking fucking (I have to say it 5 times because I was so sure that I was not wrong) certain that we were at the right place, yet we found other checkpoint names. That really made me suspect that the checkpoints given to us are not updated or they didn't even try out the whole sequence to see if it is accurate. And since we were so shagged, I decided to not return to checkpoint 1 after the log point, and proceeded straight to checkpoint 3. But again disaster struck, as we could not find checkpoint 3 at all, even though I was so sure we were there. That made me damn pissed off and disappointed at myself and at the way the activity was planned. I lost confidence and felt too demoralized to lead my team. And all because of this fucking activity which was a big screw up, my team may also have to stay bak this Thursday and book out late at night for RT for navigation. What the fuck. Of all people, I have to get RT for navigation? I really have nothing to say...

And so, during the night navigation, I decided not to lead anymore because I was really too demoralized. Kevin, another guy in my detail, took the lead instead. And once again, the checkpoints were equally screwed up. Glad that all of that shit is finally over. I felt damn depressed that even though I trust my navigation skills, it was not put to the test because the whole activity was a big fuck up. 

Day 3, Thursday

We learnt section fire movement and it was quite an okay day. Don't feel like elaborating much. 

Day 4, Friday 

It was supposed to be Section Battle Course but I played as the enemy so it was very slack for me lol. I was the enemy with Ryuto, my ex section mate in viper. We waited for damn long for the sections to arrive, so we talked cock and slept for a long while.

At night, we were trolled because we thought that tonners would be fetching us to the ferry terminal. But instead, we fast marched to the ferry terminal. We reache around midnight at the tekong parade square and settled all our shit there, getting ready to leave the forsaken island. I'm getting really lazy to blog...

Day 5, Saturday

Cleaned our rifle and store items like siao when we got back and finally booked out at night. 

When I booked out, I took a bus to Boon Lay alone. Somehow my section mates all left already. At first I wanted to head straight home, but then I decided to roam around in Jurong Point for a while and I bought some snacks to eat. It felt good to have the freedom to walk and eat as I please. But that night, I felt quite lonely. I wish I had a friend that I could turn to when I booked out at night. And it doesn't even have to be an army friend. Maybe just someone that lives near the area. Am I really turning into a lonely person? All this while, the army has taught me to be independent. But has my pursuit of independence resulted in me becoming self centred? I try and do everything on my own in army these days, and settle all my own shit efficiently. I'm no longer the BMT Joshua who offered help that often anymore. Is this a sign that I have changed, or is this really the road to becoming an independent man; a reliable soldier? I have no idea, but I think time will give me an answer. Feeling quite moody now. Sigh. Shall just do my self directed learning before going to sleep :( 

I will overcome adversity with my fighting spirit

Got to book in later at 2000 but I'm going back early to prep some stuff for field camp. Going off to tekong for field camp and exercise wanderer from Tuesday to Saturday (5 days 4 nights). I'm looking forward to learning the section fire movement drills but I'm definitely not looking forward to digging my shell scrape (I really suck at digging a good one). I'm okay with not getting to shower for the entire field camp because I don't really care about my hygiene anyway. I'm also okay with eating combat rations, I actually find some of them quite nice. I just hope my shell scrape digging goes well on the first day, and if it has to rain, I pray that it rains on the last few days and not at the start. Field camp is going to be hell according to the commanders. The enciks all take field discipline very seriously and they already warned us that their outfield treatment is going to be tough. Trying to mentally prepare myself now for it. Surviving it will mean that most of my foundation term in SCS would be completed and life would be more relaxed from then on.

Anyway, I plan to try to go to army intelligence as a recce/scout trooper for my pro term. I like the training they undergo despite it being tough and I like doing navigation. It is funny how I feel more comfortable and confident navigating in the jungle than in orchard road. Give me a compass and a map and I will definitely find my way!

I was also sort of encouraged to express interest for this recce vocation after leading my section for some navigation exercise. I managed to lead them up this hill in pitch black darkness at night while bashing through all the dense vegetation and tracking through the muddy ground. It was the happiest moment of my army life when I managed to lead them to the top of the hill. It made all the sweat and fatigue worth it. Best of all, everyone was in high spirits when we returned back to coy line after that because we conquered the navigation exercise. Receiving their praises and nicknames like "google map" really felt heartwarming. I never felt so much appreciation in the army before, it had always been a cold and harsh organization. but this band of brothers, my section mates, they have made me realize that SCS is where i truly belong:) That really made my day, knowing that my section mates trusted me and were impressed by my navigation skills. And that partly confirmed my decision to try out for the recce vocation, even though that meant tough training and worse terrain to navigate in. But I now have a new found confidence and trust in my compass. And to sum this up, I think to be a good navigator, one must always trust his compass and not his instincts. Human beings make mistakes, but your compass is always right unless the poles of the earth suddenly shift for idk what reason. 

Going to pack my stuff, have my dinner and set off for camp. I don't feel that depressed anymore when it comes to booking in. Maybe because I really like SCS now. 

And life is going great! After this xiong week, I can look forward to some happy moments :) 

How retarded my SCS buddy is, singing songs like these

(To the tune of the chorus of don't you worry child)

Across the field in my shell scrape, that's where I had my first back ache, I still remember how it all changed, my sergeant said: won't you knock it won't you knock it down, see nobody cares about you, won't you knock it won't you knock it down, you're just another chao recruit.

In the bunk

First time blogging using 3G in the bunk. Loving my time in SCS, but it's nights like this my mind drifts off to another life I once had. My civilian life. My JC life. And then I start missing all the people, all the memories, all the emotions etc. it becomes so overwhelming I just want to go to sleep to stifle these thoughts.

It has been almost 3 months of being in he army. Almost 3 months since the last time. Will it be like this for my entire 2 years?:(