jungle warfare

I booked out on a Saturday afternoon again. Thanks to the conjunctivitis outbreak, we had massive area cleaning for the whole morning and now our bunk smells like hospital. It seems like sispec is infected with all kinds of disease. Different coys have different kind of outbreak and according to the MO, our coy pawned everyone in PLC: highest number of soldiers attend C.

Field camp was damn fun. But it would be more fun if it didnt rain and our section commander didnt have sore eyes. I learnt alot during these 3 days in the jungle. I saw a trip flare for the first time and it was so damn beautiful. As a section we were tasked to set up a controlled trip flare at a junction. Thanks to my section, they saboh me to set it up. Even though i passed the tech test for trip flare, i confused it with claymore mines, so I wasted 20 mins of my time figuring out how. So in the end, my section mate took over me.

So we waited and waited, halfway through we saw students from nearby NTU taking their graduation photos. Clean, odour-free, pretty girls, civilians, knn. But still seeing the trip flare lighting up the whole night sky is an experience. The whole thing just exploded right in front of us, blinding me for a few seconds.

Fire movement was what we learnt during the camp. Have to bashed through all kinds of vegetation and admist the sounds of blanks fired during our movement, moans and groans could be heard as we tried to avoid the thorny mimosa. My SAW kept getting stuck with the mimosa and since I am a SAW gunner, I am the last man of the whole formation. Due to my incompetence of handling SAW, I was extremely clumsy during the movement. So clumsy I was, that I changed lane and almost shot at my friend. Got fucked severely by my PC, hahah.

Talking about SAW, I learnt how to operate and be confident with it the hard way. I misfired once during unloading of weapons. Because SAW function differently from M16 and SAR21, it was more prone to misfire. My SAW had 2 bullets stuck in the chamber, one expended and the other the opposite. So i attempted to clear it and instinctively I switch it to SAFE and took out my magazine. So i did and the next thing i knew, one round fired off. Again, got fucked. Almost cldnt go home this weekend and my name was recorded in the "shit-list" But SAW is an orgasmic weapon. With a gentle touch on the trigger, many many many bullets flew out. I emptied my whole mag in less than 15 seconds. Surprisingly, I was the only person in my section who managed to achieved orgasm firing the weapon. The others managed to jam the weapon or cldnt cock it when they tried the SAW.

Last day of field camp was the best. Our section commd came back. Training then became a stroll in the park. Our section health frequently(health is the codename for smoking hahah) with other section. Instead of "taking 5", we took 30. When we see OC driving in his rover, we will do a 'W' handsign, denoting wayang. In hokkien we called it, "zhou hee", meaning wayang. We will pretend we are shagged, sometimes we would pretend to be having AAR(after action review) and once in a while we would be running to take cover whenever OC appears. Have so much fun.

1 field camp over, 2 more to go. I am going to apply what I have learnt for monday's section live firing and fortunately I'm a SAW gunner again. What i'm afraid of is that I might shoot at my friend or worst still the opposite. But its ok, the SAW loves me.

On a different tangent, I finally got my guitar setup. My guitar teacher gave me a gd discount. It doesnt go off tune that often and my palm mute sounds better now. The clean sound seems to be softer but I'm ok with it. I will just save up and buy a new set of pickups, hopefully by the end of my trainee life.

im off to listen to bic runga crooning over my speakers and enjoying my last bits of late night supper.

Somebody's Daughter.

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time
And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky


Booking in tonight, field camp will start. Can't pass SOC, no silver for ippt, my kneecap is still painful when i run, no motivation to become a section commander, dont even desire to don chevrons on my arms. But i make it through whenever I thought of your sweet voice and smile. Want to forget but can't forget. Why didn't you reply me???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

7 more weeks.

1. This weekend is my longest outside camp. Since i went into sispec, I had to stay an extra night due to regimental duties and not obtaining silver for ippt.

2. everyday in sispec is mind-fuck. although the instructors can be extremely friendly and allows many canteen breaks, they can be damn volatile too. Like the book out i had on Saturday night. it was both body and mind fuck. fuck everywhere until i book out all in mud.

3. physical training is tough. sweating before breakfast is normal, running 1-2km to SOC start point is only warm up. Running 4km is a workout for most of us but then to the PTI its only warm up as we need to do all 3 combat physical training after the run. every fucking place we go, we will either run, fast march or march round and round until we stop.

4. everything in SOC is upsized. i ran 700m like mad, only to bang the wall at the first obstacle.

5. food in sispec is really nice. the soup is the best. I chiong for 2 bowls everytime.

6. accommodation is better at sispec. Everything there looks so non-military. I like.

7. Doing a parade rehearsal before our navigation exercise is fucked up. doing it for a general whom we do not even know is even more fucked up. Informing us the night before is extremely extremely fucked up. It caused so much stress the next day that my enciks had a quarrel with the SSM. But what to do? our csm say suck thumb lor. I do it out of respect for the rank, not the person.

8. There's a female trainee in F coy that looks pretty cute. but too bad she's married(i heard)

9. I have one whole stack of handbooks, training manuals and guidebooks in my cupboard. I thought we wouldn't be studying anything in the army, but i was so wrong.

10. my platoon mates are all damn competitive. Most of them have silver and gold for ippt while i only have a pass. Seeing them breezing through the SOC makes me fed-up.

11. Bathing after lights out is normal. It becomes worse if you are a platoon i/c(we call it LPS in sispec) or company i/c(LSM in sispec). I was only a section i/c and i slept 2 hours after lights out just to settle some admin stuff.

12. 3 days navigating around the jungle convinced me not to chiong for ASLC or any infantry vocations. GIVE ME AIRFORCE, MP, OR ANYTHING THAT DOESNT HAVE TO DO WITH THE DAMN JUNGLE.

13. 7 more weeks to the end of BSLC. hopefully they post me somewhere else. PLEASE!