Its a bit weird this time. I don’t feel that I’m going back reservist. Usually I’ll spend at least 1/2 day preparing. But this time round, it took me a couple of hours to prepare. It could have been faster if I didn’t multi-task and watch TV while preparing. Maybe I’m too used to going back for reservist until it’s like a non-event now. Heard that this time round, the reservist will be quite relaxed. After all, it’s the 9th ICT. After this, just one more to go.

Anyway, I’ll be back soon. In the meantime, I’ve scheduled some blog post to keep everyone entertained.

Training to be soldiers,
Fight for our land,
Once in our lives,
Two years of our time.

Have you ever wondered,
Why we must serve,
Because we love our land
And we want it to be free YAH!

I tried applying for deferment for the first time in 7 years cause I just started a new job 4 months ago. But the application was rejected. Tried appealing but was rejected again. Sorry to my colleagues. Going to be a huge inconvenient for them. This is not a good time for me to be away from office. Let’s hope I can find time to go to the business centre. Keep my fingers crossed that nothing major happens when I’m away.

Haiz….. What to do?

Training to be soldiers,
Fight for our land,
Once in our lives,
Two years of our time.

Have you ever wondered,
Why we must serve,
Because we love our land
And we want it to be free YAH!

I should be able to book out for the weekend. Bye for now…..

Finally, the grand finale of this year’s in camp has arrived. The 4 days outfield exercise. We have been training since late May for this and I’m just hoping we can get this over and done with. We will be put to the test to see how well our battalion perform. We performed very well last year and everyone have high hopes for us this year.

I spend the morning in the planning room helping my officer. The planning room is another battlefield. Fought in aircon room with pen and mouth. I never like going to the planning room and will try to avoid that place as much as possible. Had an early lunch in camp before moving out at 2pm. As usual, I’m in the first batch to move out. Sort of gotten used to it already. Everything went on smoothly for the day. Slow and steady in fact. I think they allocated too much time for us to accomplish our task. Which is something good. It’s still a long way to go, don’t want to rush everything and get ourselves tired on the first day. It was my CO’s birthday. They brought a birthday cake to the command tent to celebrate for a while. I managed to catch some sleep at night, between 2 rovers. When you are out in the field, everywhere is your bed. (and toilet too)

Our Div commander came to visit us in the morning. First time see a star outfield. It rained in the late morning and I took shelter under a bridge with another platoon. Had fun chatting with them and exchanging stories about NSF life. Tried to catch as much rest as possible cause I know we won’t be able to rest much for the next two days. By evening time, we are ready to move out. Almost puke blood when suggesting to someone from my platoon a better way to do thing. Refuse to listen. Look, I’ve been doing this thing for so many years already. I know your method is going to be damn troublesome. If you refuse to listen to me, don’t come bugging me for the rest of the night when you have problems.

And he was bugging me throughout the night. Told him already don’t listen. Sigh.

We were deployed by the roadside. With civilian cars driving pass every now and then. There were even some factory workers walking pass our deployment ground. I bet they are wondering what are we doing there. And we waited and waited and waited for the enemy to come. It was the longest wait I’ve ever encountered. In total, we waited 12 hours before the enemy finally decides to arrive.

After that mission, we head to another area to rest while our officers plan for the next mission. It was the toughest mission ever. I think they wanted to test our limits. But honestly speaking, this is a suicide mission. If we are using real bullets, most likely none of us will come back alive. And I’m sure they won’t assign this sort of mission in real war. It’s not feasible. But no choice, we have to fight the mission assigned by the top.

It was already the next day morning when we reach our location. All of us are dead tired. But we still need to get ready and prepare to fight the enemy. I was shouting at one guy for not doing his job well. Am already dead tired and this guy is creating more trouble. Almost wanted to use my weapon to wack him. Almost. You don’t piss off a tired and sleep deprived guy. Especially when he is wearing green.

We were deployed there until end of the day when exercise end. The enemy didn’t come. We waited until tired.

By right we should all be happy that the exercise is over. But some incident that happened towards the end of the exercise causes some unhappiness and spoilt the mood for celebration. Everyone have different methods to get things done. Our battalion’s method might be a lot different and bent a few rules. But our method is the most effective. Oh well, sometimes people just want you to follow the rules.

And because of that, we delayed quite a bit and end up reaching camp around 3am on friday morning. Everyone is dead tired. But we know that the faster we return our stores, the faster we get to rest. It was an amazing sight to see everyone working in a team to speed up the process. We got everything done within one hour plus. After that, we went back to bunk to wash up. Haven’t showered for 4 days.

By the time I finish washing up, it was already 5am. So we head down to the cookhouse for breakfast before hitting the bed.

Remember that piece of shitty equipment I was talking about? Guess what? We were issued an improved version of it. Improved in F**K-UP-NESS! Just when I thought that piece of shitty equipment is the worst thing in the army, they issued us an improved version which is even worst. And its heavier than the previous version. And here is the best part. We are supposed to use this “improved” shitty equipment for the 4 days exercise next week. Well done.

Seriously, have the designers ever tried using that shitty equipment before? I bet not. I suggest letting them wear that shitty piece of equipment for 1 whole day inside their aircon office. I’m sure they can’t endure it even in aircon office. Then ask them to imagine the servicemen who are using it in the freaking forest.

Don’t let me know who designed this shitty equipment. I’ll surely burn down his house and beat his mother. Same for the person who approved this equipment.

OK, I’m just kidding about burning their house and beat their mother. But seriously, that is the worst equipment that I’ve came across in the army. Luckily for everyone, it is only used during training. If take this shitty equipment for real war, we sure lose.

We spend the morning setting up the improved shitty equipment. Our platoon is the fastest to finish. Spend the rest of the day in bunk waiting to book out. Waited until 5pm.

Woke up around 6 plus near 7am. Had almost 12 hours of sleep. Luckily I didn’t go for nights off. Can sleep more. Body was aching.

Spend the morning exchanging faulty equipments with the store. I was joking with the storeman, asking him what about faulty human? Well, that they can’t change. If can, I will definitely propose exchanging one guy in my platoon. Totally cannot make it. Scolded him while outfield yesterday. He claim equipment is faulty but when I check, I discovered that he didn’t connect one cable. Didn’t even bother to check. And his mentality is very negative too. Everything say don’t know. Everything say can’t do. I also don’t know some of the things what. At least give it a try before asking for help. I really don’t know how he survive in the outside world.

We had some briefing in the officer mess. Sometimes I don’t understand what are the people thinking. Theory is theory. When it comes to execution, theory sometimes don’t work. It is best to listen to the person on the ground then to refer to the books. Oh well. We just nod our head when the officer gives us instructions, then react accordingly when outfield. If we follow his method, sure die.

We had battalion happy hour at night. They ordered food from outside and got a few men and officers to sing. I don’t know about the rest, but my idea of a happy hour is to book out and have fun outside. Not inside an army camp eating buffet and listening to live band. Don’t even have beer. And what is a party without girls?

We were given nights off at 9pm. Might as well don’t give lah.

It was raining when we woke up at 6am. Damn, why must it rain on the day of our exercise? Luckily the rain stopped after breakfast. But judging on past few days, it will surely rain again tomorrow in the morning. We should be in the jungle during that time. Not a good sign.

As usual, I’m one of the first few batches to move out of camp. Morning went on smoothly. We all knew what we are supposed to do. It rained heavily again in the afternoon. I was lucky because I was at the HQ area where there is shelter. But the tent is rather small, so have to squeeze a little while waiting for the rain to stop.

It rained again in the middle of the night while we are moving toward our objective. Once again, I’m lucky because we so happen to be near Neo Tiew Village. So we seek shelter at the old hawker centre. The tables and chairs has been removed and the whole hawker centre is now a huge shelter, but there are some leaks in the middle. For the uninitiated, Neo Tiew Village is an abandoned HDB estate along Lim Chu Kang Road. The army now uses that area for training. Try googling for this place if you are interested. Lots of nice photos of the place.

Managed to catch some rest while waiting for the rain to stop.

Exercise ended in the early afternoon, much earlier than expected. So we return back to camp, send store and wash up. We were given nights off at 7pm but I was too tired to go out. Slept for 12 hours in camp.

Spend the morning having revision on something we will not be using for this ICT. Just a revision to make sure we don’t forget how to do it when there is a need for it. Afternoon was spend setting up that shitty piece of equipment. Lost count on the number of times I curse and swear.

After dinner, we went over to the lecture theater and waited outside. Our division commander is here to give us a talk. We ended up waiting 1 hour outside because there is another batch inside. Well, we rush to wait and wait to rush.

I always have this theory regarding why we always need to wait so much. Let’s say we are supposed to gather at 7pm. The CO will tell the OC to gather the men at 6:45pm. The OC will tell the CSM to gather the men at 6:30pm. The CSM will tell the Platoon Sgt to gather the man at 6:15pm. The Platoon Sgt will gather the man at 6pm. That why we always waited so long. (OK, it’s just a joke, but I think such things happen once or twice before)

Spend the rest of the evening setting up equipments for the exercise the next day. My equipment keep giving me errors. Had a hard time fault finding. The best part was, even the replacement parts are faulty. Super unlucky.

Went to a new training ground for a short training. Very impressive place I must say. Too bad we can’t bring camera phones along. Would be nice to let everyone see the facilities. Something you will not see during the army open house. The training was short, very short. In fact, I think the time spend waiting and traveling was longer than the actual training timing. Not that I’m complaining. Our trainer help arranged everything in order so that we can quickly finish our training and go back camp to do other stuff. Oh, by the way, our trainer this year is the same guy as last year. Having been thru so many reservist, I still think he is the best trainer we had.

Spending the rest of the morning in camp setting up the stupid equipment. Yes, THAT SHITTY PIECE OF EQUIPMENT. It’s been one year already and that stupid thing is still there. And judging by the cost of the equipment, I guess it will be there for several more years to go. Curse the person who designed that equipment. Curse the person who approved it.

We spend the afternoon having revision and setting up equipment for Wednesday’s exercise.

We had IPPT today. I help the government save money by failing my IPPT. OK, not that I don’t want to collect the money. But my fitness really down the drain. The guys in my platoon have to remind me that I used to be quite fit during NSF days. I’m always in the lead during 2.4km run. Oh well, all those are just memories now. Still remember my best 2.4km timing – 9 min 46 sec (1 second away from gold). No joke.

Spend the rest of the morning drawing store.

Took a nap while waiting for book out timing. Its a tradition for my unit to drag book out timing. I figured out that its easier to wait for book out timing by taking a nap. This way, you won’t feel so frustrated while waiting. Book out at 3pm. Took a cab home, shower and rush down to Derrick’s home for nice home brew beer and shepherd pie. Going to be a tough 2 weeks ahead.

First time wearing the new number 4. Feels weird. Still prefer the old number 4 anytime. Arrived camp just in time. In-pro went smoothly. Think we are quite expert in this already. After all, this is our 7th In Camp Training (ICT). Our bunk is at level 6 again. Wah piang.

We had a simple parade to mark the start of the ICT as usual. After the parade, we went for a 4 km route march. Pretty relaxing walk since we aren’t carrying much load. Furthermore, we came back for a one day route march in early July and Aug to “warm up” for this ICT. So the fitness is “slightly” there. The route march ended at the live firing range where we had our range practice/refresher. Pretty well planned out schedule. Save the transport and petrol to drive us to the range.

The format of the range has been changed. Somehow I feel that it is easier this time once you get the hang of it. I’m usually pretty good at range and this is no exception. Hit 7 out of 8 target. Was cursing and swearing when I missed the last target.

We had packed lunch at the range. The first lunch for ICT is usually the best and this is no exception. Spend the rest of the afternoon in range resting/sleeping while waiting for the rest to finish their shooting. First day is usually more relaxed.