Outfield

So we had our field camp this week.

In terms of training and discipline, it was alright except for the stand-to exercises which were stupid, especially the one that we had to do for half an hour after changing into new uniforms. Smoke breaks were about the same as in camp, which it to say it was at any break or rest time, which was a lot. haha

In terms of the environment however, it was the worst I've ever seen or experienced in my life.

Day 1:
Had our 8 click route march where it began to rain very very heavily. We're talking about if I were driving, I-would-seriously-consider-slowing-my-car-down-for-safety kind of rain. How it rains on the main land, in the Tekong camp, and in the Tekong forests are all very different despite them being the same rain clouds. Within 10 minutes of the rain starting, my boots were flooded past my ankles and my field pack had gained an extra kg of water. I kid you not, it was a Cat 1 rain.

The field camp site was somewhat flooded and as we began to dig our drains and set up our bashas, we inadvertently brought up any remaining ground water to the surface. Light showers during this period. This is all I remember from day 1.

I slept less than 2 hours that night.

Day 2:
Light rain during reveille. Boots and socks were flooded to just below the ankles, despite my draining them and keeping them under shelter. Everyone was covered with erupting sores and mosquito bites. Did some lectures and some training and boots filled up to previous levels of water.

We were allowed to go back to shower within 1 hour. Everyone boarded the tonner with dry pairs of underwears and uniforms but the same wet boots.

It rained that night. Slept under an hour.

Day 3:
It rained at reveille. We proned in the mud in our stand to position for about 15 minutes. Went for our first lecture and training regime. A few minutes after it was finished, it began to rain very very heavily as the Cat 1 alarm sounded off. Everyone was confined to their rapidly flooding Bashas. Hansel and me began to sing loudly and enjoyed ourselves before Amos and Md Nur started joining in for a few of the songs, much to the chagrin of Bo who was actually able to doze off a few times.

Dinner was consumed and by 7pm it had started to rain even more badly than the first day. Even the admin tentage was flooding. Within half an hour, Hansel and Driver and Medic were running to the admin tentage complaining of swimming pool conditions. Poobs and Feisal did the same but all were shooed away within ten minutes of arriving at the shelter.

Under special medical conditions, I was able to sleep in the land rover that night (supposed to be under tentage but there was no space). I managed about 3 hours.

Day 4:
It rained about as badly as Day 1 in the morning so much so that the morning exercises were canceled. At about 8 we headed to an adjacent lot to dig our shell scrapes. I sneaked a can of red bull in to my system and found that it helped none whatsoever.

As expected, we were let off that afternoon.

Day 5:
We cleaned stores. It rained. We cleaned stores. Cougar recruits washed their mud from their stores onto our stores. Fuck.


Field camp was over by day 6 and everyone was ecstatic about going home and technically "passing the course".

Our transport bus was driven by a former 3rd sergeant who was adamant on us 'not breaking the windows in his bus'.

Then Shakir, Syed and me(Shawn) shared a cab back to Simei that was driven by a crazy lady. She was like touching her hair and rubbing her face then touching the steering wheel every few seconds. She really looked maniacal.

A number of us were supposed to head down to Dbl 0 to celebrate our field camp success including Sgt Jonathan but many of them decided to fly their kites, including Sgt Jonathan. Hansel, Bo and Sam were absent as well. Syafiq lost his phone during the cab ride with Bernard so gave it a miss also, despite my obtaining his house number and calling him up.

I had a quick shower at home before rushing off to Dbl 0 and actually arrived 5 minutes before Ali did. Considering that he left before me and he's an insane driver I find it very commendable.

Met up with Syed's gang (who are all fun as fcuk) and we hit the bar almost immediately. In about 30 minutes, I was filled with about 5 shots of Tequila and 2 or 3 Jaeger bombs.

Jacky and his GF arrived somewhere in the middle of that and they ended up drinking my alcohol. Fadhil noticed that and sponsored a round for everyone to raise my BAC to illegal levels.

Some chicks started moving in on me, mostly because I was dancing like a man man. I was moving my feet like a man on speed but I moved away after a bit because, to be honest, I don't really give a rat's ass about having to play it cool anymore. I just want to do what I want to do. I don't really care about my image. It's just too troublesome. I guess I'm old.

I couldn't stand it though, when Ali started dancing on the top with his ancient but well executed moves and I burst out laughing every few minutes, setting Ahmad into laughter as well.

Once Joel arrived, we headed down to O bar, to support Jacky and his RnB habit. The place was seriously packed. It was no fun for me as I had to stop every few seconds to give someone room to walk past.

I headed out when it began to get too hot and me and Joel decided to go back upstairs. The re-rentry queue was damn long but it was entertaining because Syed had snagged himself some crazily drunk chicks. They were seriously past it.

Left at about 2.45 to find a summons on my car. I felt seriously fucked because all the indications were there. Like when I was arriving, there were riot police vehicles and patrol guys all around. I should have parked higher up the slope.

Played with Ali all the way to Simpang until Joel was convinced that Ali's car had a Ferrari engine inside. Ended up eating 2 Roti John's because I got it confused with Roti Prata.

Sent Jacky and his now ex gf home at about 5. In my haste to go to sleep, I left a burnt cigarette on the car seat which my dad found the next day.

Woohoo. Book in time.

lol.

Taken from Bash.

<evilada>: Best suicide plan ever
<mcm310>: what is it?
<evilada>: you go up to the top of a roof
<evilada>: string piano wire tight across the front edge at neck level
<evilada>: tie a cord to your foot and the other end to the building so that you'll be above sidewalk level when its fully stretched
<evilada>: then you put super glue on your hands
<evilada>: and put your arms around the front of the wire and then back to touch your head
<evilada>: then you lean forward, so the piano wire cuts your neck but not your elbows
<evilada>: when the cord goes taut, youll be hanging upside down with no head....except your head will be in your outstretched arms thanks to gravity and the glue, staring at someone upside down and spewing blood everywhere.
<evilada>: And some poor bastard will be traumatized for LIFE.
<mcm310>: i dont think i can be your friend anymore

Men are cruel and the world in unfair.

"Men are cruel and the world is unfair." These words were reinforced repeatedly to my platoon by one 1LT Arthur Poh.

It was a pretty cynical statement but either I've been indoctrinated by the SAF, or I've been let privy to a world beyond the borders of my niche because I now feel this to be true.

Of course for all the good things he thought us, the man was generally an asshole himself but who I am to judge.


There's this guy I know.

Apparently he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and psychosis. The best part is he claims to have been totally cured of both mental illnesses. I literally wanted to laugh my ass off at that statement because to the best of my knowledge, such a disorder is not curable unless it was brought on later in life. He claims to have been born normal.

Subject displays symptoms of rash anger and easy irritability. According to my amatuer knowledge, bipolar disorder is a "I am now very happy for no reason" and then "I am now very sad/angry for no reason" problem, generally speaking of course. It's not a "I am happy now but since you pissed me off, you'll get it" kind of thing. It just follows cycles.

Subject also claims to have fought to have stayed on for his NS term instead of getting a PES F rating. Bitches and moans about knowing how to do everything and also repeatedly points out how he used to handle his many many events outside. Does not give details.

Subject is always late to camp. He either immediately goes to the bunk to sleep or goes to play soccer. His duties are never done. This includes the single "This is your jobscope that no one else is allowed to touch" duty of compiling the parade state every morning.

He is an unreliable person and a backstabber with no balls to cover his colleagues who have covered for him. Has no respect for anyone but his elder brother and constantly hurls vulgarities, often putting our now-ORD-ded resident Tourettes man to shame.

Subject mentions how since he will be ORDing later than most of us, he will therefore be more lao jiao than us. He lost me on that one.

Claims his brother was an RP and therefore from the stories, he knows how life is like in camp. Lol. This includes how life is like in BMT. A tick for BMT in Ninja, Mohawk, Taurus and Viper. Yes, he knows how BMT is like in all these companies. Lol.

Fyi, subject was sent for BMT in unit and was down PES-ed that same day. He was posted straight here after the fuckers in HQ decided that they need the creme de-la creme. We are a god damn support unit. We are the fuckers you call when you want work to be done. How the fuck do you think we are going to work with morons like this?

On the very first day he came in, he texted everyone, asking if we wanted to hang out. He even passed one of my friends' number to his own friend for friendship building. I... I.... lol.

Subject never replies to SMSes and frequently asks people to cover him. This includes when he is talking to his imaginary girlfriend on the phone, with the loudspeaker on.

In my opinion, these are all symptoms of a fucking attitude problem. Not a mental disorder.

Most of the elder malays sucked up to him cuz they needed to build connections with him for future manipulations. The chinese hated him cuz he's a racist bigot. And everyone in the office hated him because exactly as the saying goes, we actually do better without him.

He's not just a dead weight, he actually swims in the opposite direction.

In my opinion, he is not fit to live. But with foresight, who am I to judge. I am no saint myself. Judge not lest ye be judged. A saying popularised by a famous TV villain no doubt.


So I posthulate.

Children, despite their misgivings and disappointments in their early lives never do truly grasp the concept of "nothing in this world is fair". You really need to experience it to understand it.

And that, in essence is what separates most of the women from most of the men. Women begin their experiences in the real world in an environment with few and lighter consequences.

For most of us men, yes even some of the PES Es, they have experienced the consequences of assholism. They know that making it easier for yourself makes it harder on someone else which makes people hate you which makes people want to kill you which makes people do bad things which makes life harder for even more people.

There are but few things wrong on paper with the SAF. Everything else is just from the people in it.

Ashcuse me, there ish a problem wit your mic.

The other day I was handling an Anti-Tobacco talk in my auditorium where the Emcee was a pack-a-day smoker. There were many boring speeches by many people who had a lot to say including a "recoveree" who literally gave a 2 second pause after reading each sentence very slowly in his "How I Gave up Smoking Speech". Of course there were 'fun' speeches from a few like the 9Div Commander who was open enough to actually interact with the crowd although if one of the 2ICs had shared his story of why he quit smoking it would have been really nice (it's really very touching but it's his story to tell, so...) .

Anyway, apart from all that, there was a skit by HPB.

There was this young lady who looked alright but who wore a figure-hugging dress that was really flattering, and misleading. So when we set her up with the wireless clip-on mic, almost all of us were wondering where on earth she kept the transmitter. I don't need to tell you where our first guess was.

About halfway through the skit, she forgot to unmute her mic and she was left to shout out her lines. Being the gentlemen I was, I rushed backstage with a wireless handheld mic before stopping at the curtain.

The lead actor was very observant and saw me standing by the side and cued me out with a "Yes? Can I help you?". So I walked out and knocked on the invisible door and handed the mic to the young lady. There was silence for a bit before the lead actor thanked me with great exaggeration and I gave him a down-swinging 2 finger salute. Then the crowd went wild, cheering loudly.

My hands were shaking a little when I reached the curtain not because I was enjoying the glory, but because that 2 finger salute was actually a really good save from my performing a real SAF salute. When thanking or acknowledging my friends, we generally salute each other and I realised how close I was to almost giving that civilian the same thing. Luckily, muscle memory from previous habits managed to convert that salute to a casual one.

For Pete's sake, the COMMANDER of the 9th Division was there!

Anyway, I promptly headed back up to the control room after the scene was over but by the next scene, she had turned off the microphone again. wtf.

Talk about a 'doh' moment. Luckily, that was her last scene.