How i wish i could turn the hands of time...

How i wished i could turn the hands of time... to stop this asphyxia thats choking me. Tied to the ground by NS and bearing the long wait for her to come back. To continue my studies... To get rich!... Sigh-

On the other hand...I am enjoying my life right now. I enjoy the things that are givin to me like NS....But i dont wanna lead an army life :( However, I could see the perks if i turned the clock clockwise... I see her here...i see myself more carefree... i see myself working to supplement myself... At least with a better pay...Or it could be down at Melbourne Uni....Hopefully.

An avg Singaporean lives up to the age of 68 and goes....lets see...if I turned the clock 6 years later...i wont really know where i see myself or what i see myself as...Prolly let time take its pace...

Okay shit i m typing crap now...><....

2 more Weeks...

Aight...so it was IPPT on friday right...and guess what niggaS! I Attained Silver Hell YEA!!! Now all i need is the green light to enter OCS. Well at least it would be something I achieve in army life. That feeling would be great! 2 more weeks to POP. Till then, we would still be chao recruits! Cracking jokes and living like kids. We laugh hard EVERYDAY! i have no idea why...BUT WE DO!

Communal living isnt too bad i guess. But the hardest part is the freaking toilets...they build 3 cubicles with toilet bowls. The rest we hafta squat. And people would rather wait for the toilet bowls to Bronco instead of squat. No choice...Sighs.

But i would miss my BMT life. I thought of the last day, when i first entered Tekong. That night, i thought to myself... Why am i stuck in this place....." I would make the best of this " Sighs...2wks till we go separate ways. I really hope i dont lose most of my platoon mates..

Lets see...Threw a grenede...and it rocked BIG TIME! Another one of the most memorable experience in my life. 4 hours of waiting for just 6 seconds till explosion. But it was worth it!

Miss u!

Joann if u read this, note that I am going nuts over here. Heh... Miss u loads! Now that was pretty cheesy..

Live Range Reflections

Live range is like Purgatory. We practically do nothing but wait and rot the whole day. Well, the shooting part is fun though, but the commanders kept shouting at us. Try concentrating to take aim when u have 20 seconds which is your own time and target and someone is screaming at you from behind. Not easy.

Day shooting is fun as it is much easier to hit the target and taking aim doesn’t require too much time. Apparently, the standing posture was the easiest for me this time instead of the foxhole position. The target seemed bigger than the IMT targets.

Night shooting didn’t go too well because we were all hot and uncomfortable after waiting a good 6 – 7 hours plus? However we got to fire tracer rounds which were pretty cool like Star Wars! It was definitely harder to hit the target this time round because targets were dark and hard to define. Silhouetted targets were still visible while the small blinking targets were hard to lock on. My eyes would get blurry and it made it even harder to hit the target.

About IA: Once we encounter an IA, we practically lose a round because some of them could actually be dented. Not taking chances, we had no choice but to give up that round. IA 4 times and poof! No more marksmen. Plus, the remedying IA takes time. By the time we remedied one, the target might have gone down.

Funny occasions when we saw wild boars and the way our commanders dealt with them. Fortunately the wild boars weren’t aggressive and no one got hurt.

Overall views on range are that it was an experience no one had before. I would love to go again, but only at the IMT theatre this time. =P

Situational Test Reflections

Situational test...somewhat like field camp. Except its not such a hassle because it lasts only 3 days. We took off early for our 12km road march whereby the last 4km was unbearable. Upon reaching reclaimed land, we had to set up bashas and the admin stuff. I was lucky and got to sit in the rover which drove us off to another place to set up the admin tentage.

So day 1 was administrative...we were broken up into our details. I was in detail BRAVO. Had only 2 others from Platoon 4. Well, I got to know a few people in front and behind me. We engaged in small conversations and soon enough, we found out that we had alot of things in common and were talking like buddy'o pals.

My buddy is from platoon 3. He's a nice person and we were pretty co-operative about things so we had no problems getting our stuff done fast. We could remind each other what to pack and whenever I needed to take 5 for a smoke, he would understand.

Day 2 came and we started our mission. First mission was pretty interesting. We had to bomb a bridge to prevent enemy retreatment. There were 6 stations altogether. And the distance between every station is about 1km?. However, the sergeants like to "Tekan" us by asking to run to the next station or leapord crawl or fireman lift someone to the next station. I remember carrying one of the guys for about 200m plus to the next station. Really shack-a-doodles man. ( REALLY TIRED )

Interesting side missions like building a bridge to cross a lake. There were a few kinds of people in my detail. Some were co-operative, some werent so co-operative. Like every detail, theres bound to have people who are like that. Everyone got a chance to be IC and 2IC...However, i felt that sometimes, people like to do things the complicated way when it can be done like with a snap on a finger. My asscessor is a pretty nice person. He had an interview with me at the end of the day and asked about my plans after BMT. I told him this, like it or not, i have to go through 2 years of army. So why not just make the best out of it? And he keeps nodding and writing down stuff which i have no idea what. The day ended and we had outfield cooking with our own platoons. After that was pretty much OTOT and we "LEPAK" 1 corner to do our stuff.

Day 3 started, this time round we woke up earlier. Packed our bashas and went off for our road march. After doing 12km with FBO. 2km with SBO is like chicken feet. Our mission for the day is to rescue a hostage in a 4x4 m room with a locked window and surrounded by an electric fence. Its actually kinda funny cuz once we reached that station, there are supposed to be allied forces to help us and they could only hold on for 20mins?. I mean whatever the case is...The soles of our boots are made of rubber and rubber is NOT a conductor of electricity. So why do we have to build some structure to climb into the cell instead of just walking over? Climb in, carry out the hostage if he isnt wearing boots or something.

We spent like 20mins doing a 5min job... But oh wells, we played by the rule that says anything that touches the electric fence will get destroyed. So yea...

In the end, we had to grade our peers and such. Overall i find situational test more relaxing, its just the terrain again. Loads of creepy crawlies around. I had a bloody earthworm or whatever inside my pants. I had no idea how the hell it crawled through my garters but it did anyway and i threw the thing out. But in the end of the day, we left campsite happy. Made loads of new friends not only from my detail but from others and thats what made everything worthwhile.