SISPEC BSLC Week Zero

Greetings! I have made it back in one piece from my journey to a place in the Western lands called Pasir Laba. I believe in our fathers’ time it was also known as Siberia.

I have been posted to Hotel Company. I did not hear much of this company before hand, so I did not really know what to expect. In fact, I was only told to pray, that I would not end up in Bravo Company. A few of my former platoon guys were dispatched there, but I think they’ll do fine. There are another two of my former Viper platoon guys in my section. I’ve also run into Gary, formerly of the Legion; and Desmond, one of the guys from MB. What a small world.

SISPEC is very different from BMT. You are expected to take a lot of initiative. In fact, we are given a lot of autonomy.

The bunks are very nice and spacious. Each platoon gets two toilets. Oh, the showers even have doors. But the bad thing is that we have twice the amount of places to clean, in half the amount of time, and with half the amount of people we had in BMT.

SISPEC has plenty of physical training, especially running. It’s going to get more difficult, I am sure. Everything is manageable so far. But we shall see on Wednesday morning.

I shall not whine too much. SISPEC has great good and the drinks are not as diluted as Tekong’s. We get to go to the canteen and emart during meals as well. There are even some arcade machines there.

Oh, my camp pass suspiciously looks like this. Just change the colour of the H to blue and the silhouette of Haruhi to that of Sergeant Rocky of SAF fame.

Here’s wishing everybody a Happy New Year 2008!

Suffer In Silence Plus Extra Confinement

Comd SAF BMTC wishes you all the best in your future posting.

Your Posting Order is listed below:

1. You are posted to SISPEC.
2. Your vocation is INF LDR(TRAINEE).
3. Your are to report to: Pasir Laba Camp, BLK 276, RM #02-15.
Reporting Date/Time: 26/12/2007 at 0800 – 0830 hrs.
Person to report to: Chief Clerk
Contact Number: 64105597/5594/5533

You are required to report in smart no.4 uniform (PES E recruits to be in No 3 uniform), except for those assigned to Police Force.

4. Special Instruction:

Report to Pasir Laba Guardroom. No Camera Handphone, thumb-drives and MP3/MP4 are allowed. You are required to bring along your duffle bag / field pack complete with the SAF issued items given during BMT. You are expected to stay in.

Block Leave Activities

Block Leave is going well!

I’ve been getting enough rest and recreation during the past week. On Wednesday I met up with Pei Suan for Dinner. It was good to see her since school ended.

On Thursday I had dinner with Cerelia. We met up with Kenneth, Jonathan, Constantine and Nicholas at Muddy Murphy’s. The special occasion was Kenneth’s enlistment on Friday. That place is terrible; overcharging like nobody’s business. Fine, their business is good but I digress. Five dollars for a small cup of tea!? Hell, I can buy the box for tea for half price! The most funny part was watching Kenneth in in dismay after paying two dollars and fifty cents for a little bag of Bacon Chips.

I had fun. Dear Cerelia, I hope you were not too shocked with the company that night. Then again everybody else would be shocked when hanging out with a bunch of trads.

The many outings on the weekdays were starting to get to me, so much so that I decided to spend Saturday afternoon alone. I went to Novena Church, to give thanksgiving to our Blessed Mother for letting me come back in one piece from the army. After that, I went to Holy Spirit Church to pray for the late Father David Thexeira, who passed away last Thursday.

Another reason for going there was to look for Father Gerard. He was transferred over. So yes, I managed to drop a hello, but he said he would only be free to see me after Christmas. Well I hope to see meet with him soon.

During this week I’ve gradually started on my preparation for the next phase of training. I have cleaned some of my equipment, such as my helmet. Unfortunately I have failed to drag myself out of bed for some PT. I think I’m going to get hell next week.

In the meantime I’ve also done some Christmas shopping. Apparently it’s supposed to be for Chinese New Year too. Oh crap, I’ve spent most of the budget already. Never mind; I rarely shop.

This Saturday will be a busy day. Perpetua and Robin are getting married. I will be assisting. I hope everything goes well.

Tenth Bookout and POP

POP, POP. As it came closer we all thought we would have it easy. Not so, not so. It was a deluge of events. So here we go, in chronological order.

4 December 2007, Drill Competition

Our Company assembled a team of drill specialists to take part in this competition. Most of us had backgrounds from the various uniformed groups. Still, that didn’t make the training any easier. We had to reconcile and standardize simple things such as timings, position of hands and feet, e.tc.

The planning of the fancy drill was quite messy. Even the night before the competition, we had not confirmed our final sequence for the Fancy Drill. Nonetheless we dived into the Drill Competition. Basically the competition tested several categories, namely:

1. Uniform (10%)
2. Fundamental Drill (40%)
3. Fancy Drills (30%)
4. March Past (20%)

I think the weightage of marks was something like that. We lost 3 or 4 marks because of sloppy uniform. I felt that that was quite wasteful. An absolutely unnecessary loss of marks. We did well for the basic drills, but screwed up the fancy drills.

We got third out of nine or eight companies. We lost by 0.5 points for 2nd place. But looking at their special performance during Games Day, they deserved it.

On hindsight we could have done much better if we started practising earlier. Still, it was a good attempt because it was a first time for everyone, including our Sergeant.

If I ever become a instructor in BMTC, and end up taking a drill squad, I will keep some lessons in mind.

1. Always, always have uniform inspection.
2. Practice, practice, practice.
3. Practise early.

5 December 2007, 24 Km Graduation Route March

This was to be the final challenge of our course. The original route consisted of plenty of uneven roads, but due to the heavy rain an alternate route was used. The event started several hours late, and it was still raining when we started. We were quite drenched. We were allowed to change into dry uniforms during dinner time. I also managed to air my feet and dry my boots. It’s quite funny to be able to pour mud out of your boots. The grandstand was quite dirty after that.

Thank God for the amended route, if not the morale would have probably been worse. Most of the route was on paved road, as compared to the original one. We didn’t experience much darkness either during the night. If we followed the original one, we would be stuck in the darkness for a longer period of time. The darkness I speak of is absolute, the one experienced during Field Camp. We were all trying to lift up each others spirits by singing. At certain points of time we were singing self-composed lyrics.

To the tune of ‘Country Road’: Penguin Boat, take me home, to the place, where I belong..

The aftermath was horrific. Everybody had horrible abrasions. We were all walking like penguins, trying to avoid our thighs from rubbing against the pants. It was particularly funny to see our PC walk like one.

The march ended at around one in the morning. After sending the weapons back to the armskote, we went to bed at two thirty.

6 December 2007, Games Day

It was an exciting day. It was drizzling slightly, but we all continued to cheer by banging on our plastic pails.

Despite having a lack of energy and plenty of abrasions from the night before, our forces put in a great deal of effort. In exchange we managed to get second place. The tug-of-war team got first place. Everybody was very pleased, especially the commanders.

and finally,

11 December 2007, Passing Out Parade

We had our parade on the morning of 11 December. Three companies: Pegasus, Leopard, and Viper, marched in formation into the parade square. The marching was accompanied by music played by the SAF Band.

It was a long awaited day. Glorious!

(I’ll have pictures up soon!)

Ninth Bookout

This week, we were issued an ultimatum: pass IPPT or come back for RT during block leave. On the other hand, pass it and you can get early book out on Friday Night.

I miraculously did! I took a mock test on Monday and only scored 174 cm. The passing score is 216 cm. On Tuesday I went to report sick for diarrhea and got Attend B till Wednesday. Day One was on Thursday and Day Two was on Friday. I did not take part in any physical training in those few days before Friday, and that got me worried. Another concern was that I would not be allowed to take the test on Friday due to safety concerns. But thankfully PC and OC gave the green light.

I took a few attempts at the jump, before the sergeant in charge asked me to jump from the marked 216 cm line to the marked 0 cm line. Oddly enough I managed to clear 216 cm. Actually OC Sir asked me to jump again, but I missed by about 1 or 2 cm. He decided to pass me anyway.

Thank God, because the early bookout on Friday night was a nice reward.

Joshua came back from Ex Wallaby last week. We went to watch 30 Days of Night. It’s a vampire film. It wasn’t too bad, but I liked last week’s show better.

One more week to POP ah!