been wanting to blog bout my army experience lasting a grand impressive total of 4 months so here goes:
NS Part 1 - Tekong:
Yeah, yeah, i know i'm PES E, so i shouldn't be worried or anxious or whatever as compared to the others but, after so long in the position when juniors must listen to you, found it weird to follow orders without brains again.
Plus the fact this is army, where a mistake does not only involves being shouted at, but a nice trip to a place we call DB. So that morning, woke up, wore the shittiest pair of jeans and a ratty t-shirt and went to pick up my grandmothers and my uncle. (Mum and sis were going Switzerland on the exact same day, talk bout irony)
I was trying to keep a blank mind all the way. Anyways, my body goes into hibernation mode when i'm in camp, when i don't eat much so as to prevent myself going toilet and all, even if i did, i would hold it till camp is over. So had a glass of hot red tea for breakfast and went to Pasir Ris.
Yadayadayada, tuck in shirt, yadayadayada, board ferry land at Tekong, yadayadayada, some reservist company staring at us while waiting to board tonner, yadayadayada, surrender IC, yadayadayada, watch some video, yadayadayada, go auditorium and sit properly(lol, blast from the past man), listen to the LTC talk VERY VERY friendlyly hahah, and line up outside and wait to be collected by family members.
Went to cookhouse to eat, and got forced fed a mega portion Tekong serves. To be honest, the only believable thing in Tekong is the food serving, what you see on the first day IS the amount you get everyday, if not more.
Fall in, and march(or walk) off to U Coy. It looked good, one of the newer blocks, 1 minute march or 30 sec walk to cookhouse, 2 minute march to jetty, 30 sec to spec canteen and emart. In fact, it was the best damn coy in Tekong, nice sea view(apart from the barbed wires on the beach) where the water was LIGHT BLUE, and during the nights we got to turn off the fans cause it was so bloody cold.
Only bother was i was in platoon 4, which is on the 5th floor, so we gotta haul ass like 10 mins before everyone else does. Bad news is, when we got to get something from the bunk, its 5 stories up and when we gotta go toilet, its 5 stories up again cause we can't dirty other platoons' toilets. Good thing is, during area cleaning, while the other 3 platoons need to sweep and clear the grounds besides their own bunks, we just needed to clean our own floor, which rocks cause we were just slacking around in bunk talking with sentries posted of course while the other platoons run around cleaning hahahah.
I've been to a few camps after Tekong, and trust me, for the normal soldier, Tekong food is the bomb! The best meal was this Christmas special, a whole spring chicken, fries, rice, steamed veg and mushroom soup. Damn, even i couldn't finish it. Anyways, i kinda got indigestion in Tekong, eating so much while doing nothing physical. Breakfast at 7 plus, lunch at 11 plus, dinner at 5 plus and supper at 8 plus haha. Had to skip meals in the end and for the first time in a camp, used the toilet VERY frequently.
Well, besides lectures and stand-by area, we didn't do much. The typical day was after breakfast, stand-by area at 9, lecture at 9.30, stand-by area again till lunch and so on. Besides the drug talk by someone from MINDEF and the aviva life insurance thing by a old hokkien soldier who, in EVERY sentence, is KNN, CCB and so on. We were splitting our sides in laughter seriously.
Oh yeah, buzz cut was interesting, and thank god i planted my ass where the male barber was cutting, cause the female barbers were seriously godawful. Went to have our first bath after that. And we were given our respective kits immediately, like i got the airforce stuff, and the army guys got their number 3. Man, looking at the uniformed companies in their number 4 and then you see this bunch of quasi-marching-walking company in admin attire, with so many different colors and you can cringe man. And there were like at least 10 guys walking behind cause they are not medically cleared for marching.
And the customary injections were funny too, one side for tetanus, the other side can't remember and one dose of oral polio vaccine. When the medic normally ask recruits on drug allergies, only one or two would raise their hands. When you ask a PES E company, well... More than half of U Coy raised their hands. The poor medic gave up resolving one by one and wrote in down on a piece of paper and collating the results before going back to the MO and getting all the medics to search on the various drugs we take and possible conflicts with the vaccines. Took like an hour at least before the actual injection. And sigh, while we were waiting, one of the older batches were marching along with their SAR, and all we could do is watch cause we can never touch one.
And now for my platoon. We had the most demanding SGTs, only one was more humane, but we were the best platoon man. There was a basic drill session for us, and we were like so good till we ended up learning army songs while waiting for the other platoons. And the second session, after some marching, our SGTs taught us a taunt and march us around to taunt the other platoons hahahahah. Damn fun. We had the only 2 Navy guys in my bunk, and one of them does like 3 sets of 20 pull-ups each throughout the day and compete with other guys from my platoon in pushups. My platoons had the most smokers too, which was a good thing cause they would hide in the toilet cubicle to smoke and clean up the toilet themselves after that. And when we do area cleaning, we'd just sweep it down the stairs, and the other platoons will do the same, ending with platoon 1 getting yelled at by our platoon SGT hahah. But, we were whacked the most too, once we got complacent while marching to cookhouse, and the SGT made us march round and round the parade square in front of the other platoons and other companies, freaking embarrassing.
Anyway, most of the guys in my company aren't physically unfit, just some odd conditions like hole in the heart, low IQ, punctured lung and so on. And its funny when the SGTs ask us to hurry, so we started running and you hear this SGT shouting "EH DONT RUN! YOU GUYS CANT RUN!" and things like that.
Technically, we were supposed to book out on the 6th day, but they really had nothing else for us so we could book out on the 5th day's afternoon. Our OC was long gone by then hahah. So, at 11, we falled in for the last time, wearing our Number 3 for the first time, and marched to the jetty. Which reminds me, Viper coy, just next to us, who were there before us, were literally staring at us when we left before them. Our PCs and SGTs were already in civvies, so it was really strolling to the jetty. Took a bus back to Pasir Ris from the jetty, shared a cab home with my bunk mates, bought 5 bucks worth of chicken rice and was relaxing at home by 5pm.
Tekong was boring for us, we couldn't do this, couldn't do that and spent the days standing by bunk. Ah well .
