Field Camp

January 21 2007
Field Camp Day 1. Field Camp started. Fuck day as usual, i knew it...it started with the one minute drill of taking everything out, then check pack by pack then putting them back in one minute. Timer got punished for purposely timing damn slowly...cos the damned field pack is too small (though it looked big)

There was a 12km road march to the camp site.

Lunch, when we were told to take out our ration. I was about to get my fork and spoon when they say no need. Huh? No fork no spoon how eat? So i just grabbed a pack of field ration and rushed off to the front of the camp site (they call it admin place) and sat down.

The field ration is packet of green aluminum, and on pressing the content...its sort of...soggy and mashed up inside. On top printed "Yellow Rice with chicken". Hor...yellow rice with chicken. Im still figuring out how to eat it when others had already tore the packet open and squeese the content and eat. Well the food inside is like a paste, so its just like a tube of toothpaste, u squeese the content and u take from there.

Its not as bad as its said lah, i mean i eat anything...so i just gobble down the whole packet. After lunch, we sent back to perfect our basha again.

A few hours later, we were asked to view some demonstration of the commanders fighting, how to spot enemy and stuff. Nothing spectacular, but the weather is cooling, so i began to feel much better liao.

Cos our pasha is really CMI, so its back to basha building again. Nite soon falls and we consumed our dinner. After dinner, we went to do nite training - Listening post. Basically we hide behind a bunch of bushes and tries to listen to what the commanders in front are toking about. I still remeber there was some song playing at first, then followed by someone doing six push ups, then someone said smthing about not giving face to Amza, then stealing rifle at 2345 and imitating Patrick with his ang moh accent reporting the temperature.

There were quite some i missed out on....but who cares man, we went for RO (Routine Order, meaning telling u the shedule for the next day and some debriefing matters). Then its powder bathing time, each of us are to bring out the GoreTex jacket as groundsheet, then strip naked and powder like water.

One by one we were asked to "ease-spring, squeese trigger" (commander used in rifle range to release the rifle's spring to uncock it.) Simply meaning u pull and release your underwear's rubber strap and must be able to see powder puffing out, meaning u powdered your groin area enuff.

Next up return to basha and i had quite a good rest.

January 22 2007
Second day of field camp. After 5BX is breakfast just some lectures.

Afternoon was the practicing of the Fire Movement Drill. Simply saying its now to attack an enemy in a group of three. There is this three friendly force to one enemy rule, meaning a group of three ppl will only take down one enemy. Among the three got one IC and two men.

The three will walk in a file formation, which is staggered positioned. Meaning the first guy to the left, the second guy (the IC) to the right behind the first guy and the last guy to the left of the road.

When an enemy fires of, all three will prone immediately and leopard crawl to the nearest shelter (the trees in this case) facing the enemy in a straight extended line and start firing off to tell the enemy that you are returning fire, no need to hit him now. Then the IC will scan the area and locate the postion of the enemy while the rest are firing off. "GROUP! Straight Ahead! Hundred (meters)! Tree! Enemy behind Tree!".

Now IC shout "GROUP! Advance!". The two men will fire at the spot where the enemy is hiding so that the enemy will have to hide behind his cover. Using this opportunity, the IC will move one bound in front. A bound is a tree length, meaning moving to behind next tree, since down there all the trees are neatly planted. Now IC will shoot and suppress the enemy fire while the two men will move to the next tree (now in line with the IC).

Keep doing until the group about a few bounds in front of enemy, by then he should be dead. The ICE (stop moving and observe for anymore enemies) the group. Then SPIDER (comb the area). The IC move in high alert to the next bound and high kneel there, then the two men do the same to get inline once again.

ICE the group again and then ORANGE, where the IC will deploy the two men behind, forming a triangle about the dead enemy with rifle pointing out of the group and stay to observe for further enemy fire.

Now after a while, the group number off, "One OK!", "Two OK!", "Three OK! ALL OK!". IC will say "to my six oclock position, back to track, follow me!" then move to where u should be going.

Actually still got flanking, where u throw a smoke grenade and one guy will kept shooting while two other will move one big round to beside the enemy. Enemy dunno cos the smoke screen is blocking, and tot the group still there in front, cos still got one guy firing there. The two throws a fragmentation grenade to the enemy and upon hearing the explosion the guy in front stops firing. Then the two will approach and kill the enemy by surprise from the side. "Foxtrot Lemme" command is given to flank left hand side and "Foxtrot Romeo" means flank right.

The fun part is that we were given blanks to fire off. Blank bullet dun shoot anything out, but gopt tons of smoke and sound thats all.

All these pretty much filled the day and ya we are back in the camp side enjoying our sumptuous field rations. By then our field pack is really filled to the brim liao...cos more rations came and we cant finish the previous rations. New clothing resupply came also.

At nite is a nite walk, nothing much. Not scary as last time NPCC's phantom walk. Five minutes complete liao, and each guy is deployed 10 seconds after another, so ya bascially u can see your friend in front there.

Then sleep....snore snore..snore...

January 23 2007
Third day of camp. We destroyed our basha that morning and went more more Fire Movement Drill. After lunch, we marched off to our second camp site.

HOLY! What kinda camp site is this? This one the reclaimed part of Tekong. The ground is very wet and covered with fallen leaves, prolly cos of the rain before that ba. The mosquitoes really lots and lots...i step down only got four mossies on each hand sucking my blood dry liao. They can even pierce through my uniform to suck my blood sia!

Then Shaun changed from his PT shirt to uniform, then i saw his back! WTF! His back totally rotten liao! I think its heat rash! Sent to medic, and medic ask to apply lots of Prickly Heat...then ya...just liddat.

That night was..terrible, after i changed to a new set of uniform and applying lots of insect repellent, it started drizzling.

There was no basha this time, just sleep on the groundsheet. The rain got bigger and bigger and all we could do is to put on our Gore Tex jacket. The cold is like....DAMN COLD LAH....just damn cold until my teeth clattered on each other. In the morning still needa change into PT shirt for 5BX...

January 24 2007
Fourth day of camp. Today should be technical break liao. We did a Stand Two in the morning, prone there pretend wait for enemy to come.

Then we had some lecture and got punished for lots of stupid stuff. When recovering from push up position, Stanley just cant stand up! I saw ppl pulling him, seems that his knees are acting up again. And can tell its really really bad this time.

Now time to dig shell scrape. What isit? Its a grave! you dog your own grave! But the "grave" actually covers you from enemy fire. So its like u have shellscrapes surrounding the camp site, in alternate position and soldiers lie in there to defend the campsite from enemy attacks.

Sounds simple ah? Dig hold only. I tell u its fucking tiring, especially after all the shit for the past days. Halfway through, i was asked to go clear the shit at the shitting point. In out field, the toilet is as such that the pee point is just a long white strap across two trees, u pee beyond the white strap. Simple.

For the shit point...its like a little hut make from canvas (no roof, use canvas walls) with deep holes there, u suppose to shit in the hole and use some soil to cover it up. Means one shit hole can use limited times before its completely covered. Honestly before field camp i already trained myself to keep my shit for six days liao. The shit point is simply disgusting.

So some bastard dint shit properly, one big lump of shit there, covered with gigantic flies. Me and some suay ppl suppose to light up solid fuel to chase away all the flied, then burn the shit and cover them up and shift to a new shitting point. Nice job man.

Back to digging my grave, or they still prefer call it "shellscrape". Mine was horrible, and i was like again hands and legs trembling from the terrible heat after a nite of terrible rain. Thanks to the others who helped me.

It took hours and hours to dig finish the shell scrape. Upon realising lots of the shellscrape are flooding (cos u suppose to sleep inside), they call us to cover up the hole after the commanders examined our grave.

They then rushed us for lunch and we were told last minute the media will be here to film. WTF...got to march with field pack! Shaun fell out, asthma attack and was sent back to Company Line immediately cos he had too much complications (heat rash, backbone shifted, asthma, abdominal pain).

We given half an hour break there after marching some time while waiting for the media ppl to get ready. By then feeling much better, rested and drank up. Touch up on our camouflage make up and ya...wayang time! we march and sang damn loud while the cameraman panned the camera across.

Back to the camp site, we were told we can bathe! Changed to admin shirt and took some water, strip naked and woooooo! nice man!

We then packed our field pack and threw away all the remaining rations and gave back our dirty uniform. The day passed quite peacefully. We retired to sleep quite early.

January 25 2007
Fifth day liao. Shit ending le. Everything was fine until 1am when it starts drizzling again. Ok lah....little rain only...but when it reaches 4am...the drizzle suddenly became a downpour! The rain was so deep that we got to be evacuated to a training shack for shelter amist our nite rest.

We slept from 4am till about 8am in the training shack. Sleep while sitting down...some anyhow lie about...no one really cares.

After the rain stops, we went back tp camp site. We saw our field pack all downed in the ground. Apparently the ground was soft cos we dug our shell scrape and covered it back there, so the rain water collected and ya...most of our field pack and ground sheets were soaking in "milo". We still gotta keep them and then eat lunch.

Halfway through, it rained again and taken back to the training shack once again.

Rain stopped about an hour later and we got ready for the Group Battle Course. Bascially its the same as what were taught the few days back. How to attack enemy as a group and all that, but now its like a test, the commander will lead a path then u wun noe when the enemy will fire and attack. Suppose to test your immediate reaction.

Just as things are getting excited and everyone were ready to empty their magazine of bullets....the rain came back AGAIN! Same thing...back to training shack for cover and the rain continued till 5pm. We had dinner and the wait for rain to stop.

We were given a new camp site, near the trianing shack, where ppl should built basha on. So there were drainage left there, so even if it rains it wun flood. But thankfully the weather was nice to us that nite.


January 26 2007
Final day of field camp. We woke up damn early to pack all our stuff and took breakfast and loaded our field packs onto a tonner there drove them back to company line in advance. Then marched to the BIC (Battle Inoculation Course). We had lots of waiting for dunno what.

The BIC is to simulate wartime when u suppose to crawl from one place to another. So went in there, we leopard crawled all the way and back crawl at the last few meters. on top of our heads are three machine guns shooting live rounds. Damn scary, never stand up else u die. Well but i tot the machine guns are pretty high (like two storey high).

Body super all mud and sand. They use fire hose to spray them off and a tonner took us back to company line to have lunch there - combat rations.

Damn irritating, the sun was so fuck hot and we were made to clean our rifle there. At 4pm it started raining and we were told to go back our bunk and wash up and ready for dinner.

Dinner was in canteen. Normally we have our food in cook house, everyone eating same thing. Now in canteen u get to choose and buy food! YEah!