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my time at bmt provided me with plenty of laughter and lessons. the people in my company were fantastic, from the instructors to the recruits to the support personnel. i made lots of friends and i hope to keep most of them.
from the first day itself, when i misread the instructions and went to the SAF ferry terminal in shorts, only to realise then that i had to report wearing trousers or jeans (i then had to swap clothes with my dad in the toilet. amazingly, his shirt and trousers fit me pretty well. it was quite a laugh seeing my dad walk around tekong dressed in my clothes. he really looked out of place. kudos to him. that man never feels embarrassed and i'm proud of him. and very thankful.) to the remaining days, listening to the instructors talk amongst themselves and watching recruits do the stupidest things imaginable.
lots of little interesting/funny things happened too:
- my buddy's name is same as mine. but he's one of the weakest recruits in the company. so he's always getting yelled at and sometimes i don't know who my sergeant is yelling at. gotta watch the eyes.
- the lady in charge of the cookhouse came down to give a talk and at the end of it she showed us pictures of what the cookhouse was like before our time, when it hadn't yet been commercialised. one of the recruits asked her which year these photographs were taken. she thought for a long while before proudly answering, "Before commercialise."
- my sectionmate yansheng was asked why we need to work together as a team and he was convinced that it was because "we are sleeping together."
- another one of my sectionmates, samson tan, (he's half dutch, half chinese) is a black man. he really is. he can rap really well, he wears his shorts so low that it'd make an ACS boy blush and he does fantastic grafitti work.
- they serve the exact same mutton dish every single day in the muslim cookhouse but they change the name everytime. it's been called "mutton mysore", "mutton madras", "mutton bombay", "mutton semur", "mutton rendang" and "mutton satay." and it's the same thing everytime (with the exception of mutton satay, which gives the mutton dish a whole new, unique twist by having the pieces skewered onto a stick.)
- my platoon sergeant can jump 216cm using only one leg, so my friend bing kun (we call him biscuit because his name sounds like the word for that in chinese) asked him with a wry smile if he can jump 432cm with both legs.
- strangely, it's a nice feeling watching platoons march across and past one another just nicely such that they don't have to slow down or stop to give way. it's especially sweet when they turn just in time.
- my malaysian sectionmate chinyi wanted to borrow my shoes in a hurry so that he could rush downstairs. i asked him for what, and he replied that something of his dropped down. i asked what had dropped down and his reply: "my panties."
- i named the cat that roams around the muslim cookhouse "sergeant major." coincidentally, his lifestyle resembles that of my company's sergeant major (the sergeant in charge of discipline and regimentation.)
- one of the platoon 3 guys has the most jumbled up mind ever. he led one of the warm up exercises and shouted out this instruction: "everyone, on your butts... up!"
- my company's smokers came up with a smoker's pledge that was taken almost wholesale from our country's one, with some choice additions: "so as to achieve equality in protein and nicotine."
- during a match between the instructors from our company (kilo) and alpha, one of the platoon 3 guys yelled a taunt at the shortest alpha player on the pitch: "hey! stand up and play lah!"
- we watched a pirated copy of xmen in the lecture theatre during our free time and samson and i spent the majority of the film laughing at the ridiculous subtitling. examples:
"incredible nightcrawler" ----> "incredible black clown"
"we've got to stop cerebro" ----> "we've got to stop the Vibro"
- during a first aid talk, sergeant redzuan, with the straightest face imaginable (i mean, he was convinced that this was not very obvious and that he had to tell us about this amazing detail or else it might cost someone's life.), informed us that one of the signs of severe bleeding (we're talking really severe here.) is the casualty complaining that he/she feels sick and more crucially, they suffer from (god forbid!) restlessness and thirst.
- i realised that the deeper you go into bmt.. army people slowly stop giving you the benefit of the doubt.
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Diary of a Chao Recruits
7 days field camp in Tekong
Day 1
230803 Saturday (Sunny)
The day started with my last civilian breakfast at the cookhouse. We have chee chong fan that morning. Many of my platoon mates considered that the worst breakfast menu in the army. I felt that they are too choosy, the food we are having now is way better then the kind of food served by the army chiefs in the past. Anyway, I tried my best to enjoy my last meal as we will be eating cold combat rations for our next 7 days.
Moments later back at company line, we prepared ourselves for our field camp. After warm up and the customary water parade. The whole Foxtrot Company was ready for field camp. As per normal, our very garang OC was there to lead the route march to our 1st campsite. OC was in his usual garang self with his super big alice field pack thrice the size of our field pack. I wondered how the hell he manages to walk with all that weight on his back? But the sight of OC in his full battle order gave me relief that he was leading us cause I know we will be in safe hands. He looks like a super soldier. You really should see it yourself.
So with my SBO, helmet, field pack and my wife Hebe (my M16) on, we set off for the 3km++ march to our destination. The march was exhausting under the hot sun, but no one fall out and we reached there as a platoon around noon. Our 1st campsite was on the tekong-reclaimed land. The terrain is full of open area with larang grass and neatly planted trees. Upon settling down, we began building our tents with our buddies.
Our 1st lesson for the day is camouflaging. It teaches the basic of using camouflage cream to conceal our face and how to use surrounding vegetation like grass and leaves to cover ourselves to bend into the enviroment. It was the 1st time we applied camou cream on ourselves. My buddy and I assisted each other by helping one another apply the camou. Nauturally, the makeup I applied on my buddy wasnt as nice as it was supposed to be and he ended up looking like a panda. Hope he doesnt mind. Haha.
Next up is how to use the vegetation to cover ourselves so as to break up our body shape to successfully blend into the surrounding. That proves to be rather difficult because our platoon sergeant ordered us to do jumping jacks so as to ensure the vegetation on our helmet and body dont fall off easily. Camouflaging ourselves into the surrounding was easy, but we soon learnt that while in hiding, we must also be able to see clearly what the enemy is doing. To put it in another way, it means the enemy cannot see you but you can see them. Only but achieving that kind of standard do we know that our camouflage is eye deceiving.
After that, we learnt tactical movements and contacted drills. It basically teaches us what we should do when an enemy starts firing at us. The drills is rather simple but hard to carry out. Upon contacted, we have to prone down as quick as we humanly can and duck to our nearest cover. Then we return fire in the direction of the enemy and gets ready to duck to the next cover. We have only 4 seconds to do so as 4 seconds is all it needs for the enemy to shoot us. If we are unable to reach the cover in less than 4 seconds, we will have to prone down fast and leopard crawl to the cover.
That was mainly the highlight of our 1st day and night was soon before us. We were not allowed to bathe with water (there wasnt so much water for the whole company to bathe anyway), so in order to keep ourselves clean, we powder bathed. We basically striped to our underwear and applied a lot of powder on ourselves. It was quite an experience because all of us have so much powder on our body we almost looked like ghosts.
To be continued...
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Talking abt cookhouse food, these days recruits really have it good & very welfare. I remember during my time breakfast mee goreng tasted like 'barb wire' can graze your lips trying to eat it and scrambled egg omelette really 'bounced' we used to joke abt playing basket ball with it.
Once in the evening we were at the parade sq when the night snack arrived, everybody rushed to grab the buns with the tao sar stuffing with a lot of pushing and shoving. My encik got so mad he made everybody form a queue then to teach us all a lesson he spat into each bun just before personally giving it to us and made sure everybody ate everything before we could fall out.
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Diary of a Chao Recruits
7 days field camp in Tekong
Day 2
240803 Sunday (Sunny, drizzle)
Dawn marks the start of my 2nd day of field camp. Some of my friends woke up with their rifles missing. Haha, not surprising as it would not be a real field camp without the sergeants going around in the wee hours of the night stealing our weapons right? At the most the sergeants will punish those with weapons stolen with night sentry duties for their carelessness in taking care of their wives. We then dressed up in admin shirt, no.4 pants with boots and our rifles for our 5BX followed by a 2km run led by our OC across the landscape. It was very tiring due to the rough and uneven terrain. Secondly running in boots and carrying a rifle is no joke. Nevertheless, I finished the run in one piece without falling out, what a relief that was.
The next program is our camouflage test. The test is simple, we camouflaged ourselves with the knowledge we learnt yesterday and hided ourselves behind the tall larang grass. Then we have to observe what the instructors and the rest of my platoon mates are doing and when our names are called, we have to tell the instructors what we just saw. It was impossible to fall this test, even if you cannot see a thing and is unable to tell them what you saw, the instructors would still pass us. Bless them!
After that was a lecture on how to judge the distance an object is away from us and how to draw our range card. That was pretty easy and we finished our range card practice in a short amount of time. So we used the free time to practice our contact drills again.
It then started raining in the afternoon and we started digging drains around our tents so as not to flood the inside of the tent. After the rain, more lectures followed. We were taught noise discipline during out field, how to detect the direction of enemy fire, how to sight enemys presence and movement etc. Evening was upon us before we knew it. Tonight we will be having night movement training in which we must move quietly and we were not allowed to talk. So making the right signals in the dark to one another is critical.
There was a surprise when we return to our campsite. While we were counting strength, we realize there was one extra man in our file. We soon found out that a sergeant have secretly sneaked inside us while we were doing the night movement. Our platoon commander then explained how easy is was for any enemy to sneak inside us in the dark without anyone knowing. It made me release that staying in full alert is essential for any night movement.
To be continued...Edited by Gordonator 28 Mar `05, 9:46PM
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http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/military/f4/pardopush.htm
Pardo's Push
It was March 10, 1967, in enemy skies over Hanoi. The last of 44 F-4 aircraft were just coming off a bombing raid into North Vietnam when Capt. Bob Pardo and his wingman Capt. Earl Aman were both hit by enemy fire. Aman's aircraft was the worse off. Hit by two damaging blows to the fuel tank, he suddenly was down to 2,000 pounds of fuel instead of the 7,000 pounds he needed to safely return to the refueling tanker.
Pardo knew he had to do something quickly if Aman was going to make it out. First, he tried to use Aman's drag chute to help the wounded Phantom. With the drag chute extended, Pardo tried to maneuver behind Aman's aircraft so he could use the drag chute compartment to push the aircraft toward the tanker. No good. Turbulence was too great.
Pardo decided to try to use the tailhook on Aman's aircraft. He moved in under Aman's aircraft and got the tailhook against the windscreen of his F-4 Phantom. Success. By this time, Aman's aircraft was so low on fuel that Pardo told him to shut down the engines. Pardo's push was working, but the two aircraft had to stay directly in line with one another. Pardo would push for 15 to 20 seconds, lose the necessary balance and slide off to the side. Then he'd have to reposition and push again. By now the pressure of Aman's F-4 aircraft was cracking the windscreen of Pardo's fighter. As the spider web of cracks grew, Pardo became increasingly concerned. He moved the hook down the windscreen into a small metal area below. The hook stayed put, and the push continued. To keep his own damaged Phantom flying, Pardo shut down one engine for the last 10 minutes of the flight.
After pushing Aman's aircraft almost 88 miles, the two damaged Phantoms reached friendly air space. At 6,000 feet, with practically no fuel left, the two pilots and their weapons systems officers parachuted to safety.
"That was one hell of an airplane," retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Bob Pardo recalled later. "For one aircraft to get two airplanes that far out of Vietnam speaks very well of the people who put it together."
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Diary of a Chao Recruits
7 days field camp in Tekong
Day 3
250803 Monday (Rainy)
The day started with a big bang. I really mean it when I said big bang. Loud explosions and gunshots were heard all around us. There was no daylight but I knew that OC together with all the platoon commanders and sergeants are throwing thunder flashes and shooting blanks at us. This is to simulate enemy attack at night while we were all sleeping and how we must react in a situation like this. We packed our stuffs quickly and tear down our tents and engaged ourselves in an all round defense in a clearing a few distances away.
Afterwards we trekked to our temporally campsite where we will received our training for the day. Today we were showcased a few new weapons and how to differentiate their noise upon firing. We also learnt some new contacted drills and how to search a dead enemy. Halfway through the lecture, it started raining very heavily. That is when the nightmare started, all our field packs are socked wet. Luckily most of us used zip lock plastics bags to protect our belongings inside the field pack so it wasnt so bad. But as for us, everyone was drenched, the lousy poncho was of not much help. There was water on our uniforms and boots, it felt awful, not to mention very cold too.
To lighten up the mood, we saw the famous wild boars of Tekong. One big wild boar ventures very close to us and we managed to get a look at it before it ran off into the jungle. The wild boar was enormous, too bad it ran off before I could get a closer look. Wow! I have never seen a wild boar in my life so it was quite an eye opener.
At night, we deployed night movement and make our way to our second campsite where we will spend the rest of the night there. I found out that the second campsite was inside a rubber plantation with neatly planted rubber trees. We started building our tents when something terrible happens to me. Hebe, my wife was stolen by my platoon sergeant! I have carelessly left it on the ground while I was building the tent. He promised to return it to me in the morning but I was hoping he will not punish me with any sentry duties, I wanted to sleep badly.
I realized OC was not sleeping in the training shed with the rest of the instructors. He pitch his haversack and slept in the open with the rest of us recruit. Thank to him, I felt very safe that night.
To Be Continued...Edited by Gordonator 09 Apr `05, 12:22PM
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Originally posted by KumSioJui:Talking abt cookhouse food, these days recruits really have it good & very welfare. I remember during my time breakfast mee goreng tasted like 'barb wire' can graze your lips trying to eat it and scrambled egg omelette really 'bounced' we used to joke abt playing basket ball with it.
Once in the evening we were at the parade sq when the night snack arrived, everybody rushed to grab the buns with the tao sar stuffing with a lot of pushing and shoving. My encik got so mad he made everybody form a queue then to teach us all a lesson he spat into each bun just before personally giving it to us and made sure everybody ate everything before we could fall out.
when was your time? and i agreed, recruits nowadays have it easy. it's amazing pre-enlistees still talk about most siong company
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Originally posted by Gordonator:
[b]Diary of a Chao Recruits 7 days field camp
in Tekong
Day 2
240803 Sunday (Sunny, drizzle)
It then started raining in the afternoon and we started digging drains around our tents so as not to flood the inside of the tent.
To be continued...[/b]how come rain liao then start to dig drains? the drains ought to be dug when you set up camp what.
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Radio Interview with General Reinwald
This is an exact replication of National Public Radio (NPR) interview between a female broadcaster, and US Army General Reinwald who was about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military installation.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: So, General Reinwald, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?"
GENERAL REINWALD: We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery, and shooting."
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: "Shooting! That's a bit irresponsible, isn't it?"
GENERAL REINWALD: "I don't see why, they'll be properly supervised on the rifle range."
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: "Don't you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?"
GENERAL REINWALD: "I don't see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm. "
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: "But you're equipping them to become violent killers."
GENERAL REINWALD: "Well, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, are you? "
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Originally posted by CenturionMBT:Radio Interview with General Reinwald
This is an exact replication of National Public Radio (NPR) interview between a female broadcaster, and US Army General Reinwald who was about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military installation.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: So, General Reinwald, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?"
GENERAL REINWALD: We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery, and shooting."
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: "Shooting! That's a bit irresponsible, isn't it?"
GENERAL REINWALD: "I don't see why, they'll be properly supervised on the rifle range."
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: "Don't you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?"
GENERAL REINWALD: "I don't see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm. "
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: "But you're equipping them to become violent killers."
GENERAL REINWALD: "Well, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, are you? "Nice one!
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Diary of a
Chao Recruits 7 days field camp in Tekong
Day 4
260803 Tuesday (Sunny, drizzle)
Today we learnt the most important lesson of this field camp: Fire Control Order (FCO). It is what every soldier must know in time of war. The lecture teaches us how we must react if enemies ambush us. The one leading the group of soldiers play a big part in FCO. For he must give the correct commands to his men to retaliate. Incompetent leaders giving wrong commands will usually result in casualties. So FCO really can train all of us to develop our leadership and ability to carry out orders effectively.
After a few rounds of FCO practices in group and section level, we went back to our harbor area for lunch. Hebe was in bad shape. She was beginning to rust due to the rain these past few days. As we all know, rusty and dirty weapons will increase chances of IAs and malfunctions, so I spent some time cleaning her up.
Later that afternoon, before moving off to our next destination, BMTC SCH 1 RSM 1WO Raymond paid us a visit. He chitchatted with us on how he love the great outdoors and encourage us to keep up the spirit and do not feel so down. I really appreciated 1WO Raymond coming down personally to give all of us morale boasts. That is just what we all needed after all those tiring and tough training and the rain we are having the past few days really affected our morale.
After 1WO Raymond left, we packed up and prepared to move to our next campsite. This time we will be having a navigation exercise with the sergeants leading the section through the jungle and hills without any maps. The sergeants relied with the help of compasses and white ribbons tied on the various foliages to get his troops safely to base. Our Platoon Sergeant was leading my section. When we reach the temporally site, many other sections have already arrived. So much for our PSs navigation skills. Anyway, down here we were finally allowed to
cook! I was so thrilled! I have eaten any hot meals since the day I
left company line. We cooked magi mee and boiled coffee, it was a
hearty meal, million times better than the cold combat
ration.
At dusk, there was a night walk test that required us to make it to the next campsite without the use of touch lights and any instructors leading us. We form up in section level and trekked in total darkness. Although the sergeants will not be leading us, they will be situated at various checkpoints to ensure that we are on the right track. We can barely see each other than dense vegetation. Getting lost in the jungle was the last thing I want to think about. I was confident we would make it there safe and sound. True enough all of us make it there without any major difficulties. Tonight, we were not allowed to build tents anymore so we slept in the open. I prayed that it doesnt rain that night.
To be Continued...Edited by Gordonator 14 Apr `05, 7:27PM
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