hah! i'm back from 2 weeks on Tekong!!! haha.. actually this is my 3rd time back on the mainland since in enlisted on 6th Dec. 1st time was when i was sent home due to fever. din do any posting as i was quite sian.. 2nd time was when i was given time off to go to NUH for body scan by DSO. many people have asked me, eh, Tekong life how? siong anot? my reply is ok la, got fun and got siong. why not you go try? haha..
the moment our parents were herded back to the mainland, we were herded from place to place to get our equipment and to check them. very sian. cos the duffel bag, field pack, big ST plastic bag and our own Civvy bag is very heavy. and somemore we are the obese batch one. not really used to carrying heavy loads. luckily all my clothes and boots, shoes fit. the measurements were accurate and i din gain much weight. from the time i was weighed in CMPB to the day i enlisted i gained abt 4kg.
its very easy to spot enlistees one.. carry many bags, cannot march properly and all got hair. haha.. had my head shaven at abt 7+pm. cost me $2 and it was not even la. got some part longer. !#@!%$#!^!% the auntie shave our hair like shaving sheep lidat.. whoa lao eh.
then we were sorted into our platoons and sections and told our bed and 4D no. mine is D3403. which stands for Dragon company, platoon 3, section 4, bed 03. everywhere we go we just say our 4D no when they ask for name. is very easy lidat. all our bags and bottles also got write the 4D no. in a company, different platoons got different colored tape for the bags so as to differentiate the different platoons.
in the army, 1 guy told me that its rush to wait and wait to rush. after 2 weeks on Tekong, i cannot agree more. give us 2 mins to fall in at the company line then we have to wait there for 15 mins for sergeant to count strength and water parade etc. so i think we spend more time waiting than doing things.
in the army, 1 or 2 guys can screw your day up. how? i got 2 examples.
1st example was when we were having a lecture by one of the warrant officers. everyone was quite sleepy and some of us even fell asleep. he was just talking normally to us. and there was this platoon 4, which was sitting right at the back of the lecture room. they were talking quite loudly. the volume was rising all the time. the enchek keep tell us to keep it down. but those idiots heck care him. finally he blew up and fuck us all. he pull those 2 idiots down in front and fuck them. then the whole company (abt 200 of us) kena shouted at and told to go down and knock it down. 2o push ups later we were told to go up to the bunks and change into smart 4 in 5 mins and fall in again. everyone curse and swear and rush up and change. i was still sick that time and i ended up quite breathless. very shag. needless to say after we went back to the lecture room everyone was sweating and quiet. you can hear a pin drop. those 2 idiots became marked in my company forever. no one really wants to have anything to do with platoon 4.
2nd incident was due to one guy in my platoon, platoon 3. that day after last parade we were allowed abt 1 and half hr of admin time (own time to call home or to shower). i was in the shower and about to finish when i heard people calling for this nicholas to heads out (means to stick his head out and listen to instruction). many people were shouting here and there. then when i went back to my bunk i heard that we were told to fall in in front of the company line in our admin attire in 2 mins. everyone was very confused. hurry up changed and rushed down.
when we fell in our platoon sergeant started fucking us upside down. scolded us for abt 10 plus mins. apparently this nicholas had drawn the annex room key and din return to the COS ( company orderly sergeant). he just passed it to another sergeant. my platoon sergeant couldn't find it and after abt 5 mins of calling for him to heads out got fed-up and fell in the whole platoon to fuck us.
after we were dismissed, most of us were very pissed as we had just bathed, some haven even bathe and had to fall in in our dirty admin clothes again. many people wanted to beat the nicholas up. the sergeants had to call the whole platoon to gather and sit down so that they could ascertain the whole incident and calm us down. the situation was really tense. the sergeants were nearly losing control of the situation. luckily some of us were calm enough and managed to cool the rest down b4 anything ugly happened.
nicholas said that he had returned the key very early in the evening and that it was not his fault. but the crux of the problem was that even though he was bathing, when he was called for, he should have stuck his head out. some of us were right in front of him yelling for him to heads out, and yet he flat ignored us. continued to shower. stupid right? and then he slowly walked back to his bunk to change. when everybody was screaming for him, he flat ignored us and caused abt 50 of us to have to fall in in dirty clothes. he had to apologize 3 times and even then the sergeants had to hang around for 5 - 10 mins to make sure no one beat the hell out of him.
i myself was quite pissed but din want to beat him as i din want to go DB (detention barracks). i din even change. just went to sleep in my dirty admin attire. after all, wad's the point in changing back to clean clothes when you are sticky and sweaty again? asshole.
from then on, i've heard rumbles and whispers abt how this nicholas is very selfish and slow and that he's going to drag us all down one fine day. i think its true la.. judging from his attitude and way he do things, its apparent that he's trying to hang on to his civillian way of life. slow, pampered and selfish. which is what the army trys to dispel from the 1st day. its really up to him la, but he will surely suffer both at our hands (his platoon mates) and at the sergeants' hands if he still doesn't wake up his idea.
the army is not really a conducive place for people to fall sick in. they put you on status ( excuse or attend B) and dun allow you to take part in activities like PT, ET or any form of siong activity. but they dun account for the fact that when you are sick, you take medication which makes you sleepy and you really need more than 7 hrs of sleep to recover. so for the whole day you will be fighting sleep, trying to participate (eye power) and following the rest of the company around and changing into wadever attire that everyone is in. its really tough to fall sick in the army, despite wad those chao keng people might say.
you know, many times i've asked myself wad the fuck am i doing here in Tekong doing this bloody pt in this stupid stinky pt vest. i din have the answer. i only found the answer when i 1st booked out due to my fever. it dawned on me fully these few days when i came home and saw everything that i used to take for granted. the air-con SBS buses, the shopping centers, kopitiams, shops, HDB flats and all the Civilians going abt their own business.
it dawned on me that wad i or we were doing in Tekong and all the other army, navy or air force camps was to ensure that life as we know it could be allowed to go on. so that the uncle can wear his singlet and take the lift down every morning to buy kopi and have breakfast, so that the boys and girls can go dating and holding hands in Orchard Road.
this might sound like bull shit but i really believe that if no one served, we would be at the mercy of the big countries surrounding us. they would, at their own whim cross over into Singapore anytime to take anything, do wadever they wished and we would be powerless to stop them because we have nothing to stop them with. the police can only do so much with their pistols and MP5 sub-machine guns. as such, i tell myself that i'm helping to ensure that the Singaporean way of life can go on when the going gets tough or when we have to do shit. this sorts of gives me the motivation to push on.
during the morninig 5BX runs, we can see the Changi Airport Control Tower from the track. when ever i see it, i think of home. and that wad i'm doing here in Tekong allows the control tower to stand tall and straight. whenever the planes that take off from Changi overflies Tekong, i tell myself that wad i'm doing allows the planes to take off safely from Changi. this might sound like hero stuff but i guess this is what keeps me going on. everyone has to have his own motivation and i draw mine from the physical things that remind me of home.
there are many things that i can write abt life in Tekong, in my bunk and the sort of shit that we do together. many are fun, many are the type that only army boys experience yet they are the type of memories that we will cherish when we pass out from BMT.
the types of people you see, the way they speak, they way curse, scold vulgarities, all these make up our BMT life. even the sergeants are unique in their own way. some are quiet by nature, some more out going. but all of them can curse and swear and fuck us upside down in the blink of an eye. CHAO CHEE BYE, FUCK YOU, KAN NI NA, FUCKING HELL, BLOODY HELL, NA BEI, are some of the most commonly heard terms in my company. many of them commonly uttered by us no less.
but i suppose that is wad bonds us. cos everyone is going through the same shit, doing the same thing and everyone misses home and our civilian way of life.
there's this song...
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED
WHY MUST WE SERVE?
BECAUSE WE LOVE OUR LAND
AND WE WANT IT TO BE FREE, TO BE FREE YA!
our own version...
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED
WHY MUST WE SERVE?
BECAUSE WE HAVE NO CHOICE
SO WE LAN LAN HAVE TO SERVE, HAVE TO SERVE YA!
see the diff? haha.. now i'm abit sian of typing le..
come myths i'ld like to dispel abt Tekong.
1) its a holiday chalet.
right. only if you are a officer or a civilian visiting the island. other than that, it only looks like a chalet cos the buildings are 'relatively' modern and got some colours. that's all. nothing abut the lifestyle or food screams CHALET!!!
2) got washing machines
yeah. again only if you are a officer or sergeant. recruits all have to suck thumb and hand wash the clothes which takes 3 days to dry (if you are lucky). that's why most of us wear our clothes for up to 1 week.
3) the food is great!!!
yea. if you have live on scrapes all your life then its great. for most of used used to hawker fare, its nothing like you have every tasted. i guess the No 1 reason it sucks is because you have no control over wad you eat. cook house serve wad you eat wad. want smaller or larger portion can.. just open your mouth lor. if you want something else must go canteen, which only during canteen breaks can go (seldom happens or is very short one).
4) officers are great, sergeants are fun.
yea. when they are not fucking you or pumping you. even the bloody clark or private posted there treats you like dirt. all the medics talk to us like we are criminals lidat. everyone there is bigger than us. so all the recruits in Tekong just suck thumb and suck it in.
5) the bunks are great.
yea.. if you dun need to sweep the floor, keep the mosquito net, pull the bed sheets real tight and wash the toilet. yours sincerely is the toilet cleaner/ toilet 2 IC. means i have to wash the toilet up to 3 times a day if there's inspection or stand by area. #@$%#!$@^!#@ those idiots. think is maria wash for them. anyhow shit, pee and do their business. toilet paper drop on the floor let it be. then i and 4 others have to wash and mop the toilet everyday. fucking hell.
i got more things to rant abt.. just cannot remember.. will post more in the days to come. i'm going back on the 25th evening.. oh yea 1 more thing. i lost 2.2 Kg in 2 weeks since i enlisted. =D
