My platoon before heading to Brunei
This post is actually way overdue because I finished my service at the start of this month, and then I just had a lack in any form of scheduling for my posts, so I ended up pushing this all the way till now so that I won't clutter the blog.

You probably forgot this post, but this is a continuation of that. Basically, I'm going to list down some memories that I'll remember for the second half of my army conscription period.

Calling my friends ugly
Surrounded by people who give very low insults, such as Jaryl, who always play the mother card, and... It's mostly Jaryl, actually, but others followed suit. Anyway, surrounded by people who give very low insults, I had to find ways to sink lower so that I can deliver lower blows, so I started calling my friends ugly. It's a pretty common thing, I believe.

The "Special Friend" song
One of the few things I'll miss are those days when we end early (most of the time) and just talked cock in bunk. There was once when we started talking about Steven Lim and started watching weird videos and somehow it led to watching this:


Enough said.

Auntie
Most of the time, some of us (usually me) would be craving supper and there is this really "on" auntie who went to sell food in the camp every night without fail. This is one of my favourite memories.

There was once when Gabriel, one of my platoon mate, helped us buy. So we gave him our orders and one of us, Lai, gave him an order that was something like "$3 maggi only mayo spam a lot". What all of us understood he meant was "$3 set, maggi, only mayo - spam a lot", but what Gabriel understood was "$3 maggi only, mayo spam a lot", so when he brought back a packet containing super a lot of maggi without anything else inside, topped with one fucking thick layer of mayo, we were all pretty speechless for a while.

A lot of parades
I believe this doesn't really need elaboration.

Speech Impediments
Being in the army kind of means always finding ways to boost your ego by finding faults with others. At least sometimes that's how it feels. So, it's hard not to notice when annoying commanders can't speak properly. It's also hard not to give knowing glances to one another after a not-annoying commander says something like "after you put on your camo, I don't want to be able to see your fresh." The moment that commander said "fresh", a number of us repeated "fresh" by reflex.

Bitching, bitching, bitching
I won't say I'm a very professional specialist. In fact, my platoon's style is to get personal and try to erase the line between commanders and troopers as much as we could. So, I can remember a lot of bitching sessions with my troopers, be it my detachment or my temporary details. But all's well. We all bitch about one another.

"Running your own army"
This is my sergeant major's favourite criticism towards one of my platoon mates, Hon Chin. He tends to overwrite everyone and overwrite any rules and just does his own thing. Towards the end of our service, it got pretty extreme so my sergeant major started being extra strict with him. From then on, Hon Chin would never go one day without saying "I'm running my own army".

The number one priority
When the sentence "SAFETY IS OUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY" flashed on the screen during one of the briefings, Jasper, the detachment commander of my detachment, and I couldn't help but turn it into a cheer thing.

In the army, regulars always like these cheers. There would be sergeant majors who go to their company, shouting, "Train to fight..." and then the entire company would have to shout "Fight to win!"

So, we decided that for our detachment, it would be...
Us: "What's our number one priority?!!!"
Them: "SAFETY!!!"

My Detachment
My Command Team
I would say each detachment's commanders have certain characteristics. Hon Chin and Udaiya are pretty serious when it comes to training; Lai and Clement are pretty chill and can't be bothered most of the time; Jasper and I are rather bitchy; Kok Pin (he's the only commander in his detachment) is kind of upz. Then there are Kent, the dictator-ish guy, Jaryl, the pushover-ish guy, and Gabriel, who was on MC most of the time because of some surgery.

It's all pretty good memories combined with lots of things I won't want to do again.

In the morning of the day when I returned to camp to collect my pink IC, I was pretty excited, although it's just a card. My OC returned us a piece of paper with our leadership goals which he made us write at the beginning, together with the certificate and the testimonial.

I wrote that I wanted to allow self-expression and have the troopers feel the pride of being mortar operators; I would say I've done what I can to achieve that. Before I was about to leave the army, there were moments when I pondered on what a shitty commander I had been, but then I remembered all the things I've done that many others wouldn't have done before, and I realise I'm actually not that bad.

When I was in basic training, the prospect of going into the forest and living there despite rain, mud, and fatigue, was so daunting that I spent my entire MC dreading. One year later, I was trudging up and down a forested hill in the middle of the night when it was pouring, guiding troopers out when they got injured and stuff. There was no time to be afraid of getting lost; it was a lot of pressure. But I did it. I landed almost knee-deep into a mud-filled shell scrape in the process.

When I was teaching tuition before army, I would lose my patience at that one kid who refused to focus. Granted, I have more power in the army, but I managed to talk through most stuff with the troopers. The only times I shouted or resorted to punishments were intentional, when I was trying to set myself up as a no-nonsense sergeant. Joke.

All in all, army was alright. I survived. I'm a happier person now that army is over, but I guess army did change me in some positive ways.

Labels: NS, reflection, reliving those days