Call me a sentimental fool but that was my favourite barrack song even though it wasn't on the radio at all. I still remember singing this song with Terence Choo (!) when he was strumming his guitar so I guess the unplugged version is the most apt.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
The end of the beginning
Shortly after we met our CM and got to know our squad mates and seniors a bit better, it was down to serious business.
Clearly Hassan had the right connections with the logistics people because we got hold of our uniforms pretty quickly, any thoughts of the wonderful efficiency of the SPF supply chain were quickly dispelled after we got our weekend shopping list. This involved buying loads of white long-sleeved shirts and singlets which I well couldn't afford! It was only after severe groveling at home that I managed to squeeze some money out of my folks for my trip to Beach Road. Thank goodness for Rabbit Brand singlets, cheap and very nasty.
We got our books for our law and police procedure lessons, we drew huge raincoats and put in orders for our law statutes (which we once again had to pay for!) and some enterprising FIs even tried to make money out of us to buy Asics running shoes (they were successful I might add).
With the admin stuff relatively settled, we began to face up to the need of electing a squad committee. Judging by the farcical nature of the squad committee of our seniors which had more leadership changes than a petty Central African banana republic, it was vital to elect a good committee.
Even though my name was briefly mentioned in passing, I was in the midst of my hard-assed don't mess with me stage so I stood as much of a chance of making the squad committee as Ralph Nader becoming the President of the USA. By this stage I was almost psychopathic as I had already hurled a truckload of abuse at JT when he attempted to get me to organise a squad barbeque and later attempted to tell me what a good job I was doing when I was trying to iron some crease out of my pants. I thought he got off quite lightly given I was tempted to hurl the iron at the said cretin, I'm glad to say he had no iron marks on any part of his body.
Ah yes, the cretin, what long running feud would not be complete without a cretin who had a far higher regard for his ability than everyone else. How he managed to get elected as vice chairman was beyond me, I remember scolding quite a few people who admitted they voted for him though I think they wouldn't admit to voting for him today.
Other luminaries deservedly elected included Aziz who impressed all and sundry with his facial hair and his on-ness. Asri also made it as vice chairman, so they'd have their hands full trying to manage the various miscreants in the squad.
Clearly Hassan had the right connections with the logistics people because we got hold of our uniforms pretty quickly, any thoughts of the wonderful efficiency of the SPF supply chain were quickly dispelled after we got our weekend shopping list. This involved buying loads of white long-sleeved shirts and singlets which I well couldn't afford! It was only after severe groveling at home that I managed to squeeze some money out of my folks for my trip to Beach Road. Thank goodness for Rabbit Brand singlets, cheap and very nasty.
We got our books for our law and police procedure lessons, we drew huge raincoats and put in orders for our law statutes (which we once again had to pay for!) and some enterprising FIs even tried to make money out of us to buy Asics running shoes (they were successful I might add).
With the admin stuff relatively settled, we began to face up to the need of electing a squad committee. Judging by the farcical nature of the squad committee of our seniors which had more leadership changes than a petty Central African banana republic, it was vital to elect a good committee.
Even though my name was briefly mentioned in passing, I was in the midst of my hard-assed don't mess with me stage so I stood as much of a chance of making the squad committee as Ralph Nader becoming the President of the USA. By this stage I was almost psychopathic as I had already hurled a truckload of abuse at JT when he attempted to get me to organise a squad barbeque and later attempted to tell me what a good job I was doing when I was trying to iron some crease out of my pants. I thought he got off quite lightly given I was tempted to hurl the iron at the said cretin, I'm glad to say he had no iron marks on any part of his body.
Ah yes, the cretin, what long running feud would not be complete without a cretin who had a far higher regard for his ability than everyone else. How he managed to get elected as vice chairman was beyond me, I remember scolding quite a few people who admitted they voted for him though I think they wouldn't admit to voting for him today.
Other luminaries deservedly elected included Aziz who impressed all and sundry with his facial hair and his on-ness. Asri also made it as vice chairman, so they'd have their hands full trying to manage the various miscreants in the squad.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
First Impressions Part II
I can't say I remember a huge deal about what transpired on the bus ride to the Police Academy which either means my memory is going or that nothing terribly significant happened on the bus. The only thing of note I suppose was Mark and I deciding to stick with familiarity and become buddies - a decision that worked out for the best in the end, though you will hear some of the domestic squabbles we used to have about the contents of our cupboard.
When we finally arrived at the barracks, it really was a far cry from SAFTI MI, for a start it was 30 in the top barrack and 12 in the middle barrack. I thank the highest heavens that Mark and I decided to move to the end of queue which meant we went to the middle barrack. Each pair were supposed to share a cupboard divided into 3 sections (hanging space, book and file space, personal space). It wasn't much but it was a price worth paying to get out of the SAF.
You can tell alot about a place through it's sanitary facilities. Judging by the 7 spouts that masqueraded as showers and the 4 cubicles to be shared by all 42 cadets didn't inspire much confidence, though going by the 'if it looks good you're not going to use it' theory, it looked like we'd be spending quite alot of time in the barracks!
The only catch about the middle barrack was that you had to share with the senior squad of OCTs. Ah yes, the senior squad it was quite interesting to see the dynamics in the squad, over the next few days we came to realise some of them hated each other because these individuals were more interested in becoming squad chairman than getting commissioned. Given the immense likelihood that the same thing would happen in my squad, I decided to set my stall out to be the most evil and foul tempered person in the squad so no one from my squad (or the senior squad for that matter) would take liberties with me.
Also at this stage, we realised that the food chain got a bit more complicated due to the appearance of our Course Manager (CM). My first impression of him was that I shouldn't mess with him too much and I felt that he wasn't a simple guy to deal with either. Well both would turn out to be true over the course of the next 9 months, more would be revealed later.
When we finally arrived at the barracks, it really was a far cry from SAFTI MI, for a start it was 30 in the top barrack and 12 in the middle barrack. I thank the highest heavens that Mark and I decided to move to the end of queue which meant we went to the middle barrack. Each pair were supposed to share a cupboard divided into 3 sections (hanging space, book and file space, personal space). It wasn't much but it was a price worth paying to get out of the SAF.
You can tell alot about a place through it's sanitary facilities. Judging by the 7 spouts that masqueraded as showers and the 4 cubicles to be shared by all 42 cadets didn't inspire much confidence, though going by the 'if it looks good you're not going to use it' theory, it looked like we'd be spending quite alot of time in the barracks!
The only catch about the middle barrack was that you had to share with the senior squad of OCTs. Ah yes, the senior squad it was quite interesting to see the dynamics in the squad, over the next few days we came to realise some of them hated each other because these individuals were more interested in becoming squad chairman than getting commissioned. Given the immense likelihood that the same thing would happen in my squad, I decided to set my stall out to be the most evil and foul tempered person in the squad so no one from my squad (or the senior squad for that matter) would take liberties with me.
Also at this stage, we realised that the food chain got a bit more complicated due to the appearance of our Course Manager (CM). My first impression of him was that I shouldn't mess with him too much and I felt that he wasn't a simple guy to deal with either. Well both would turn out to be true over the course of the next 9 months, more would be revealed later.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Friday, May 2, 2008
First Impressions
And so it came to pass, it was time for us to say goodbye to the Singapore Armed Forces and head off to the SPF. Of course, the SAF wasn't one to say goodbye in a warm cuddly manner, no hugs and kisses, no pat on the back and plaque, and certainly, no one told the Nee Soon people that we had to de-kit! So all of us rocket scientists left some of our army kit at home which was a dumb as dog shit thing to do, but oh well, that's all in hindsight.
After rushing like a mad man to go home to recover the last vestiges of my SAF kit, I stormed back to Nee Soon Camp in civilian and turned in all of my kit, helmet, SBO and all, but I had to pay money for the socks and swimming trunks I forgot all about. Well you'd think these items would be regarded as disposable, but not in the army!!
Of course, the other great revelation of the day was the 2 female soldiers working at the store were actually male! We swore for the longest time that they were female, and of course I'm sure Aziz was checking the Indian one during BMT. [A totally untrue remark I might add] The other great memory was Terence in a tank top and ripped jeans sauntering across the parade square which earned prompted to reflect on his bravery or lack of intelligence!
It was then that we met the Tekong people who looked alot less flustered than us, well it seems the message to de-kit got through to them. We also saw a couple of NS Inspectors who started shouting at us, we all though they'd be our PCs, but in truth, they were just a bunch of lowlifes from PNSD who just wanted to get off the bottom of the food chain by shouting at some lower ranked people.
Finally, we met the man, FI Hassan who for the next 9 months would be our instructor, mentor and tormentor at various junctures. He seemed a calm enough individual compared to those wankers from PNSD who faded away when Hassan took charge, and our Deputy Company Commander, Zakaria, a Staff Sergeant to boot! I remember thinking what type of warped organisation was this?!?
Then we boarded the big blue bus driven by our Deputy Company Commander (!) and it was off to the Police Academy at Thomson Road and out of Nee Soon Camp and soon the SAF was behind us.
I suppose it would be self-indulgent to reflect on my BMT experience, but damn it, I created this blog so I will do it anyway. I will say that I never enjoyed BMT in the least, but 10 years on, I still maintain it was an experience that I had to have. It taught me resilience and how to push myself past my self-imposed limits, it taught me never to take for granted the things that I have and it also gave me a smattering of self-confidence which I didn't really have up to that point. Of course it also taught me alot about other people and what they were like under pressure. Without this experience, I don't think I would be able to do many of the things that I have done and certainly all that training and discipline would come to good use in the days of training at the Police Academy, but that is for the next post.
After rushing like a mad man to go home to recover the last vestiges of my SAF kit, I stormed back to Nee Soon Camp in civilian and turned in all of my kit, helmet, SBO and all, but I had to pay money for the socks and swimming trunks I forgot all about. Well you'd think these items would be regarded as disposable, but not in the army!!
Of course, the other great revelation of the day was the 2 female soldiers working at the store were actually male! We swore for the longest time that they were female, and of course I'm sure Aziz was checking the Indian one during BMT. [A totally untrue remark I might add] The other great memory was Terence in a tank top and ripped jeans sauntering across the parade square which earned prompted to reflect on his bravery or lack of intelligence!
It was then that we met the Tekong people who looked alot less flustered than us, well it seems the message to de-kit got through to them. We also saw a couple of NS Inspectors who started shouting at us, we all though they'd be our PCs, but in truth, they were just a bunch of lowlifes from PNSD who just wanted to get off the bottom of the food chain by shouting at some lower ranked people.
Finally, we met the man, FI Hassan who for the next 9 months would be our instructor, mentor and tormentor at various junctures. He seemed a calm enough individual compared to those wankers from PNSD who faded away when Hassan took charge, and our Deputy Company Commander, Zakaria, a Staff Sergeant to boot! I remember thinking what type of warped organisation was this?!?
Then we boarded the big blue bus driven by our Deputy Company Commander (!) and it was off to the Police Academy at Thomson Road and out of Nee Soon Camp and soon the SAF was behind us.
I suppose it would be self-indulgent to reflect on my BMT experience, but damn it, I created this blog so I will do it anyway. I will say that I never enjoyed BMT in the least, but 10 years on, I still maintain it was an experience that I had to have. It taught me resilience and how to push myself past my self-imposed limits, it taught me never to take for granted the things that I have and it also gave me a smattering of self-confidence which I didn't really have up to that point. Of course it also taught me alot about other people and what they were like under pressure. Without this experience, I don't think I would be able to do many of the things that I have done and certainly all that training and discipline would come to good use in the days of training at the Police Academy, but that is for the next post.
The Initial Days Recollection
The posting from the SAF to the police force did not proceed smoothly. We all had to lots of push-ups & crunches as a parting gift. I remember dekitting & sauntering across the parade square. Why? Because that was the only time I could do it & get away with it. In any case, I was less than impressed with the NCOs in-charge of me. I suffered from that particular affliction of young Eurasians - hubris. I left BMT with several dozen confinements & innumerable extras. Until today, I love giving orders, hate taking them.
In any case, I had never heard of Police OCT before. It never occurred to me that there was a place where commissioned officers from the Police Force serving their NS came from. Now I was going to be one of them. Nevertheless, I was less than impressed when they introduced the bus driver as the Company Commander! (He was a staff sergeant)
I believe that Daryl, Aziz, Asri, Mark were the best of friends because we got along really well & we had mutual distaste for the ah-beng clique. You will hear more about these jokers & our misadventures later on.
In any case, we all thought that Tracom (SPF) was going to be a holiday camp. It was, but only for the JOs. Not us. They got up at 0800h; we were out for a several click run by 0630h. They swam laps in the pool; we were training for the Bronze Medallion. They did basic self-defense, we did full-contact sparring. You get the idea. Our FI, Hassan was crazy. But on hindsight, all that log PT, full-pack rundowns at the SOC & physical punishment paid off.
We had the most black belts, we had the highest number of IPPT Golds, the most number of Bronze Medallion swimmers, the most number of marksmen. The other squads hated us. They would scream when we were running, “Go back to the Army!” I think we thrived on hate.
The only time we legally got even was when we played games. We thrashed them in soccer & basically any game we played. Except rugby. I got ejected for punching an opponent. Daryl almost dislocated a knee. It was more Aussie Rules than touch rugby.
I would like to mention the Young Azman saga but that deserves a posting all of its own.
Terence Nunis
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