Go Back to Army lah!

Many of the seniors warned us that everyone would hate us, I think this was one of the few very useful things that they taught us. Well the other being that no matter how bad it got, all the nonsense would end by 1730hrs.

Initially, I scoffed at that suggestion, would everyone hate us? No way..... or so I thought. Two days, it was all true! Apart from a few senior instructors such as Sri Kanthan, Hassan, Firdaus, Zakaria and some younger ones such as Gus Miao and Clifton; EVERYONE, the JO trainees, regular or NSF; the NSF instructors; the younger regular instructors all set out to try to get us during the first few weeks. Everyone was out to get the fresh meat on the chopping block, all rubbing their hands in glee, "yeah man, let's see how tough these guys are"

In the first 2 weeks every single lesson took on a hellish routine of tekan after tekan after tekan. From the drill shed to the pool to the dojo, it was all a series of tests to see how tough these former army boys were. I still remember FI Liew making us do the step up and down on the stands in the drill shed for a supremely long time. I found it tough, goodness knows what the JO trainees who were caught in the crossfire during the session made of it. Without wanting to sound too cliched, thank goodness the army training came through for us and so we prevailed somehow or other.

Certain instructors like Liew were just out to get us and out of training they tried to get us at the mess when we went for lunch or dinner, or when we were walking out, a stray strand of facial hair or a minute amount of dirt on the boots was enough to get us despatched to the barracks. They even tried the barracks but they were quite scared of treading on Hassan's toes and so eventually the barracks became quite a safe haven from the other instructors but we could expect Hassan to appear at any time of the work day and even in the evenings at a time that we least expected. But from keeping us away from the innane rubbish from the instructors he might as well have been the messiah to some of us. Later on of course, Yusman and Young Azman tried their luck, uh, well that's for another post on its own of course.

The other hazard was the abuse directed as us from the JO trainees, most of it wasn't terribly intelligent or witty like Terence mentioned in the early post, "OCT go back to army la" or just plain abuse. Of course eventually we sorted them out in one way or another, whether it was at the mess when we were on mess duty and we returned the favour by dispatching them back to their barracks for poor bearing and turn out or just by thrashing them on the sports field.

Eventually, we all got numb to the abuse and the other instructors mainly stopped trying their luck. Of course there was the odd incident here and there, but things got quite bearable by the end of the second month.

Musings of the Chairman

I finally got my own google email account. How sweet is that? Ahem, anyway, let's get down to some serious blogging business. Can I have law & order please? This is the chairman of OCT 3&4 speaking. Well folks, this pretty much sums up my experience as the squad chairman. It was nothing less than a debacle, I have to say. After being elected (aka sabo-ed) as the honorable chairman, I was ready to take on my new role with pride on honor. Oh boy, did my pride and honor last. NOT!

It was chaos trying to manage 42 future leaders of the SPF who had raging hormones tipping the scales. Maybe the word chaos is too subtle. But I have to thank my lucky stars that FI Hassan (you guys mentioned him yet?) had the squad under complete control. At this juncture, I have to stress on the word ‘complete’ because for all his ninja and wayang antics, he did an excellent job of managing 42 bright and promising but recalcitrant individuals. Well, some had their own agenda for their nine months tenure. But I couldn’t care less. By the way, did I also mention that this FI of ours was one helluva master of camo. He could just blend into the greens that our good ol PA had to offer and make his appearance when we were least expecting it. No wonder he was notoriously known as the Ninja among the cadets. (btw, FI Hassan doesn’t know that we had a nickname for him)

Initial stage was quite a terrifying experience. When I meant terrifying, I was actually referring to the food. In the army, even though ‘tekan’ sessions took place every other minute, there was something to look forward to. The food! All hail the Singapore Food Industry for cooking up great meals day after day. When the first meal was served in PA, we were thinking to ourselves that we were better off with the SAF despite the frequent jumping jacks and thousands of push ups that accompanied every meal. The all time “Favorite” in PA was the fish delight. (I could swear that the gills of the fish moved at one point while it was lying on my mesh tray)

I was wondering to myself, food sucks, can my fellow cadets be any better? How wrong I was! On the contrary, these are same bunch of guys who I managed to clique with for the next nine months of our stay in police academy. In case I have not, in alphabetical order, let me introduce you to the famous five. Asri, Daryl, Mark, Terence (or is it Nunis) and finally yours truly, the chairman of the board. Aziz is the name.

For all the screw ups and subsequent push ups that we were subjected to, we had our fair share of fun and camaraderie. I have to say that it was one good memorable experience. I couldn’t believe my arse luck when I was not selected for OCS ten years ago. But now, in retrospect I am still thanking my lucky stars that I was selected to be and officer cadet with the SPF. Because not only it taught me criminal law, but it also taught me the law of friendship. To eat, sleep and shit with the same bunch of guys for nine months is no easy feat. I guess all of us passed that test with flying colors. We deserve a pat on our backs and some hot coffee. Pervert seats, anyone?

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.

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.