Posting Day - The Tekong Version

For us at Tekong it was not much different. I received a call from my Sgt saying I will be posted to the Police Force and to report in civvie and bring all my barang-barang to dekit. The ignorant me, never heard of OCT before, and so I asked my Sgt what we'd be doing the there? Either he said the following due to jealousy or just plain last ditch psychological torture before I escape from his grasp, he said, "You will join the VC squad and carry pump gun and jaga the station as sentry." And maybe just to add some truth into it,"But you will get to wear white shirt, more special than everyone else."

I had ambitions to go OCS, as much as it scared me, so this piece of news did not make me happy one bit. So I dragged my demoralised self to Nee Soon and when I saw my other platoon mates in Army full-u, I was still clueless of my fate till some mates threw friendly curses (you know what I mean), "Eh c*bye.. you lucky bugger! Power man!". That kind of friendly curses. And some gave me the evil eye, and some just said I was one lucky fellow. I joined the rest of the civvy clad mates and only then I found out the good news! I dekitted with a big smile even though I had to empty my wallet to replace the socks I lost, the towel I forgot to bring and some other stuff.

We were told to come back a few days later to go to PA (Police Academy). So thats how I got into OCT.

Reliving back, I enjoyed Army life. As hard as the training was, the conflicts, the arguments, the punishing exercises, somehow I looked forward to each book-in day. I really enjoyed the camaraderie!