29th 10 Years On

Everytime one of us goes back for ICT or drops by TRACOM / HTA, the old timers would always say that we were the best batch to ever pass out for the longest time.  Looking back, our squad accomplished many, many things.  Maybe it's because almost all of us were ambitious in our way.  Some of us hated each other.  Remember this guy LTW?  Daryl used to call him LT Fucking W - LTFW.  He was amongst the most incompetent of us.  But he got posted to MHA.  Someone in the government valued him when we knew better.  Try dragging his 140kg kayak all the way to the Southern Islands when he wasn't paddling & see how much you remember the guy a decade later.

In the end, how many of us actually signed on in the service?  Daryl went to PID, Teck Leong is probably a Director now.  But the rest left.  Frankly, there was no career path for us.  But many years later, Recruitment wants us to come back when all the rats are jumping ship.  You know things are bad when Old Walrus himself prefers to shape lives as a teacher rather than ferreting out the little weasels and sending their arses to jail.

So where did it all go wrong?  For me, it went wrong at the interview for posting when the lard bucket virtually admitted that he interviewed us because he didn't want to be seen as discriminatory but he preferred someone who could speak Mandarin.  I don't think it should be our problem if after at least 10 years of formal education, he could barely be comfortable in English & preferred a Chinese successor.  Definitely not Singapore government policy.  Merely the fear of the different.

Maybe the 29th Batch should get together after all these years and actually try & do something together.  I believe that we should all try to build a legacy.  We're on the wrong side of 30. Soon we'll be on the wrong side of 40.  I'm not content with remembering our accomplishments with rose-tinted glasses.  We were better than the rest because we tried harder when they were all content to sit on their asses.

One by one, all the familiar faces we knew in the Force are leaving.  It is the process of renewal.  But perhaps it is my entrenched cynicism when I see that the new hardly fills the shoes of the old.  Maybe Singaporeans in general are getting soft.  All of my siblings are in the military of the force.  It says something that the backpacks have wheels, regardless of whether they use it or not.  It is a statement of intent, inadvertent or not.  But anyway, I'll build on this theme when I can.

Solo Nights

hello hello... wow Asri that was some post! The memories that it jolted to life must now be recorded. For the uninitiated of course, solo night was preceded by the round Ubin kayaking expedition. Not a particularly big deal on the big scheme of things, well at least it was a squad level initiative and I was partnered by Boon so it meant getting away from the goons for a while. Despite his small frame and all, Boon was one excellent kayaker. He kept us both on track with his nifty use of the rudder and was able to give me all sorts of good advice and encouragement during the round Singapore expedition. Kudos to you Boon!

Anyway, if you bear with me, this was the highlight of the round Ubin kayak. We had finished the expedition and were all at the ramp leading to OBS waiting to get our kayaks on shore. Boon and I were getting a little impatient so we decided to make a dash for the ramp in our kayak despite a boat coming past and so we paddled quickly to the ramp, taking one last check, we felt that we had enough time between getting the kayak up the ramp before the inevitable backwash from the boat. Unfortunately for us though, the backwash won the race and it hit the kayak, the kayak hit me and I went over the ramp wall (which was underwater) and went head first into the water, I felt a bit of pain on my right shin but thinking it wasn't a big deal, I managed to get to the surface and proceeded to be run down by Mark and Asri's kayak. Once again struggling to the surface I managed to get back onto the ramp and hauled the kayak up the ramp with Boon and then I felt more pain in my right shin. Lo and behold! A small 1cm by 1cm chunk in my right shin was missing! I cut myself on a barnacle. I told Boon, "Check this out man, I gotta go to the sick bay!" The nurse was hardly brimming with sympathy and told me I didn't need stitches, patched it up and unceremoniously booted me out the door.

The dressing had to stay on for a few days and I had to keep it clean. So it meant skipping the running that day. I was a little worried for it during solo night. And so it came, I decided to smuggle my handphone out with me despite being single at the time. I thought it'd be good to catch up with home whilst I was out in the woods. So we were all given our rations and equipment for solo night, the groundsheets for the basha, comms cord, food, solid fuel and we had to pack our stuff into zip lock bags. Anyway, during the issuing process I decided to zip off to the toilet and I told Aziz, "Get one set of whatever is issued for me, need to go to the toilet!" I returned and the process was complete. The instructors warned us not to mix around as it was solo and we needed to reflect on our time at OBS and were given a letter to write to ourselves. Then off we went!

The instructors dropped us off at different points in the woods and I was dropped off at a clear and relatively flat spot overlooking an altar of some sort (I never went to check out the altar and had no intentions of offending the local spirits). I looked around and saw that around my spot was surrounded by high ground on three sides and I had a feeling I would be in trouble if it rained.

I decided to set up my basha quickly just in case and lo and behold, there was no comms cord to tie the basha! I sat down for a few minutes thinking about what I was going to do to Aziz when we got back, uh actually if... but then I decided to bin the no contact with others rule and ran up to the next site and found Vincent there. Thank goodness he had spare comms cord and was willing to share with me. So I set up my basha and lay down to rest. Then it happened, the rain pissed down for hours and my basha was flooded from the water gushing down the high ground which had become a waterfall. My clothes were sodden, my food bag was getting wet and the solid fuel was also wet, I managed to save a block but the rest were gone. After the rain stopped, I looked at the damage, I had to survive on a loaf of bread, some kaya and some biscuits plus I had one chance of a hot meal - instant noodles.

Going by the good old survival maxim of eat the hot food while you can, I set up my semi-dry solid fuel block to start and fire. There wasn't much of a flame and I decided to help things along by tossing the envelope and the paper for the letter into the fire. But the fuel was too wet and I only managed to get a fire for long enough to partially cook my noodles. I ate it, and it was disgusting. 

My first night was relatively unexciting compared to Asri's experience and I managed to sleep through somehow. I awoke the next morning and realised that my dressing from the wound had come off, deciding not to hang around, I decided to head back to OBS to get some attention. Of course, I was unceremoniously booted out by the nurse and was given one hell of a talking to for breaking the rules by one of the instructors. Rather pertinently or so I thought I remarked "That's fine with the rules and all but what about the dressing for my wound?" They remarked that they'd patch it up later. Round about 4pm to be exact!

The only other event of note was how I managed to scare the living crap out of myself by venturing out of the basha to relieve myself late at night. I had tried to avoid it for the longest time, but summoning up the guts I ventured to what I thought was my designated pissing tree and I noticed dark black shape at my feet, I jumped about 4 feet into the air and shining my L torch at it, it was my rubbish bag! Damn it! Wrong tree, this was the tree where I had placed my rubbish bag!

The next day, the sorry exercise was over and we trooped back for the debrief, they asked me, "Daryl where's your letter?", I had one of those Arnie moments and I told them "I burnt it" and I walked off. 

Mark-guyver

The 21-day OBS Course is supposed to teach us to live on just basic necessities, without the luxury of electronic conveniences/distractions and that everyone is given an equal share of survival materials/food.

So during the first few hours of arriving, the instructors asked us to voluntarily give up our handphones, pagers, chocolate bars, tidbits, snacks and any other "contraband" before they do a check. And if you were caught with any contraband, a suitable punishment or fine would be meted out to the person or the whole team.

Well most of us gave up some things and hid others. There were a few exceptional souls who said they gave up every contraband they had, but I didn't. I hid the nylon cord, swiss-army knife, a few chocolate bars and surrendered the other half of my chocolate bars and all my potato chips. I took it that if the SAS trainees can hide rolled notes/money up their a**es, smuggled chocolate bars and even an FM radio to overcome the Brecon Beacons, I would keep some stuff too which would help keep me sane from the boredom and discomfort to come. Of course OBS is nothing compared to SAS training, but to rationalise, we were trained to be a thinking soldier and the number one rule I learnt in BMT was "You can do anything you want, as long as you don't get caught". You can add any other caveat or exceptions you want to that as per your moral or ethical reasonings, but that was the basic rule.

Mark smuggled in his handphone and playing cards. On arriving at the bunk, Mark immediately tried to make a call back home. But as coverage on the island is pretty bad, his Sony Ericsson, which at that time was one of the latest model, can only manage a faltering one or two bars out of 5, even when he risks falling out the window by leaning out so far. Those days most handphones had an extendable antenna, or the newer ones only had a short antenna stub, which the latter was what Mark's phone had. He tried to make a call but I think the call quality was pretty bad and he got also got disconnected. And I guess the saying is really true that "Necessity is the mother of all inventions" and that "Distance makes the heart grow fonder, and I sure as hell want to hear my girlfriend's voice while the battery lasts cos I'll be stuck with 36 males for the next 3 bloody weeks". Techie Mark might have planned it all along, cos he brought a few clothes hangers, but not the normal plastic ones. He got the flexible metal wire hangers.

What he did next was either a stroke of genius or just dumb luck. He unscrewed the short 1 inch antenna stub from his phone, untwirled the metal hanger, so that it was just a long piece of wire, but which still retained its triangular shape, stripped off some of the plastic sleeving on one end of the wire, and stuck that end into the phone's antenna recess. And lo and behold, if he held the new "antenna" just right he can now get three to four bars out of 5!

Thats like 60-80% signal strength and just enough to maintain a decent quality call. From far someone might think you have a clothes hanger impaled into your skull, but who cares about looks when you can croon sweet words with your girlfriend to soothe your sagging morale.

That was just one of the innovations that Mark devised during the 21-days. The next innovation was during the solo night and it involves a humble stick. To cut the long story short, solo night for us was actually foursome night around the campfire at Mark's campsite, cos he had stashed a large pile of dry leaves under his tarpaulin. So after a long rainy day, we made our way to Mark's camp after dark and when we knew the intructors would not be back for their inspection round for the next few hours. What greeted us was a nice cosy fire, Mark sitting beside it and he was drying his wet underwear and socks over the fire by putting them at the end of a sitck. He had found a nice foot long stick with a forked end, so it was great to spread the socks and underwear a bit for it to dry faster over the fire.

So, soon we were feeling hungry and we opened up a can of sardine and hot dogs. Some of us poked a stick through the bread to toast it over the fire before putting the meaty stuff in it. Mark using his useful stick took a piece of bread put it flat on the forked end of the stick and toasted it over the fire. It was the very same stick which just a few seconds ago had a piece of soggy sock hanging over it. Well we were too hungry to lose our appetite and continued eating, but still I'm sure a few stomachs turned after seeing how useful Mark's stick was. Bleargh.....

Sailing into Troubled Waters

I suppose we all have 20/20 vision in hindsight, but I suppose the wheels that were starting to come loose during the land expedition came flying off spectacularly during the sailing expedition. I suppose I came to realise what must have been running through the minds of the men on the HMS Bounty as they prepared to cast Captain Bligh off in his boat into the Pacific Ocean or any of the infamous mutinies of the 1800s for that matter.

I wasn't best pleased at the prospect of attempting to sail a miserable little cutter replete with a sail and all around the windswept reaches of northern Singapore. Those of you in the know of course would realise that there isn't a single gust of wind anywhere up there. I think the memories are so severe that I've somehow managed to block off all other memories except the acts of idiocy by my team mates.

Somehow despite the disputes between team members, we somehow managed to get our collective acts together and load stores into the cutter and to use a sailing term, barely managed to get underway. We were co-expeditioning with Sang Nila Utama (this refers to the watch that Asri and Mark were in and not the dude who saw the lion or more correctly Sri Tri Buana/Parameswara). The in-fighting started right from the beginning and then the weather closed in so we turned on the motor and chugged our way VERY slowly to the resort island of Pulau Sajahat just off Pulau Tekong for a long night being scared out our wits in the creepy Pre WW2 British Army building on the island. It was cold, wet and all rather scary.

Of course somehow the demons only showed up on the boat the next day. Our destination was Pulau Seletar which was to our west and so off we went. The sun was out and the wind had gone on holiday, so it was us versus the sea and soon it was us versus us. We had to row and the person who was the skipper had to give the command to dip the oars "Dip!" and the others who were manning the oars would dip the oars into the water and pull and shout in return "Pull". Not being old sea dogs like Terence, we hadn't a clue how to proceed and so Aziz being the squad chairman took the poisoned chalice. "Dip!" "Pull!" and so it went on for all of 4 minutes after which the luminaries in the watch started to whine about Aziz and start to tell him what a crap job he was doing as skipper. Then I saw and heard something for the first time and have never seen since. Aziz, the epitome of calm and even nature lost his cool and started swearing at Gorbs, Ken, Leon. Phyllis our instructor was so stunned she didn't know what to say.

I think I managed to slip in the cool down bro talk to Aziz and so we got underway again. Aziz passed the chalice to me and the others kept bagging me for not rowing as hard as they were so I had a stint as skipper. It took only two seconds for the murmurs to start and 1 minute later it was a full blown mutiny as Gorbs and Ken plus almost everyone else except Aziz, Boon and Fauzi started making lots of noise about how useless I was. So I lost the plot and had a showdown with some of them and told them if they were so unhappy they could all swim back. I can't remember who backed down first but eventually Boon took the helm for the next few hours and things eventually settled down. It's quite telling when you realise who didn't take the helm at all at any point.

Somehow or other we struggled to Pulau Seletar someway behind Nila Utama and so we got off and settled down for the evening. Needless to say we couldn't even agree on the dinner menu and so the bitching went on and on and on.... But for me of course, the highlight of the stint at Pulau Seletar was Terence coming to the realisation that shit floats, but that of course is another story all together.

After enduring a night of very loud noises from the resident crows on the island, we finally could start rowing back to Ubin or so I thought. We were proceeding along rather nicely even though the in-fighting continued and then some bright spark, i.e. Ken or Gorbs decided it was going to be a good idea to put up the sail and start sailing despite the wind being strong enough to blow a feather all of 2mm. So Aziz and I were once again out voted, mind you, we weren't even consulted and so as Nila Utama paddled off into the yonder we struggled for the next 20 minutes to put up the damned sail and after all that was said and done, there wasn't a gust of wind anywhere, and we were becalmed. I was highly annoyed at all this but by this time I didn't say a word. Then the morons started to turn on each other and they finally pulled their fingers out and decided to paddle and paddle we did. 

By the time we got back, Nila Utama had already unpacked their stuff and showered and were waiting for us.  I can remember how many swear words I managed to say in one breathwhen Asri, Mark and Terence, all showered and rested asked me as I struggled up the path to the bunk with all the debris from the trip, "What took you so long man?"

Till next time folks...

Mr Gorbs I presume?

We started off ok I suppose, but in the back of my mind, I had no idea how I was going to get along in a group with a bunch of guys that I hardly spoke to with the exception of Aziz, Fauzi and Boon. And yes, I was none too fond of any of the others too.

I suppose I wasn't overly surprised by the conduct of a few members of the group as Indian chief syndrome set in, but Gorby's performance took the cake for unexpected behaviour!

We always thought of him as the 42nd cadet who showed up on the second day of training after escaping the evil clutches of SISPEC. He was always quite a low-key character around the barracks. He never really took part in the banter around the lower barrack and was always polishing his boots. He smiled and laughed occasionally and was quite a pleasant chap. He didn't do particularly well in training either, (I was no hotshot either but I sure could hold my own in PT, swimming, academic stuff and the police training, though the less said about TKD the better!) I still remember Nunis and someone else having to literally drag his backside over the finish line in some 2 x 2.4 challenge.

Then again, being stuck in some corner of Pulau Ubin tends to bring the worst out in people or perhaps to expose their real selves. Of course we should have smelt a rat on the first day when we chose our bunks, Aziz, Boon, Fauzi and I dived into a smaller room in our barrack as opposed to hanging out with the others but oddly enough he didn't join us. Next thing you know he's joined the creeps and started telling us all what to do and that really started to piss me off considering his previous status during junior term. By the second week he was openly critical of Aziz and I and was generally insufferable. He was always questioning the rationale of our actions when we were in charge I thought this was quite rich coming from him. By then I was not going to have anything to do with him as far as possible. I don't recall speaking to him again for the rest of our training stint when we got back, not that he ever hung around the lower barracks too again much after OBS except to sleep.

What makes someone change so much? Was it the environment that brought out the inner demon or was it just the real him? I really don't know, though I do know he ended up being called the Malay equivalent for backside for the rest of senior term!

Another Barrack Song

hello,

Will be adding to the OBS posts soon, but here's a favourite from the barracks! Last Kiss by Pearl Jam

OBS - The Daryl Version

Wow, since Asri has started the ball rolling, I shall continue! Well it's kind of jumping the gun since we were talking about the early days still, but anyway, Asri is the deputy squad chairman and this is our blog so who gives a stuff about chronology!

For me, OBS was a seminal event, it changed me in more ways than I care to admit, in fact I totally hated OBS, I felt that it was going to be the biggest and toughest waste of time in my life in that period of time. It was only further down the road that I realised how much good it was for me, it taught me that I could go beyond my self-imposed limits and it also taught me about people and how they would react under duress and what comes to the surface in such times. Most of all however, it really convinced me that Aziz, Asri, Terence and Mark were the people I could depend on in a backs to the wall situation and hence it really solidified our friendship.

Aziz and I were plonked in a group called Nehru. Since Mr Nehru was one of the pioneers of the Non-Aligned Movement, I guess it was always going to lead to the most factionalised and divded of all the 3 groups (they called groups watches at OBS I think) and it really led to alot of conflict and many people not talking to each other (uh actually, people not talking to me) once OBS was over. Anyway, the other group was called Elizabeth after Elizabeth Choy the great war heroine, of course that was to lead to some rather weak and cowardly behaviour by a less distinguished ah beng in our squad, we shall come to that in due course!

I don't know who gave input in the groupings but CM and FI sure tried to break up the squad cliques! But I thank the high heavens that Aziz was with me in Nehru, because he and Boon were probably the only people I could really count on when the chips were down and that Aziz was a source of sanity as he was probably the only one I could really talk to and plus Aziz had a tremendous supply of smuggled Oreos!

But yes, the rest of the watch were a collection of people from the other cliques in the squad and we just could not get along. In the end it all fell apart after the sailing expedition when we gave up all semblance of pretending to get along. OBS just had a way of bringing out the inner a**hole in many of them especially Gorby (pseudonym, we all know who he is!) I daresay I never talked to him after OBS despite the fact that we shared the same barrack.

I dreaded the day OBS came about, but it happened soon enough, the moment senior term came around, we were off to OBS. I vaguely recall having to do alot of shopping to get ready for the trip like buying a pair of boots just for the sailing and kayaking expeditions.

Despite all the information that we gleaned from the Seniors, I really did not know what to expect but after a prata breakfast at Jalan Kayu which seemed like fattening us up for the kill, we were on the boat to Ubin.

The first few days as I recall were all about team building and the initial heights confidence course. Eventually the expeditions started, land, sailing, solo and kayaking and we struggled through these expeditions and finally we ended off with a pointless 15km run! Then it was over, many of us had changed for good and relations had changed too and the men were separated from the boys. OBS changed my life, the 21 days I spent there were tough, but the time there made me a better person.

These are my memories and I shall elaborate on them in the next few posts:

• Sub-human Dynamics in Nehru: The Monsters emerge
• The Useless Fatsos: The great abseiling misunderstanding
• Land Expedition: When we realised we couldn't get along
• Post Land Expedition: The Great Homophobic Moment (No it doesn't inolve the Choos either!)
• Round Ubin Canoeing: Barnacle Bob takes a chunk out of my shin
• Getting the Crap scared out of me: Solo Expedition
• Sailing Expedition: You can all b**dy swim back to OBS! The only moment where Aziz loses his cool and Daryl follows suit shortly after!
  
• Feedback Sessions: Picking the knives out of my back
• Interactions with other people: Instructors and other OBS participants
• Reflection Journal: Finding new ways to swear
  
• Kayaking Expedition: How to Kayak with a tray full of eggs in your cargo hold and not break any.
• Going Home

It's going to be alot of fun reminiscing about old times, watch this space!