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Solace of the Shadows
Friday, February 21, 2003
Back from field camp. 7 Days in the jungle. Nothing seperating you from the jungle floor except a pathetic piece of groundsheet which isn't even waterproof. Not being able to bathe at all. Having to dig a damned hole in the ground to shit and pee in the dark. It was complete hell for the first two days. The whole thing was truly an undescribable experience for me. There were really unconcievably low points and some high points but being outfield is definitely not something i'd be able to get used to. During the night you have to adjust to the fact that you're in complete darkness save the moonlight and "night discipline" has to be practiced which basically means you can't even use a torchlight to find your stuff. Lets just say that one thing might be enough to drive a person mad. Digging frantically for your stuff while having to fall in or face punishment. So many many things happened, i wish i could remember all of it but i was just to tired to think throughout most of it. Everyone was super shag.
Wearing camoflauge paint all the time is a complete pain in the ass. Its like wearing a mask 24/7, and when you sweat it gets in your eyes, but when you put it on nicely it really looks damn fierce. Green with 3 black stripes running down your face like kena slashed by tigers haha. Lemme try to recap. Its gonna be one heck of a long story
1st and 2nd Day
Officer : "You all know why we have to do NS right? Its because we have a lan jiao so lan lan we have to do it lah yeah?"
Started with a 4 click route march to the first camp site which was a friggin piece of reclaimed land. The ground obviously wasn't very compacted or firm. The most suay thing that happened was it rained practically the whole of the two days we set up our bashas there.
The basha is basically made up of two friggin thin groundsheets which aren't even properly waterproofed and its so low you have to crouch down low in order to get in and you have to sleep on it at night. When it first started to rain the whole area started to get completely
flooded and everyone was frantically trying to dig small trenches to make a drainage system which ultimately ended up in complete disaster because everyone was digging their own trenches which led to a series of many many depressions in the ground which made it even worse.
The whole area was completely loosened and when you stepped your boots into the soil it would sink completely. We had to bloody sleep in the damned thing and the soil and mud and rain just seeped through everything which meant we were just sleeping on the open jungle floor.
My morale had probably reached a complete rock bottom right there and then. I kept asking myself what the hell i was doing standing in the rain watching everything just wash away. It was really one heck of a shock. I didn't know if i could carry on. It just made no sense to right then.
To make matters worse all the instructors would make us do ridiculous things like falling in at night with various things in complete darkness. Try to imagine your room in complete darkness and try finding the things you want. Thats the kind of problem.
Instead of using water to bathe, we'd have to take powder baths from then on which meant powdering ourselves with prickly heat at night with nothing on but our underwear and get inspected by our seargents. To be honest, the powder baths were really good, i felt alot more relaxed after it.
Until like a million mosquitoes would zero in on every part of your body that is.
I can't really remember much from the first 2 days other than the fact that it was utter hell and chaos and it was really the worst part of field camp.
3rd Day
We shifted to a new campsite which was really much better because the oil palm trees made for a good campsite and it didn't rain as much. We actually got some training done instead of just perpetually lying in our bashas soaked completely. The biggest part was getting to shoot blanks for the first time. Damned fun stuff. We made use of the nearby jungle to practise the drills
and we'd use the blanks to shoot. All the seargents have a damn good knowledge of the surrounding area of the jungle. One second i didn't know where the heck we were going and suddenly we'd appear back in the original campsite just like that. Pretty amazing stuff,
4th day
Shifted to the last campsite which was another higher ground site with pretty good flooring. Damned creepy place. To make it worse our seargents kept telling us stuff about the things in tekong like how it used to be a fishing village and that the villagers would bury the bodies and thats the reason why pork isn't cooked in the cookhouse (which is true by the way) and that if you keep pork
in your locker it will start to shake at night. They also warned us not to shine our torches at the trees at night and how to stick close in our section because once in Charlie company a section which numbered off left one guy behind, and when they left the camp and found out he was missing they went all the way back and combed the area before finally finding him in stand by condition,
which basically meant he was found lying on the ground holding on to his rifle in high pod position with all his organs and insides gutted out nicely arranged around his corpse. The way they told it, it really seemed bloody true.
The OC got bloody pissed because the whole company had slacked and he finally let it out and made us unpitch everything and fall in in full battle order and get ready to shift campsite without warning but eventually he made us repitch our bashas. That was madness.
That night when i went to pee i had forgotten my helmet and while i was walking up i bumped into the OC and another officer and he was really nice and told me not to do it again. So i went back up and had dinner with my platoon (which was practically in complete darkness). I was just telling my platoon mates about how nice the OC was when suddenly one of them said "evening sir" and i was like wtf and suddenly someone flashed a torch and
the OC was sitting right in front of me the whole friggin time! Damn suay. Luckily i was talking good about him haha. He said he liked to sit in on recruits conversations in the dark and listen to whatever interesting things they had to say.
One of the powder bath songs from one of the platoons. You gotta hear it with the tune itself. Damned funny.
"This is my rifle, this is my gun (use your imagination as to what gun is)
This is my rifle, this is my gun
This is for fighting, this is for fun
This is for fighting, this is for fun"
(fake laughter)
We also had to do some nightwalk which meant walking in complete darkness through a certain route as a section of around 10 men. It was pretty thrilling stuff but it was anti-climaxed because the whole walk was really short. I was the last man and we had to number off constantly to ensure that all the men were there and i kept looking back behind me and thinking that i could see a dark shadow somewhere in the darkness among the trees and vegetation. It was a pretty cool experience though.
5th Day
All i can remember was we did alot of fire movement drills in the jungle and i expended like 120+ round of blank bullets. Felt damn good heh. Nothing beats firing the rifle in camp. Cleaning it is another matter.
The event that would forever stick in my mind is what we did next. We had to learn to dig a shellscrape and a fire trench which are both holes in the ground. The shell scrape is big enough to fit your body in lying down position
whereas the firetrench is big enough to cover you until chest height in standing up position. Just imagine how damned deep that is. We had to dig all day and night. I had probably never pushed myself as hard as then. Never felt like
giving up until then. I even broke my friggin ET blade which is the metal plate attached to a stick and you're supposed to use it to dig like a shovel. I hacked at roots and it split. I went to the tent and all the seargents and officers
were gaping because they couldn't believe i broke it. haha priceless look on their faces was worth it.
The shitty part happened when we were building the fire trench at night in the darkness. It was just hell. We couldn't see shit and we didn't really know where we were digging when suddenly the instructors shouted for the whole company
to fall in. They screwed us upside down after that and told us to immediately go back and fill up the holes we dug and fall in again. So we did. Then they shouted at us again and ordered us to go back and dig the holes once more in the darkness.
At that point of time, every single recruit felt like rebelling. It was just madness running up and down in the darkness falling into the holes we dug and shovelling like mad. Some people broke down completely and went mad. Some guy couldn't take it and
collapsed. Then we fell in again, and AGAIN they made us cover up the holes...when finally they couldn't push us further anymore and after that they just let us finish the night off in peace...in a way i knew it was just part of the training but
at that point of time the anger they instilled in everyone had become paramount and it was one heck of a tormenting experience.
Last Day
We had to undergo our last obstacle which was the BIC or Battle Innoculation Course which was to basically orientate us with real war time conditions. The whole thing was really physically demanding i gotta admit. The final course involved leopard crawling which really killed my elbows but it was damned fun crawling under the barb wire. That part wasn't tiring but we had to be on alert for about 3 plus km with 5 contact points where we would be fired at by "enemies" and react to the situation by using all the fire movement drills we had learnt.
I was bloody suay because i was so damned trigger happy i acidentally misfired a round and because of that i'm confined this weekend and i gotta book in earlier (stupid story). Wasn't even my friggin fault because my seargent already told us to put it to semi mode and take cover. Wtf. I fired like over 70-80 plus rounds, felt damn good haha. My seargent gave me a full mags worth and an addition 50 rounds in a box to use. I kept on firing until the smoke was overflowing from the handguard. Almost burnt my neck when i put the barrel to it.
The ride back was damn good. Instead of marching they let us sit in the tunnel to get back to company line. I swear, after 7 days of not being able to bathe, you really appreciate the whole process. I used a nail and tried to scrape off the 7 days worth of layers of dirt, powder, camo paint and what other crap there was but i had to come home again and take another bath before i could get the slimy feeling off.
What the seargents said was really true. During field camp i found out the true characters of platoon mates. The whole situation you're in is so pressurizing everyone is forced to act for themselves but only the truly selfish ones don't help the others...and some of the people i see really sicken me to the core. They have no sense of urgency or care for any of the others. They take their own fuckin sweet time to do things and sabo the whole platoon in the process. It doesn't help when you have so many cacats in your platoon its very amazing how they think.
Random anecdotes. NS is full of them but its difficult to remember, i gotta start writing it down.
Seargent : "You're a fucker you know that?"
Recruit : "Yes seargent"
Enthusiastic Recruit : "Section 3, SQUEEZE lah!!"
Seargent : "Shut up lah"
Seargent : "Let me tell you a joke...you laugh! Cheebye why you laugh? Knock it down!"
Can't remember what else to say. Too tired.
Ok to sleep. If you read all of this you must have been really bored or something heh. sorry.
G'nite folks.
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
Last book out before the field camp begins.
They always give our company the least amount of book out time. Last to book out, first to book in. Damned it.
Nothing much happened in the space of 3 days. I had to book out on Monday to go to the Skin Centre. The doctors who examined me seemed like clueless dumbasses. I don't even know if they knew what was wrong with me. They kept going "very interesting..." with their hands rubbing their chins. They basically didn't even bother to listen to what i was trying to tell them. Parts of my body which had been affected they kept claiming it was my original skin colour when i knew for a fact that it wasn't because obviously i have seen my own body. Fucking stupid of them.
Went back to camp. Yesterday we had some introduction to grenade assault and the fragmentation grenade we're supposed to use sounds quite gruesome. There's like 2200 small ball bearings inside the chemical composition of the grenade and when it explodes all the ball bearings will spread out and pierce your skin or whatever. The people who come up with these things are really twisted man. After that we had to do some aqua jogging which was a complete waste of time because the PTI obviously couldn't control 250 men by the side of the pool and they expected everyone to cooperate when you have so many ignorant people around.
I realize there are two things so far which i really cannot stand.
1) People who don't know how to open their mouths when they're supposed to. They can talk so much while standing in the file but when it comes to shouting out when we do warm ups or whatever they don't know how to do the same. And then the whole company has to knock it down because of that. There was this moron who was just sitting there with his trap closed even after the seargent told us that if we don't shout louder we'd have to knock it down. One day i'll knock his damned teeth out.
2) People who ask damn stupid questions. We had this first aid lesson, and we were taught all the different drags we could use during evacuation under fire where we'd have to drag our buddy our of danger. So then the stupid questions came flying out. "Sir, what if there's a pebble in our way?" (i can't believe someone asked that), "Sir, what if its muddy or we're in a mangrove swamp??". (For goodness' sakes you're not going to be fighting a war on a red carpet you moron what choice do you have, just drag him lah, wtf is wrong with you?!) After that my platoon had to go practise all the drills in the muddy ground behind one of the companies and after we finished the platoon seargent asked "Does that answer that joker's question?"
Heh i just have to rant. I got a friggin splinter yesterday while we had to carry the grenade cover box. I was just about to say "Hey guys, careful you don't get splinters" when somebody shifted the box and the frayed wooden edge slid against my thumb. I tried to pull the splinter out but like 1/2 of it was still stuck in my thumb. There was no medic around so the seargent and one of the officers had to try to pull it out with tweezers and they were prying open my skin like there were no nerve endings there or something. Damned thing finally came out after dunno how long. Gotta hand it to the seargent though he really gave a damn about it. On top of that i've sprained my toe and now i can't bend it for nuts. Damned boots.
After today, no booking out til next friday. 9 days of confinement. 7 days of field camp. 7 days with no proper bathing. 7 days sleeping in a pasha with just a groundsheet between you and the jungle floor. 7 days wearing long 4. I'm just shaking with joy.
Wanted to go out today but with the early book in i might as well get some more sleep now. Take care folks, thanks to those who've kept me company.
Saturday, February 08, 2003
Am i just so drained that nothing i used to do before seems to be of much importance anymore? Now whenever i book out i find myself just being very contented with staying home and spending time watching tv or sleeping. Going to parties or all those other late night things seem very trivial and insignificant now. I'd rather just spend time sitting down and talking with friends. Went out last night with Pehon and Sarah and her friend Gina. I didn't really give a damn much about the party but just being able to see the people i know mattered most to me. Really it did. Army gives an unimaginably short time to book out and i guess it just has to be utilised to its utmost importance.
Quite a bit happened in the week. For one thing, the moment i got back to my bunk one of the seargents said i was the new platoon ic. Like wtf! I didn't know jack about all the stupid procedures to go through. At first i got tekaned like mad for doing the wrongs things haha but after a while the platoon seargent would bring me to one side and tell me what i should be doing. I guess in a way i'm glad i got chosen for a while because like what one of my section mates told me, they choose the platoon ics for a reason so that they are able to get the experience the others wouldn't be able to in 'small-time' commanding, although i think maybe i might have pissed off a few of the platoon people with my incessant pleas to hurry the hell up. Standby area was the worst, i had to friggin follow the platoon seargent around during the inspection and i had to knock it down like a 100 times for things my platoon mates didn't do because i did not make sure they did it.
I never knew that the crest on the berets that they issue to wear have been blessed by the 4 religions, hinduism, islam, christianity and buddhism. One of my section mates told me that. Pretty interesting. Its purpose is really to ward of evil and all that. And after what my seargents have been telling us, i'm pretty freaked out. %#^@ dunno why they had to go and open their mouths, i was feeling perfectly fine before that. I could go out in the middle of the night and pee without any worries but now i make sure i don't have to pee at night. Apparently Viper at company recently an entire platoon was awakened and they all saw a pontianak by one of the trees behind the company...and a few seconds later they saw another fly above them and land beside the first one. I dunno what ensued after that and i don't wanna know. Heh, pretty thrilling stuff no? I still stand by my reasoning that the eyes see what the mind percieves so i guess all this just makes good storytelling.
Much more to come. Field camp coming up on 15th Feb. 7 days without being able to take a bath. Incredible. Thats probably the only thing i might not be able to survive.
Haha i know it must be pretty boring having to read all this army stuff again and again. What to do, what to do.
Back to sleep. Till the next book out folks.
Very short book out. Got back home a while ago. Gotta book back in tomorrow night. Got an appointment at the Skin Centre on monday so i'm hoping they'll let me extend my book out time heh.
Before enlistment i used to think that i'd be able to handle the whole NS thing easily but truthfully it is extremely tiring. I've never felt so exhausted for such a long stretch of time. Practically every single second from the moment you wake til the time you sleep has to be filled with some draining activity, either physical or jus plain takes a hell lot of discipline.
I guess i'm just gonna go sleep now because i'm quite incapable of doing anything else. Had my IPPT categorization test today and i couldn't get a friggin gold because of my standing broad jump. What a pointless station. Don't know how i did for the 2.4 though it felt pretty alright. The coastal route they made us run is far better than running on a boring track.
Ok to sleep
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