One day late but it’s ok. 

Why am I writing about this? Because I personally feel that things are getting easier in a lot of things. But it is ok. It is their luck. 

Previously my NS was 2 and a half years. Now it is 2 years.

Previously it was 5.5 days work week. Meaning I would only book out from camp on Saturday afternoons and book in on the next day, Sunday evening. Now it is 5 days work week, book out on Friday evenings and book in on Sunday. Sometimes I see people book out on Friday afternoons. That is 2 nights of sleeping in your own bed compared to one. You have no idea how short our weekend was. 
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And what about Standard Obstacle Course (SOC)?

​It is because of this SOC, I had to stay back in camp a number of times when all others get to go home. 

Back then, it was a REQUIREMENT to pass SOC. In BMT, if you don’t pass SOC, you will redo your BMT all over again. Redo and redo until you pass your SOC. During the weekend, if you have yet to pass, you will stay back in camp to do remedial training or to do your SOC while your mates book out. If you still don’t pass, you will stay back again next weekend.

Same goes for SISPEC. You don’t pass, you stay back. Weekend after weekend. 

When we got posted to our unit, same thing again. You don’t pass, you stay back.

Remember how short our weekends were? Imagine how much heart ache it was when you see your mates leaving camp and you had to stay back. Book out either Saturday evenings or Sunday mornings and booking in again on Sunday evenings.

So why was it so hard to pass? 

Because not everyone is ready fit lah. Need to train until can pass. I honestly cannot remember the timing to pass. If I’m not wrong, it was 10minutes 30 seconds during BMT. 10 minutes 15 seconds during SISPEC. 9 minutes 45 seconds in Guards. 

So as I struggled to clock 10min30s in BMT and finally passed, I had to train harder to bring it down to 10min 15s and then 9min 45s in Guards. You have no idea how many of my weekends were burnt because of this stupid SOC. I would really have to train hard and pass like just by 2 to 3 seconds.

Back then we had to run 700 metres
Clear these obstacles in order
Low wall
Parallel beam
Step
Monkey bar
Low rope
Balancing beam
Zig Zag bridge
Suicide Window
Jacobs Ladder
Ramp
Run 600 metres to finishing line

This is the old one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYxKqiSePyM

(Somehow, the obstacles in the old Pasir Laba Camp was lower compared to other camps. So when I was in SISPEC, those who really cannot pass would have their last chance to pass at Pasir Laba because it was “easier”. That was the time I managed to pass.)

So difficult meh?

I remember my first few times trying out the SOC, I had problems with the zig-zag bridge and the jacob’s ladder. A lot of people have problems on it. I remember this clearly, my girlfriend talked to me, “why got problem?” I said, “it’s hard to balance, and quite scary if you happen to fall”
She continued, “just run up and just walk. What’s the worse thing if you fall? You will break or fracture your leg. It’s not like you would die. If you break your leg, you will be downgraded and you might just not have to go through all these again.”

So cool. I tried and I didn’t have any problems after that. I kinda hoped I would fall and downgrade but somehow it didn’t happen. I saw a number of people falling and downgraded though.

Yes it was difficult to me. To many others. I stayed back in camp with many. I saw people redoing their BMT and SISPEC because of it. 

And then suddenly some 10 years ago……… they changed the SOC. There are more obstacles now. BUT…… you don’t have to run the 700 metres before and 600 metres after.

Best thing is….. you don’t have to pass it. You just need to ATTEMPT on doing it.

Best right?

So we stayed back and burnt our weekends for what?


Next Week : Back to Wallaby

Categories : The Army Series

One reason why I decide to blog about my army days is because it reminds me of the things that I am blessed with. Every time I feel down, I think back about the army and it reminded me. No days can be worse than the army days. So if I can survive being in the army for 17 years, I can survive anything. 

Today’s post is about food. Why am I reminded about food? Because I have been on a tight budget since covid hits. I thought that everything will be ok when it gets better but 2022 didn’t do any better with my finances. So I have been budgeting with my expenditure and one of those affected is food. I miss eating good healthy food. In Singapore, healthy foods are expensive. Halal foods are tasty but most of the time unhealthy. There really should be more halal foodstalls that sells those economy rice mix thing that I always see in Chinese stalls. But nope. None. The closest is the very expensive nasi padang which isnt actually nasi padang. And they’re always oily. 

I looked back at the photos of army cookhouse food. Now at this age, how I didn’t count my blessings then. Oh how I would love to eat the cookhouse food everyday again. They are nutritious and healthy. 

So here is a tribute to the army food.
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​Before I entered the army, I heard stories of how army foods were terrible and cooked by army cooks. But by the time I was enlisted, the system has changed. 

13th June 2000, I stepped on the shores of Pulau Tekong. The cookhouse was run by the Singapore Food Industries if I remember correctly. Being a young person who was choosy about everything, of course it didn’t taste nice. But now looking back, I can eat those food everyday. You can google the photos. I don’t have any.

Breakfast. There was always 2 choices. Local or Western. 

Local would be mi siam or mi rebus or mi soto or pau or glutinous rice or something. 
Western would be bread or croissant or eggs with peanut butter and jam. So so blessed. 
Drink would be a choice of coffee or tea or milo.

Lunch and dinner.

Always rice with fish and red meat (beef / mutton) and chicken and vegetables and soup and dessert (fruits or ice cream) and free flow of syrup drink.

Sometimes on random days, we might get chicken chop or horfun or something. Most of us look forward to western.

Damn, I’m hungry now writing all these.

Singapore Food Industries (SFI) wasn’t the only caterer. I’ve been to many camps and I saw some places engaged NTUC Foodfare and SATS. 

It is really very good. Really. Much better than nasi padangs. Definitely healthier.

But not all were tasty of course. Actually they are all edible. Except one place.

I’ve been despatched to these camps. 

Pulau Tekong BMTC
Pulau Tekong SISPEC
Pasir Laba Camp
Bedok Camp
Amoy Quee Camp
Jurong ITI Camp
Clementi Camp

Here’s my take. Pulau Tekong BMTC has (or maybe had) the best food. Clementi Camp was the worst. My 9 days ot Clementi Camp, I ate my own snacks and food brought in from out of camp. They were terrible.
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Then comes the Combat Rations.

Again I heard stories of how terrible it was. But not for me. They were really good. Give me combat rations now, I’ll gladly eat them. 

So what’s in it? You can google this too.

It is a pack filled with dietary needs when you’re out in the field. One pack is a 24 hour meal. So if you’re out in the jungle for 5 days, they will give you 5 packs. 

What is in the pack. 
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2 main meals in a green pack.
1 dessert in a green pack.
4 packs biscuits.
2 packs fruit bars.
1 sachet pocari sweat.
1 sachet lemon tea.
1 sachet coffee or milo.
1 packet maggi instant noodles.
Matches, tissue, the candle looking thing to cook your meals.

The first time I opened a combat ration, the main meal were pasta bolognaise and glutinous rice. The dessert was red bean like bubur kacang like that. Awesome. After a while you kind of got sick of its taste. But then again like I said, give them to me now, I will gladly eat them everyday.

It’s by luck. You can random dish in your 3 packets. Sometimes briyani, different kinds of pastas, different tastes of glutinous rice. The desserts are red bean, bubur terigu was the most common. My favourite was green bean. Real bubur kacang.

As for maggi noodles. You almost never get the curry flavour. I have no idea why. We always get prawn or chicken or asam laksa. Almost never curry.

Every pack weighs 3kg.

So if you’re out in the field for 5 days, you will have 15kg of food in your bag.

Being in a Guards unit, it was almost impractical to load all those weight in our backpacks. If you remember, I have to lug 30 to 40kg of load on my 60kg body frame everytime we go outfield. It was torture. So we only brought what we could and what we would eat. 

So what did I bring?

Dessert pack
Biscuits
Fruit bars
Lemon tea, pocari sweat, milo sachets
1 pack of instant noodles.

I didn’t bring the main dishes with me. 

They are lighter on the load. Sometimes I will bring snickers. They are good energy boosters.

Here’s how we eat them. It’s quite cool considering we usually have no time to properly eat them. We only eat them on the go or when we were in defence. We definitely had no time to cook. Except in Brunei.

The green packs, tear the top and pour into our mouth.

Biscuits, small tear on the top of the packets and the right amount of water and soak it. Too much and it will be bleargh…. just nice and it will turn into a cake like texture. Very nice.

Fruit bars. Just eat. This was our favourite. Usually the first to finish.

Lemon tea or peach tea, pocari sweat and milo. We cannot pour them into our water bottles as it will “dirty” the inside of our bottles. We won’t have time to wash them. So we will pour the powder into our mouth, hold it and then drink water. Pour again and drink water again. For milo, I will just eat them.

Maggi. Sigh… so delicious but never have time to cook them. So we’ll just pour the seasoning into the packets, crush the noodles, shake it and eat them like how we eat mamee.

So yes, that’s how we eat them. Like I said, I have been budgeting on food so if you have any jobs for me to do, please let me know. I need money. Currently I am scavenging part time jobs here and there. Not so bad, I still have just enough to live through pay check to pay check. But if you have anything stable for me, do let me know. Thank you. 


Next Week : Standard Obstacle Course

Categories : The Army Series
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This one is going to be short one. Sounds familiar to a recent post huh? But, I’m sure those who have been to Brunei would know why. It is the shortest R&R ever. I think it is only half a day. And to be honest, I really really cannot remember much of it. It must have been quite insignificant. But I would still want to document this before I totally forget it. It has been 20 years late in documenting. 
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Anyway, we have completed our exercises here in Temburong. It was only 2 weeks and we slept a lot. So time flew quite quickly. 

Once all our stuff was done, we spent a lot of our time at the cookhouse or the canteen. That’s pretty much escape that we had. But it was nice. The cookhouse had nice food. The canteen had nice snacks. I think they had instant noodles too. The ambience was nice. It was like a you know… those Indonesian gerai or warungs overlooking the forest in the distance kind. 

Of course our best memory at the canteen was watching the World Cup matches. It was 2002 and the World Cup was held in Japan / South Korea. So the timings of the matches good to us as the timezone was similar. It was fun. Really fun. A whole lot of us munching on snacks and watching from one small TV. It was quite an experience. 

Actually the TV wasn’t small. It was a normal maybe 24 inch CRT TV but it would be considered small for today’s standards.

Oooh and also, the cicadas. They are everywhere buzzing here and there. Again I have good memories of it but I cannot type them here because people are now awaken or woke in 2022. So if it happens that you remember this and would want to know, I can always share them in person.
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Remember Wan Cing Cong? Well, I managed to catch with him again after many days in the jungle. 

We chatted at the canteen and whenever he was free. On my last day there, I spent my day at his bunk. We ate and ate and played Pro Evolution Soccer on the Playstation 2. It was fun because there was aircon. And his bunk was pretty much actually a 2 room bungalow with a living room a bedroom a kitchen and bathroom. With aircon. 

We played on the Playstation until late at night until we fell asleep. I think until 4am. 6am I woke up and told him I need to go back to my own bunk and pack to leave the camp. 

A few hours later we were ready to leave Lakiun Camp. I could see that he was so happy to meet me and was very sad when I left. Actually I don’t think he was sad to see me, as in me, leaving. I think he was sad to see another person leaving the camp and he is still stuck there in the middle of Temburong until he ORD. It was June 2002 and we would ORD on the 12th of December 2002. He was posted there after his 9 months in OCS so he would have been in Brunei for a total of 17 months. Poor guy. Yes. Our NS was 2 and half years then.
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​We took the same route back. A truck ride to the town and a boat ride to Bandar Seri Begawan. Here is where my mind has deleted many things. I cannot remember anything. I can only remember things that were reminded by the photos in my album. I kinda remember seeing the exhibits at the Regalia Museum. But I cannot remember anything else. I knew we went to one museum after another. I cannot remember where we went exactly, where we ate, what we ate, where we slept. Nothing. 

Oh I do remember we went to Jerudong Park. That park is the largest theme park in Brunei. But…… they brought us there in the evening when it has already closed. What nonsense. 

That’s all. I cannot remember anything else after this. Hopefully some other guys in my unit would remember some things that I have missed.

Next Week : Our Army Food!

Categories : The Army Series