THE ARMY SERIES : EXERCISE LANCER PART 2

JUNGLES OF TEMBURONG

We will only be here for two weeks, so we didn’t waste much time slacking. We straightaway embarked on our normal exercises. I think by this time you would know the routine. Topography and then mission exercise. Initially I dreaded coming. Well I dread NS and travelling anyway. I already disliked the forests in Singapore and now we have to spend days in the thick jungles of Temburong. But I mentioned last week, apparently this was the best overseas trip ever.
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TOPOGRAPHY

Our first foray into the jungle was for our topography exercise. I was pleasantly surprised. The jungle was clean. Really. It was clean. It has hilly ranges, tropical vegetation and climate, hot and humid, but it was clean. You can smell the clean air, the clean breeze. It was so clean that I was surprised that there were no mosquitoes. I was expecting the mozzies to buzz around us like in Singapore, but no. There were no mosquitoes.


There were no rubbish on the jungle floor. None. No plastic, wrappers, tin cans, etc. Nothing. I was very happy. Anyway, we were also told not to litter. This rule is very strict. We were told to respect the spirit of Temburong. Before we left camp, we had to lay out everything that we brought on the floor. They will be checked and tabulated. Everything including combat ration packets, instant noodles, ziploc bags, cigarette packs. We are told to keep our rubbish until we get back to camp after the exercise where they will check again that we brought back the same things that we brought out. Especially the empty packets and plastics. I don’t know what would happen if it didn’t tally though. We were just told that we would be punished somehow. 


My HQ section was attached with section 1 this time for the topography exercise. I think we were out for 4 days 3 nights. Maybe. As I mentioned above, Temburong has hilly ranges. We were told to always stay at the side or the top of the range. Never ever go down to the valleys unless we need to collect water from the streams. The streams had clean running water. We would fill our water bottles with the water from the streams. We were also supplied with purifying tablets. We would fill the bottles and place one tablet in the bottle. It was yucky to me. It tasted like swimming pool water due to the chlorine from the tablets. I held on for a day I think. Until I was too thirsty, I gave up on the chlorine tabs. We then got our drinking water from the rain. I tell you…. the rain water tasted so good. So clean and pure. It was the tastiest water I’ve ever drank. I didn’t even bother to put chlorine tablets in the rain water. I told the rest of the guys, they agreed it was the tastiest water ever. None of us used the chlorine tablets anymore. And since it rained quite often in Temburong, we had constant supply of drinking water.


(Sadly, a number of weeks before this blog was posted, it was announced that rain water on earth is no more safe for drinking unless treated due to forever chemicals. And these chemicals are man made. I was very sad when I read the news.)


Here comes the best part of being in Temburong. We are not allowed to move at night. Night activities were strictly not allowed, due to the thick jungle vegetation, hilly range and ever changing streamlines after rain. So once comes 1800hrs, we would stop all activities and rest for the night. Relax, unpack our stuff, cook instant noodles, fix our sheltered hammocks on the trees. Oooh we were also not allowed to sleep on the ground so hammocks were made compulsory. By 2000hrs, we would already be hanging in our hammocks, chatting or already in deep sleep only to wake up again at 0700hrs the next day. It was heaven. 12 good hours of rest in the army. You can never get that even in camps in Singapore.

Our hammocks under the floating basha.

Instant noodles were luxury food

That skinny fellar had to carry 35kg - 40kg of load. But I had good sleeps in Brunei.

​MISSION EXERCISE

I cannot even remember the missions in this exercise. Maybe because by now we were all on autopilot and all missions are the same. We were all in good morale though because we know that all exercises will be cut at 1800hrs and we will rest for 12 hours. 


One thing I remember was, for this exercise in Brunei, Lakiun camp has its own trainers. They will escort and guide all visiting units to Temburong. They will check and maintain the discipline, cleanliness and especially safety. Yes. Temburong jungle is no joke. It is really a real thick jungle that SAF has to have permanent staff in Brunei to ensure all these. 


So during the mission exercises, there will be these trainers escorting us. I remember this clearly, they would always try to scare us with this journey called, “The 7 wonders of the world and Mount Biang”. They said the walk was so tough the jungle would kill us. I’ve heard of this thing before coming to Brunei from other soldiers from other units and friends maybe. So anyway, we all had to go through it… so…. okaaayyyy……


As we walked in the jungle, I tried counting these “7 wonders”. They were supposed to be killer steep and high hills. We were supposed to go through 7 of them before reaching the dreaded Mount Biang. Well, I counted. The jungle was thick I lost track in counting the hills as I couldn’t see the definitive shape of these hills. It was just upslope downslope upslope and downslope. We just walked. Maybe there were more than 7. I don’t know till today. 


And then we reached the foot of Mount Biang. Well, the “7 wonders” didn’t kill us, so maybe Biang will. They said that the mountain is high and steep, the way up is called “Stairway to Heaven”. Okaaaay….


So we climbed. Note that Guardsmen have extra load. I had that GPMG tripod on me. It was about 11kg. I had 1 box of GPMG black rounds. I think it was about 3kg. Basically I had about 35kg of load on my 60kg skinny body. And it was just me. Everyone else had their extra load too.

A photo of Bukit Biang from Mr Ong Ye Kung's facebook.

​We just climbed and climbed. Next thing I knew, we were already on top. I remember reaching the top and looked at the trainer who was already there first. I smiled to him and gave the normal peace / victory sign. I remember he looked at me and us in disbelief. He took off his cap and said to his colleagues. “Bloody hell these people are so fit! Look at this guy! (Pointing at me) His face is so fresh!” Honestly, it wasn’t that bad at all. Not just me but for everyone else. In fact, I was known in the Battalion as one of the weakest soldier there who cannot even pass his 10km run. Well, combat fitness and physical fitness are 2 different things. It was still tiring but it wasn’t as bad as how everyone claimed it to be. What was in my mind at that time was, yeay! top of Biang. It’s almost 6pm! Time to eat maggi and sleep!
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RIVER CROSSING

Another memorable experience was river crossing. Combat river crossing. Oh yes, I forgot to mention just now. Not only did we have extra load as Guardsmen, my company, Charlie company also had extra load as the “River Crossing Company”. So we had to carry equipment to cross the river for the whole battalion. Hahahaha! Luckily they didn’t disturb the GPMG teams and the 84mm team. We have enough load. Thank you. But it was really pitiful to see the guys sharing the weight of these equipment.


We had to cross this river called Sungai Batu Apoi. Supposedly crocodile infested. Before we set up the crossing, the trainers and some locals got on boats to the left and right of our crossing point. They then shot live rounds into the water to chase the crocodiles away from the crossing point. I didn’t see any. I only heard the gunshots. It didn’t bother me though. My mind was always, 6pm, exercise cut. Make hammock, eat maggi and sleep for 10 hours.


You can google the images of River Crossing at Sungai Batu Apoi.


So that’s pretty much it. It was tiring of course. It has to be. But we get to sleep a lot so it was ok. In fact it was the best. Nowhere and never anytime in the army would we be able to rest the whole night away without disturbances. Nope. Never. It was the only time in my army life that I get to sleep at 8pm and wake up at 7am. Thus, Exercise Lancer was the best overseas trip ever.

The guys had to also drag my real life looking body mannequin back to camp.

Next week :  R & R

​Categories : The Army Series