THE ARMY SERIES : POST NS AND MOBILISATION

And.......... you thought that after ORD, you will be done with the army. But no........ 

So here we go again..... same old shit again... up and down this avenue...

Well, maybe you will feel a bit sad if this blog series comes to an end. Eventually it will but not for now. So if you are happy that this series still has some life in it, do give it a like. Hahaha.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER ORD?

Well, I think it was a few years of nothingness.... about 2 years maybe. We, or at least me, happily forgot about NS. There was one day when we were called up to attend a briefing at Dieppe Barracks. It was just a few hours. We were briefed on what to expect after NS, about reservists and In-Camp Training, about IPPT that we still have to clear every year, about the unit we will be posted to, about our mobilisation exercises, etc. 

POSTING

So for my reservist duties, I was posted to a reservist unit, 662 Battalion Singapore Guards. About 3/4 of us from 3rd Guards were posted there, so basically it was still the same people. The other 1/4 were those who were army regulars or went overseas or I don't know how they managed to escape the unit. So the army then posted some guys from other units to ours to fill up the 1/4. This slowly became more as the years passed as quite a number from the 3/4 somehow dropped out or downgraded or just disappeared.

We were then told that we have to:

1) pass our IPPT every year.  
2) report for mobilisation whenever required
3) report for 10 cycles of In Camp Training (ICT) or colloquially called "Reservists" or "Reservist Duties"

We will then have our ATEC again for reservists on the 5th and 7th cycle.

MOBILISATION

So today I am going to share about mobilisation exercises. I am sure you would know that this happen quite a common thing. Once in a while we will see that blinking army icon on TV and announcement on radio and the code words and the call that you have to report to mobilisation centres. So yes. It is those kind of things.

But it doesn't happen like that all the time. Sometimes there will be a "silent mobilisation" where we will be called up by phone calls from the HQ. Those that you see on TV is called the "open mobilisation" where we would be called by phone and also having to see and hear those call up alerts on TV and Radio. 

We also have our own unique code words but I cannot share it with you here. Actually, I forgot them already too.

Anyway, the mobilisations are not something that happen like a surprise. Every year, we would be told of our standby periods, like from this month to this month. Say like, we would be told that our unit has to be on standby from 1st September to 21st September 2006. We can then be called up during this period. But not necessarily will we be called up every year. We just have to be on standby and have our army stuff ready at home. 

I think if I remember correctly, I was only mobilised three times during the reservist days. 

The first one was a silent mobilisation. We got called up and have to report at the mobilisation centre within 8 hours I think. At that time it was at Northview Secondary in Yishun. We just had to go over, wait for half of our people to reach, check our field packs have all the standby items, sign the attendance sheet and that was it, we could leave already. 

The second one was sometime in 2008. I was having a post Kallang Roar shoot activity. We were playing futsal at the cage in Kallang. Then sometime around 6pm or 7pm, we received a silent mobilisation call and had to report to Maju Camp within 8 hours. So I continued playing and then went home and went to Maju Camp.

This time around, we had to sit at the multi storey carpark and wait. Just waited. We didn't know how long we had to wait. We just sat there. We even had to draw our weapons. We felt quite shitty already then. If ever we were told to draw blank rounds for that mobilisation, we definitely have to go outfield for some kind of war gaming exercises. We really hoped it won't happen. 

So we sat at the carpark and slept and woke up and chatted and slept and just waited. Some time around 8am the next day, we were told we could return our weapons and leave. Nice! No outfield.


The final one was in 2016. It was during the show day of a theatre production at ACJC. We had a matinee 2pm show and an evening 730pm show. I reported to Maju camp after the matinee show. Luckily it wasn't very far from ACJC. I was just hoping I didn't have to stay overnight like the previous mobilisation. 

Upon reaching Maju Camp, I already saw people leaving. That's great. I met up with some of my friends there before registering our attendance. We were then told to draw our rifles. We were also then given a slip of paper with checkboxes. Apparently we had to go to all the stations placed at different places in the camp. We didn't have to go in a particular order. Just go to the stations and complete the tasks at the station. The tasks were quite simple like strip weapon, assemble weapon, IA drills and some thing else that I cannot remember now. Once we completed a station, the checkbox on our paper will be stamped and we can move on to another station. Once we completed all stations, we could then leave the camp. It was quite fun actually. Most of us compared it to funfairs. One friend laughed and said, "Welcome to Uncle Ringo!" I will always remember that mobilisation exercise as Uncle Ringo. I managed to complete all stations and got back to ACJC for the evening show.

Ok yup that is pretty much it for mobilisations. It was quite simple and straightforward. The hassle was to make sure the items that we have to bring once mobilised are always properly maintained. Basically we had to always have all the required items in our SBO and field pack like torchlights, batteries, uniforms, toiletries etc. Different units will arrange them differently but in general it is pretty much the same. 

Ok that's all for mobilisation. 


Next week : Reservists IPPT IPT RT
Categories : The Army Series