Saturday, June 04, 2005
Had my last book out today as a recruit before I graduate as a Private next Wednesday. Booked out at 6.30am today for my band audition at Nee Soon Camp where SAF Band is located. As much I would like to get into it and enjoy nsf life in an air con location but it's been a few years since I last touched my french horn. Why would I want to jack myself in front of the captain who is gonna take my audition? I simply went there because I get to book out early and it's really a good experience to be able to see the place itself. It's just like the victoria concert hall. Thanx to my oc, we weren't allowed to book out on friday night and we had to drag our duffel bags from the guard room all the way to the SAF & MDC area. Seriously, it's around 1km or more distance wise. We looked retarded dragging it there and back.
This woman, who's a Staff Sergeant in the SAF Band, brought us into this lecture room to await some recruitment talk by the recruitment officer once again. The Captain told us that most people in our batch will get posted to Infantry or Combat Engineers because there's a shortage of people there. Good news is, the Guards vocation has already been filled up. I look down on the sergeants in SAF Band who signed up as a regular.... Most of the 3rd or 2nd Sergeants who signed up are either mild or just simply obese. Like it or not, The fact that I'm a male Singaporean means that I've to go through 2 years of hardship. I can always take the easy option out by either downgrading myself or opt to go to service vocations.
I don't know where I will get posted to really.... If I don't get into Sispec, I don't know whether to be happy or sad. Do I want to go through "Exercise Nutcracker" at the end of BSLC where I have to dig for 1 day and end it off with missions etc.... Had a talk with Sergeant Moses about Sispec life and it kinda cleared my doubts. Depending on luck, you hit bricks or concrete at your first dig and you will be cursing and swearing for the next 24 hours.
3 more days to POP and I will saying good bye to the wonderful people in my platoon and especially my bunk mates. I thought my friends were bluffing me when they told me that bmt is heaven and it's like going for a chalet before I enlisted. How right they were.... POP is not the end of army life, it's the begining of the end in fact. Unit life is gonna be worse off than bmt.
Yesterday was the first of many intakes that bmtc is gonna take in. Watching the scenes of new people coming and anxious parents kinda reminded me what my parents went through on the first day of my enlistment. The people in my coy did what Apache coy did to us when we first went in. They were shouting POP after we shouted left right haha.... Yesh, Kenneth was one of them. So this morning on our way to breakfast, we did what we had to do. Marching past them, I felt sorry for them cause they don't know what's in store in their bmt life.
The conversion from a civilian to a soldier wasn't easy. It won't be easy for them also because they have to go through field camp, sit test, range etc. We went through and we survived.
Hope Amir gets into SAF BAND because together with Ram and Adrin,they got some interview with HQ as they were selected to be riflemen..... It's worse than Guards and you don't get any honour being inside there.
4 More Days To Pop And We're So Happy YEAH!
