Sunday, July 10, 2005
The London bombings had just made my job as a field defence trooper all the more difficult. Working in an airbase where they take security very very seriously. Sometimes I wished I can blog more about the stuff I do, the training I go through and many other stuff but there's only a certain amount of stuff that I can say online. People don't know what we go through inside cab, what kind of training we go through and what's our job scope like. In other words, we don't get the recognition we deserve, like what our oc often said. We get combat pay, we're not like those normal rps that goes through only a 2 week lecture course and they proceed straight to their job training. We're infantry-trained soldiers, we defend the airbase in peace time and defend it even during wartime. Come wartime, we will be joined by or join other infantry soldiers to attack our enemies. Sounds like I'm boasting but it's also true to say that field defence troopers are also better trained than infantry soldiers.
It doesn't help that I don't have nice sergeants. Sometimes I want to be in their position and try to understand why they wanna be such fuckers to us. Everyone superior in rank to us want to fuck us so bad because they want us to be a soldier, a man and someone who can scare any intruder into our base. We got tekan badly during turnout on friday night. I remembered tong telling me about his turnout experience in commandos. How they suddenly get to sleep so early at 9.30pm only to get turnout after midnight. Being smart soldiers, my platoon went to sleep in their no.4 pants and socks. For me, I even worn my boots to sleep. How right I was at around 11pm, the siren sounded. We were not sure at first cause the bloody siren was spoilt but it became confirmed when everyone started shouting "Turnout! Turnout!". Sergeants start rushing up to shout at us like we are deaf.
Rushed down in fbo attire. The thing about turnouts, no matter how fast we try to be, we can never satisfy the sergeants, csm and the officers present. That was evident by our previous turnouts. However, this one was extremely bad because we have to hold it there in pumping positions(sometimes in either fbo or sbo) for as long as 30mins. After a while, they recover you, ask you to knock it down again and the process repeats itself until someone is satisfied. Very soon, they give you 1 min to empty your field pack when you're sweating like mad. After a while, everything in again. Platoon 2 got fucked very badly by their pc who labelled them a disgrace because they can't work together as a platoon and their movement is very slow. What happened to them is that they have to empty their items from their ziplock bags into a pile. Something ppl from ninja coy went through during their field camp in bmt last time. I hope it doesn't happen to my platoon really.
Talking about my platoon, we're the best platoon in the coy. Everyone tries their best to find faults with us but they can't so every sergeant in the coy labels us the best. We work together and suffer together. During the turnout, even my ic asked us to endure and hold it there. We always do what we had to do and we seldom give our sergeants any problems. The reasoning is simple. Since our platoon's sergeants are strict but nice and fair to us, it's only right that we repay their kindness. We give them the respect they want. In our other words, we never give our superiors any chance to fuck us.
I can't imagine a terrorist attack happening in the mrt stations in Singapore. Let's be honest and admit that Singaporeans are very ill-equipped to deal with any forms of attack. For someone who hates the army, the entry by gerald was rather meaningful. Being a Singaporean, it's only right that we have to serve ns because we owe alot to the country in terms of peace and prosperity etc. If we don't have a defence force, I can't imagine the outcome. If there's nobody to defend the airbase during wartime, our skies can't be protected. Here's a message by my csm, "The pilots here can't fly if they don't have the planes to fly with". Suddenly we realized the importance of our jobs.
It sucks to know that there's a Good Charlotte concert right here in Singapore but I can't go. Why did they want to hold it on a freaking weekday? What choice do I have, I'll have my own concert by listening to their cd on my dicsman.
The topic of RT or retraining for nsmen after their ord surfaced in my camp this week. I'm actually glad that I'm gonna be a pe teacher after I graduate from university. I'm gonna love my job and it helps keep me fit. Ppl like Mr Seah, Mr Ng and other pe teachers are my role models. For their age, they're damn fit. After my ord, my brushes with the army will be just reservist and ippt. I don't want to add RT to that list. Which boss for example will want to employ a worker who has to leave early because he has to go for RT with the army? Not many I would say no matter how good that worker is. I've 2 ppl from my platoon who're gonna be teachers after they graduate. Philip is probably gonna teach maths and Boon Kian from hcjc who won the scholarship from moe is gonna teacher science. I'm glad my degree in sports science is not specialized like theirs. My degree allows me to branch out to work in other private organizations if I want to after my sint with moe. However, I don't think that will happen. I love working and interacting with ppl in a school. Being a fitness freak, I want to be help ppl stay fit and healthy.
Pay is good and it's a stable job. I don't ask for much. People don't realize it, teachers can earn alot and I can't imagine being a businessman who earns big bucks. It's just not me. I don't need alot of money, just enough for me to buy a car and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. That's enough.
