It felt like yesterday when I was waiting for my day of enlistment (before which I watched Memoirs of a Geisha on its first day of screening).
And now... it's been a week since I became your friendly neighbourhood recruit-next-bunk!
It's been a very enjoyable week (even with the foot drills) with Leopard Company Platoon 4 Section 1... with a "very funny" platoon commander, sergeants of various degrees of "nice-ness", and of course, nice platoon mates!
First night
Adapting to the new environment was a must, of course. On the first night, I couldn't shit, but the next morning I knew I had to force myself to do so, otherwise it will snowball (or "shit-ball", for that matter) until I get stones in my large intestine.
My first night there was one of the most beautiful memories... the moment I lay on my bed and drew up the blankets was really an "Oh-my-God" moment!
Equipment blues
The water bottles we're given looks cool, but it had this very stubborn layer of substance on the inner side of the bottle which gave the water a bitter taste... so bitter that I couldn't make myself drink it during my first water parade (a platoon-wide drinking exercise).
The problem only disappeared after 2 to 3 days.
Doing the SBO (skeletal battle order) was a problem as well; my water bottle pouches kept dangling outwards unlike those which the others did... I managed to solve the problem only by securing some strap to a hook, a procedure which I forgot to carry out during the initial stages of doing my SBO.
Unlike those who have experience in uniformed groups, for me it's the first time I'm wearing boots. And having to run 4 levels up to my bunk doesn't help either. Because of the size of the boot (my boot is bigger than a step on the stairs), I usually get very clumsy when I go up and down the stairs in boots. I think I nearly fell thrice, and I'm still trying to adjust to that way of walking.
The socks given for physical training were good... with extra padding for areas like the heels and the balls of the feet, but I still miss my good old toe socks! However, maybe because of the good absorbency of the SAF socks, my toes didnt feel that sticky after physical training exercises as I imagined it to be.
Draw Arms!
Getting my rifle was surely an experience (especially with the solemn evening ceremony that marked it), and while I thought it would be hard to strip the rifle (for cleaning and inspection), it was easier than I thought, and being able to learn to strip the rifle greatly boosted my confidence as a soldier (for no apparent reason).
Just when I thought all was well...
When we send arms back to the armskote, we had to oil our rifles to prevent rusting. Most of the time I couldn't apply oil evenly, so I had to use my finger to even out the oil. Never mind, sending arms is usually followed by night snacks and shower.
It's drawing arms that I'm feeling uneasy about... especially when there's little time to clean my rifle before our next activity. I don't want to dirty my cupboard, you see...
And the second time we practised stripping the rifle, I was slower than everyone else.
Laundry
Having to do laundry on my own was, perhaps, one of the greatest changes to my lifestyle BMT made. Since there was no washing machine for us to use, we're to wash our own clothes using pails given to us.
Washing shirts was made easier when I started using the shower instead of just the tap (which really takes damn long).
I was relieved, however, that the clothes were easier to dry than imagined. My No.4 (the long-sleeved shirt with camoflage patterns), which I washed one morning, became completely dry the same afternoon after I hung it out.
And even my towel, which I washed one night (for no reason) just before sleeping, dried up under the fan while I slept.
Time Crisis
It's said that the "personal admin time" will be a time slot (before lights-off time) allocated to us for doing stuff like shower, shitting and laundry, and that the average length of time for that slot is one hour.
However, most of the time, we're given free time for only about 30 minutes... there were days when they only gave us 20 minutes!
Being fast was one of the challenges I had to face there, then. My daily shower, on the average, took no more than 2 minutes, as I usually need more time for laundry. There was one day, of course, I only had time to wash my briefs (which I do daily).
Get shitty
The lack of time means that I couldn't choose the cubicle in the toilet that I wanted to use either.
So for me, a sitting toilet bowl user, it's bad news that the squatting ones outnumber the sitting ones 4 to 2.
To make it worse, in the middle of my week there, one of the sitting toilet bowls got jammed. With the shit still inside. Can you imagine?
And it was left as it was until the day I booked out... which was like 2 to 3 days. I sincerely hope that they called the plumber after we booked out to come remedy the problem before our next book-in (which is this evening).
People
There're quite a few interesting people in my platoon... like Habib and Sufiyan -- the squabbling duo in my bunk (they're in fact buddies who just love to exchange acid-tongued remarks for the fun of it), our very own Kelvin Tan, Nicholas Tse (I'm serious!), JJ Lim (too bad it's not JJ Lin), King Kong (our Malaysian PR who knows little English), King Barry (yeah, that's his name) and... erm... there'll surely be more interesting figures emerging in the future.
Anyway, my bunk mates nicknamed me "Manhunt". Not that I got a very nice bod after only one week of training (unless I'm PES A), but there was one night after the shower when I applied deodorant on my armpits... to allow the deodorant to dry up, I had to keep my arms away from my body for some time... and I was walking around in that pose... you know, I tend to shake my arms around a bit... I don't know lah, but they sort of thought it looked like a comical version of the way guys walk when they take part in manhunts... that's how I got that nickname.
Our sergeants came in various races and attitudes... there was once when we were told to bring down our rifles for sending arms... my bunk mates suggested bringing down our mess-mugs as well (for night snack) even though we're not told to do so.
One of our sergeants was a bit unhappy that we did that, and just when I thought we're going to get scolded, our platoon sergeant merely said that he liked to see us taking the initiative and "knowing what's going to happen next".
Clash of the funnymen
Anyway, I think Habib is the funniest guy in our platoon so far (he, too, said that he's a "very funny man")... he's our armskote in-charge (the one who takes charge of drawing and sending arms). There was once when we were to fall in for physical training and our sergeant wasn't around, we sabo'ed him to conduct our water parade and temperature taking exercise. Halfway through the thing, our platoon commander came by (and was startled by Kong's "41 degrees Celcius" temperature)... the first thing hs said to Habib was...
"Do you know that I'm a very observant man?"
"Yes, sir"
"Do you know you're wearing your socks inside out?"
Meals
The meals were OK there... there were times we got bumper lunches... times when we got beancurd dessert and ice-cream... and times when they gave us worms for breakfast.
No lah... it's just Mee Tai Mak fried in dark sauce... but to me they're just dirty maggots.
Booking in today
Yeah... I'm going back to Tekong today (I'm already starting to miss my bunk!), train for one day, and booking out on Saturday again!
I'll try to cover the stuff that happened in there on this blog... if there's the time.
