Lights Out!! Leo's one and only blog

...Starts tomorrow. Will be back with an update of life in OCS. Peace out!

Thank you God. Tried logging on to the postings webpage today. Guess what? Got problem! Think there were too many people logging on resulting in the jam. Anyway, I got my friend to logon for me... OCS! To all my friends: Thanks for all the support! I'll do my best in there and if I get commissioned, I'll do my best to be a good officer who leads by example and NOT be a tyrant and dictator. 3 weeks confinement starting this moday! Woohoo!

because it'll be my posting(AKA Dooms Day) to which unit I'll serve in my next stage of
NS. God help me........

Recently met up with my section mates, poly friends, the TK Clan and lecturers recently.

Last Sat was the first time I went to zouk! Went there with my section mates.... Total strength 12, present strength 9.... and we talked about that day when the 5 of us(The bandit, Euraisian, Pendek, my buddy and I) went around saboing people from our and other sections the night before we POPed(what can they do to us after that? It was the last night of BMT). Putting powder on people's heads, their pillows, crotch area, putting the flower pots on their wooden cabinets, the fire extinguishers in their cupboards and pulling out people's beds into the middle of the room and putting the table over them so that they cannot get up when they woke up in the morning and many other nonsense stuff. Drank quite alot of alcohol and finally found out what a flaming lambourghini was and drank it! When we had finished our drinks, we hit the dance floor! Danced all the way till 3am but I had to leave because I had to go to church later that morning. Did I have fun? Yea. Will I go there again? Probably not. Why? Not really my kinda thing lah but it was an eye opener. Besides, it's quite a waste of money.

Was so nice going back to NP today to visit my lecturers. I felt like a student again walking around campus and going to the lecturers and asking for help regarding stuff I didn't understand in lecture. Then meeting up with the TK clan, the rojak clique made up of peeps from different courses and the guys I would join after school during my poly days to slack around and talk TK stuff with hehe........ Really brought me back to my poly days. Priceless!

I'm beginnning to enjoy the relative freedom of civilian life again... I wonder how will it be like when I have to next book into camp next week after I get my posting on friday. Please God may time pass sloooooooooowly. I wanna enjoy my freedom...

Finally, today is the last time I'll be in Tekong before my bloc leave starts without any disruption because I went back for a night for IPPT and then the next day(which is today) for FFI(Fit For Infantry) which determines if I can be a commander in the SAF. For IPPT I got a silver, not bad for a sick person... yes I was sick that day and still is but nevermind. Will get a Gold in my next IPPT!!!! As for FFI, I was supposed to clear it the day I did IPPT but had to come back today to redo a test(dun ask) but anyway, I'm FIT! Haha keeping my fingers crossed and hopes I can go Command school!

As for my POP, I guess that most people would've read or watched it on TV already. Yes it was the parade attended by our PM. It was great having the PM witness our passing out, I think this would be one of the few times I would see him in person. Marching past him would I think be the distance I would closest see him unless I one day become the CDF haha!!! Considering we only had 4 days of practice for the parade, I have to admit that we did a pretty decent job during the parade although we experienced afew minor cock-ups(I was one of them). What to do? But I have to say that our SSM did a solid job of moulding our "bird-dropping" drills to a more standard type drill though I still can't say we're good but he was THE man. He made our POP parade.
Quotable quotes from our SSM:
"Ey uncle!"
"Who faint, you'll disgrace your father, your mother and your girlfriend"
"If you faint, later your father, mother look for you, your friend say you are the one who fainted then how?"
Anyway, at the end of the POP parade, we had to do this dumb dance called the infantry roar... I didn't like doing it. Even my sergeant said he would never do something so stupid because he never had something like during his bmt days. Bo pian, LL suck thumb(all nsmen would know this, there's also an extension but let's not go there......). But surprisingly my mom said it was nice, got the spirit... I still felt dumb doing it. Hopefully the army scraps it or comes out with something more original(it was following the beat of "we will rock you" by queen) or style. Wait! maybe it was made specially for moms to enjoy... no wonder lah -_-"

OK! Time to enjoy bloc leave, catch up on games, do some retail therapy, meet up with friends and most importantly catch up on alot(and I mean ALOT) of lost sleep!
DONkey, when are the TSTS meeting up? lemme know asap!

One last thing, the ultimate downfall of the S.A.F. is impatience of commanders. When I was at my first live range one of the sergeants told us that when an IA(stoppage) occurs, we should sound off and look at the nearest sergeant then rectify the problems ourseleves. So when it did happen, I did what the sergeant told us to do, sound off then look at the nearest sergeant. Guess what? the moment I did that, the sergeant shouted at me all kinds of things. So, I turned to my rifle and started fixing the stoppage. Safety first, so when I tried to safe the weapon, cannot be done, I tried to sound off and the sergeant shouted at me even more with even more #$!@%$& coming outta his mouth. So I basically fixed my rifle problems under a barrage of artillery fire coming out of his mouth but finally got my rifle to work and continued firing as per normal. Should this have happened to a person who gets kan-chiong(panicks) easily, a misfire, chamber explosion or some other f***-type incident would've occured. So friends, future commaders or current commanders reading this blog, take note. Making your men kan-chiong only leads to more shit(I heard of an incident in the then 2 guards camp when the officer was instructing heli-repelling, he kan-chiong his men, one of the men panicked, repelled wrongly, fell off the helicopter and to his death).
When I went for my make-up range, the sergeant attached to me in the foxhole was very patient and encouraging(he encouraged me to get the marksman and you know that story already right?). Never raised his voice nor yelled. Treated us as adults and I respect that. Hopefully, I get to OCS and when I pass out as an officer I'll brief the sergeants under me to be patient with the men as I know I would. Safety to me is always of paramount importance.

Been a while since I last blogged. Finished SIT(Situation) test, SOC and finally(!) my live range. For SIT test, I did 2 missions. One as IC and 2IC and passed and failed the missions respectively. While moving from one mission to the other, the sergeant/officer assigned to you would shag you as much as possible so that for the next mission, you'll be tired and cannot think clearly(not to mention the time limit for each mission). The thing was, I did not feel pressurised. Rather, I was actually enjoying myself! For every day of the 2 days of SIT test there'll be a "special" mission(like I'll tell you), where everyone would get together to plan for and execute at the end of the day. On the second day, I did quite alot of the planning for the special mission and when it got to the time to do that mission, I applied camo(it was my BABY mission man!) even when it was not a requirement! So For IC for my first mission, mission successful, as 2IC, mission failed(My IC didn't do much and I was always waiting for him to give instructions that unfortunately did not come), the special mission, successful. Overall, SIT test is fun! For my friends who're going to enter NS, enjoy SIT test, dun stress yourself and you'll do just fine... and one more thing, try to give as much suggestions to the IC as possible to help them(but do NOT try to take over) and to succesfully complete the mission asap(you dunno how much you'll help them)!

SOC, I finished afew days ago. To tell the truth, everyone was tired that day as we spent 5 hours earlier in the parade square to rehearse for our POP(that is next week yeeha!). SOC comprises of a 700m run down, many obstacles and another 600m run. Sounds easy? In the words of the most ZAI officer 2lt "Heng": "F*** U understand?" during the 700m run, you'll start feeling tired. At the low wall, many people already cannot clear it. At the end of the obstacles to the 600m run, alot of people would be dragging themselves and alot others would be walking already though I kept on running(I never quit though I felt like dying that time). Anyway, my timing, 9.13 min which is quite good! I was actually targeting a 9.30(1 min earlier than the passing time of 10.30min) timing and getting this timing made me proud(because I repeated 2 stations where one, I forgot to unsling my rifle and the sergeant made me repeat it and the other, the low rope when I kept slipping off and did 3 times)! I'll be back with a better timing, I promise!

Finally, range! I finished my range last night. Why so late? Because was on sick leave on the test day of the range so I had to do a "rerange". I was actually very lucky because only 6 people could go for it and 4 others and I were vying for a 7th(which the officer said he would try to squeeze into) but day before he said that he would make a decision on who would be the 7th based on our performance. That night, I prayed for a place. So the next day, I went to him and he said that there would be no more 7th as not enough ammo was indented resulting in a tremendous fall in morale. Knowing that this could not happen, not here, not now, I've already gone so far and I cannot let the range stop me from going to commander school I asked if I could swap places with anyone who did not want to go and the officer gave me the green light. I immediately rushed to ask my platoon mates going to range if anyone didn't wanna go. The first, Calvin aka chao keng aka malingering had to go because he haven't gone for range at all, the second one, Nazrul(who failed the first test) said ok and happily I went to the officer to let him know. When I was there, another person wanted to swap with me so that he could do his IPPT. That meant that there was now 2 places but I swapped with the IPPT guy so that Naz could go for(and pass which he did) range. I really thank God for giving me the chance to go for range. And when drawing arms, I drew Shane's(aka Morpheus aka The Euraisian) rifle because I know that he did well for his range unlike the rifle that was given to me that cannot be zeroed properly(my first range was a disaster because I went BOBO). So after zeroing my weapon at range I proceeded to the actual test, guess what? I am a marksman! 28 out of 32 shots! Just nice. Once a marksman(NCC), always a marksman! Thank God again and thank The Euraisian for his very good rifle.

Next week, POP and IPPT test during bloc leave(I was sick for one of my IPPT tests that's why cannot complete mah). Finally a private and a $100 increase in salary. Hopefully, a place in commander school(Overseas Courier Service).