Lights Out!! Leo's one and only blog

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.