Lights Out!! Leo's one and only blog

By my SAR21 during a section flanking movement cuz while I was leading the section, the rifle hit a bush and bounced back to me and the barrel got into contact with my chest during my 4 days field camp in the "Gates Of Hell" and the medic said it will leave a scar(and it's still hurting lor). 4 days in the cold, rain and leopard crawling in the mud was miserable. Sleeping in the muddy and wet uniform is worse, and to make the already miserable coditions worse than it is, I was the light machine gunner which means my main weapon is a 7 kg weapon(when everyone else other another poor soul was carrying the SAR21) that I carry with me all the time during the fiel camp and I got 4 abrasions... Go figure.

The typical day starts off when you don't have the time to even brush your teeth! And so, for the duration of the camp, I didn't brush my teeth until I went back to camp and trust me, having clean teeth is one of the best feelings in the world. And when you bathe, you see black soap spots all over the wall because the soap washes all the crap all over your body. And at the end of 4 days, your hair will be stiff and sticky. But the thing about the camp is that compared to my bmt days, it was not as fun or should I say, not fun at all. The only thing I enjoyed was the fire movements esp flanking because I think it's the most useful fire movement... and I think i better not say too much lest I expose restricted info. It feels good to lead a section of men during fire drills. Will gladly do it anytime!

Oh and did I mentioned that I was confined? It was damned unlucky man. Before the camp, we were told to protect our maps and I did exactly that but some $%#^er didn't and we had to pass our maps to the officer for a signature. The twist is we used newspaper to wrap the map before passing it for the sig and when we got the map back, we didn't get back ours so I trusted that my map was protected until the 2nd day after much leopard crawling in the mud and rain etc that I found out it wasn't and when I was appointed section commander for the navigation exercise, I used my friend's map for plotting and planning the route to the check points(while my navigator would bring us to the check points after im done doing the briefing and will occasionally check with him whether we're going in the right direction which we did... haha evidence of a good leader and navigator!) and when the whole exercise was over and the officer checked the maps, I got confined because of the kiam chai map...

On the last day of the field camp, I was appointed as the ambush party. Basically just stand there and wait for people to come and fire on them. When I got back, my dad told me that during his OCS days, he was also the ambush party during his field camp! Only thing was that he was chosen because he was sleeping during lecture and when the instructor suddenly asked him a question he just hantam bolah anyhow say and the insturctor said: "Very good, very decisive. Joseph, you be the ambush party." As for me, I still don't know why I was chosen and I don't think I'll ever know. Guess it's fated.

Another Field camp in 2 weeks time!!! Hope it does NOT rain this time heh.