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Some snippets of Field camp!
"We few....we happy few, we Band of Brothers - Scorpion Coy Plt 3 Sect 1
Field camp was rather fun, but nonetheless tiring, marching up to 8km at
one go with FBO under the hot sun. Running almost everywhere we went to,
eating horrid combat rations that were not only cold,
but rather unpleasant in taste as well, (save for a few nice ones).
Field camp is an experience that i will never forget, at least not in
the near future.
*
Below are some tiny fragments of memory that is still fresh
in my mind even after almost a week.
Day 1:
Set off from Coy line at approx 0800Hrs for an 8km route march to our first
destination Salabin Campsite
This campsite is in essence a rubber plantation, that looks cunningly similiar
to Malaysia *sniggers*.
Salabin is really a desert if you ask me, no grass can be found,
unless if you walk about 40 meters down into the plantation, which is
where we have our lessons on battle tactics,
IFC or fire movement, not to mention lectures on how to operate the GPMG.
=)
Had to construct our bashas the first thign we arrived at Salabin,
spent the whoel afternoon thereafter digging our pathetic drainage systems,
which was a sign of things to come.
The nice view of the mainland from my bunk
Having some fun with bunkmates in the night prior to fieldcamp
One of the last few times i'll ever be able to sleep
on a clean webbing. lol
The Salabin Campsite...notice how sandy it is
Me! After an afternoon exercise prior to lunch
Quite obviously the lunch was bad, hence the xia-lan faces.
*
Day 2:
One thing about Tekong is the weather, it is extremely extreme,
in the day time it is scorching hot, but during the early morning,
it is frigidly cold and damp! You can hang out a dry uniform before
sleeping, only to wear it damp the next day. Madness.
Had a 1.5 Km morning run with rifle on, practically
60% of the platoon had trouble completing it, with our dear
Ngai Ming getting lost through the paces. Gave all of us back abrasion
due to the charging handle rubbing against our skin.
it hurt!
Mostly lessons on field movement again and section movement.
In the night fell extremely sick, had a fever that tipped the therm scale at
38.7 degrees, but for some reason, i could carry on. Wahaha,
thank god i didn't report sick, if not i'll be sent back
to the Med Center and i'll have to redo the entire field camp!!
*
Day 3: onward to Somatang
Woke up as usual, had cold breakfast and snoozefest during field lessons.
Sergeants demoed on how to conduct Observation posts and the ROE
"Rules of Engagement"
After lunch, broke our bashas and began our trip to Somatang, a rubber plantation
about 6 km off from Salabin.
Instead of marching there in platoon level, we made our way there
in FBO moving to the rules of Section/Group movement,
i.e: the Staggered formation etc.. It was tiring having to high alert yourself
whenever u pass by an opening or an empty road.
Had to prone by jumping into the forested areas whenever a rover or
vehicle passed by. However, we got to see
very beautiful sceneries as we walked along the route.
When we arrived at Somatang, obviously the first thing
we did was to pitch our bashas again, and dig our drainage systems
unfortunately.
Cannot help wondering how Malaysia-ish Somatang place looked.
*Muahaha*
Another day passes on.
Evidently in an attempt to recognise Singapore's past as a Malay settlement,
SAF required us to bring our Kampung spirit in us.
Thats me catching a snooze after pitching my basha.
Me again! in Malaysia Somatang...muahaha
*
Day 4: Today, not only did i get "killed", i accidentally "killed" my buddy as well
Nothing much happened except for more lessons. But what seperated
today fromn the rest was that on this day, we got to fire blanks.
Which essentially are bullets without the projectiles. Lol.
Each issued with 3 mags full of rounds! That is like near 100! Wahaha,
Ok, like what the title suggests, yes i did "kill" my buddy accidentally.
You see, while on movement drill we were contacted by the "enemy" on the left,
so when i ran to my nearest cover and proned,
i was still facing my initial direction, i.e: towards my buddy.
The IC kept shouting "return fire! Return fire!" and so i did.
Towards my buddy
and of course "killed" him.
DANG.
After that little episode of losign my buddy, i had to continue engaging the enemy,
one mag down, i had to change my mag and found what i thought
will be good cover - a big bush beside a tree.
i should have covered myself at the tree right? But no... i didn't
i stupidly changed my mag behind the bush, and of course,
died due to lack of sufficient cover.
So much for a fun day. Wahaha.
Quite obviously, by the time this photo was taken, high pants with #4s were no longer
in vogue.
My stinky helmet and rifle.
Day 5: Onwards to Reclaimed land
Final day at Somatang before we set off for Reclamed land
about 4-5 km out of Somatang. Same morning routine, 5 BX and all.
Set off in the late afternoon after another of fire movement and practising
our flanking movements.
If you thought Salabin was sandy enough, the route to Reclaimed land
was worst! Whenever a platoon of men walks over it,
a large plume of dust will rise, you can practically taste and smell
the sandy dust.
But for sure, the view and STARS in Reclaimed land is unparalleled.
For this night, we need not pitch Bashas cause we slept Cowboy style
whihc is basically sleeping on a groundsheet, fully exposed.
First time i actaully fell asleep gazing at stars. Absolutely fantastic
view of stars from where i was.
One thing about the RL was that it looked similiar to Australia,
as in, the Australian savana, high brown grass with little trees. It truly is
beautiful.
Section 1 dudes post-arrival at RL.
Section 1 dudes again with our Platoon Sergeant, 2Sgt. Suhaimi prior to dinner.
Don't you think this place looks like Australia?
*
Day 6: The day we kept digging and digging......just dig and dig...
Spent almost 9 solid hours digging our individual sheelscrapes
and a 2 men fire trench for each section.
Woke up as usual at around 0530, had our dusty 5bx and thereafter, a safety
breifing an the correct procedures on digging our shellscrapes.
A shell scrape is basically a reactangular entrenchment of about 2m X 1 m
with a depth of about knee level.
It is meant to protect you from incoming fire from bullets or Arty shells
while in our prone position.
Digging commenced at around 0900 hours and by the time we broke for lunch,
most of us had our shellscrapes nearly completed.
We were only allowed to dig with our Entrenchin tool, whihc is a rather
mini version of a larger Chungkol...the blade is about the size of
a palm, if not bigger.
That is about 3 hours of non-stop digging. But that wasn't all, it was only
the beginning. More was to come.
I managed to complete my shellscrape by about 1300 hrs and went on to
help my section dig our fire trench.
The Fire trench is basically a C -shaped chest deep trench that provides adequate
cover from bullets and arty shells.
Each section had to dig one Fire trench each.
Unfortunately, as we were about to complete our FT, due to loose and unstable
soil below the top soil, one side of our Ft collapsed. Ours was as perfect as it
could have been, but alas, we weren';t lucky enough to prevent
the natural mishap.
So we had to fill up our Ft and dig a new one right from scratch.
Completed the second one in record time, by the tiem we completed our second
perfect fire trench, a few of the other sections
only managed to complete their first and only fire trench.
Digging only stopped at 0630 Hrs, whereby we broke for dinner thereafter.
Thats is already 9hours of non-stop digging under the hot sun in our helmets.
*phew!*
Hacking the ground with our ETs (entrenching tool) to loosen the soil before digging
My shellscrape. It may look simple to dig. Let me assure you, it is everything but.
Exhaustion written all over Nio's and Ian's face as we broke for lunch.
Digging the FT is a tiring business, just look at how much soil we had to clear!
The S31 warriors with our Fire Trench that we dug in record time!
Me in my section's fire trench before we had to fill it up. Notice how deep it
was.
*
Day 7 : Back to Company Line and Civiliation!
Slept in our shellscrapes the night before, once again, got to fall asleep
viewing the stars. Hehehe.
Woke up exceptionally early at 0500 to prepare moving off.
After breakfast, packed our field packs and loaded it on to the tonner
before we set off on our battle course.
A 1 km stretch that had stations with enemies in it to simulate
surprise attacks. A chance for us to practise our battle movement before
field camp ends.
Got to fire blanks again, how cool eh.
After the Battle course, we marched towards SISPEC
which was about 4 km away from where we were. At SISPEC,
we had to go through the Battle innoculation Course or BIC,
a range that is constructed in such a way that it mimics a battle ground,
complete with low entanglements, concertina wires, live MG bullets flying
overhead and electric charges going off now and then.
We have to crawl through the entire course on all fours and sometimes on our backs.
Apart from the fact that it was physically tiring and brusing as well, it
gave me the opportunity to experience how it felt liek to think about my family
during war, during the BIC, i did think of my family and loved ones alot,
that gave me the strenght to push on and carry on crawling, though
by that time, my hands were already bleeding from the cuts suffered
from the rough sand and rocks that literally was the BIC.
marchedback towards Scorpio Coy Line in high spirits hereafter and offically
closed a chapter in my life as a chao recruit. Hehehe.
*
Field camp was a chance for me to understand and realise who i really was,
made me understand how one person's character can change if one is deprived
of the basic necessities liek sleep and food. All in, field camp was
a week of self discovery about little things i never knew about myself.
It was fun, but tiring, but the benefit from learning more about myself
and others made it all worthwhile. =)
*
Will only book in on Sunday night, so i still have another 3 days to enjoy.
Next week is gonna be a very very tirign week again. Soc on monday,
Grenade live throw on Tuesday and IPPT on Wednessday.
Thereafter another 3 day field camp called The SIT TEST which is
a Situation based assessment on one's leadership potential by carrying out
missions etc.
*
Till i blog again, this has been a very very long and tedious blog. lol,
but it was fun recounting my experiences. =)
Till then, Cheerios everyone.
Scorpion Warriors lead the way
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