Saturday, September 02, 2006
Aah... i've did about 9 months of national service already. here's wad i've learnt in NS:
1. i can't stand irritating people, especially people who ask questions that fit the meaning of either of these 3 R's... redundant, ridiculous or rhetorical, which leads to point 2.
2. i can flare up quite easily, sometimes during when i'm tired, and also when i'm not so tired. however, sometimes i surprise myself when i dun flare up under extreme conditions, maybe bcos my self-awareness keeps reminding me that flaring up may not change anything for the better, so no point wasting energy.
3. i must work with people i'm comfortable with, people who i know very well. however, the 'people' i'm referring to here can sometimes be just one person. but i'm starting to open up to more people, so that when that one person is not around, i still have other people to crap with.
4. pulau tekong has trees grown in the straightest rows i've ever seen in singapore. so much for being realistic.
5. i love to give names to people i dun like, which act as 'code names' when i'm talking bad about them just in case someone who knows them is eavesdropping.
6. there are 101 ironies in the army; however i can't really change anything, much less since i'm not a commander.
7. some sergeants really deserve some slaps on the face due to their foul mouth / ridiculous standards / inhumane punishment... i'll make sure they are slapped when i ORD if i see them anywhere around on the streets.
8. i have zero tolerance when people provoke me in civilian life cos i think i have endured quite a lot of shit in camp and dun deserve to be tekaned anymore... so once i scolded an auntie when she accused me of jumping her queue cos she apparently choped a place.
let me give you a summary of what a person with A levels / diploma qualification can go through in the army if he's combat fit (PES A or B):
either BMTC --> OCS or SISPEC (training schools for commanders to be) --> units (as commanders leading their men);
OR
BMTC --> unit (as men - if u chose not to be a commander or SAF decides u are not fit to be one; i belong to the latter case obviously since i fail IPPT)
so straight after BMT, in which i enjoyed life at Raven company, i suay suay got posted to 1 Guards, a unit. so much for being so eager to login to the overloaded website to check my posting after waiting for about 15 min for the web traffic to clear. the posting is even more exciting than my A level results. i was glad that 4 other pple in my platoon also suay suay went into the same unit as me; one of them was my best buddy in BMT. after some asking around, i found that another tj friend and my pri sch friend were also going to 1 Guards for the rest of the 2 years. however, both of them were going to be recce troopers, while i'll just be simply a rifleman, meaning i need to chiong when i'm supposed to, unlike them who will be dealing with military intelligence.
[i would like to post about BMT stuff, but then unit life is so much more interesting to write about... so BMT life will have to wait.]
so wad happens if u dun have A levels or a diploma? you go to a unit straight for your BMT and the rest of your NS will be done at the same place, with the same people you met during enlistment day. yes, that means they dun enter pulau tekong, and dun have a chance to be a commander at all and are destined to be men. why this special arrangement? ask the govt lor. then again, not many of them have the qualities to be a commander anyway. since these people enter a unit directly and the intake is small (a few hundred compared to thousands at tekong), they are known as a 'mono intake'.
why do i suddenly bring forward this concept of a 'mono intake'? that's because 1 Guards as a unit always takes in a mono intake every 2 years and while i happily thought that i'll be separated from them and posted into a company full of A level students in the same predicament as me, i was sadly wrong...
(to be continued...)
~ the @lie[n] landed on Earth @ 11:16 PM