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Looking back, I rather enjoy my army life. Though it is tough, but I get to experience many things and learnt quite alot. I had excorted detainees to most of the places available, including court-martial, sub-court, hospitals and so on. I even get the chance to escort detainee to supreme court's court of appeal. It had been an eye-opening experience for me. Both sides, the prosecutor and the defending lawyer, argued very well and it was very interesting to watch. After watching so many court cases, I could even estimate the sentences to be passed quite accurately. Haha!
I also made a significant change to my camp. After editing the half-completed access document by my senior, I managed to replace the booking in/ booking out system from books to computerise. It started off with a WITS (work improvement teams) project proposal that I submitted to my sir when he asked me to think of one. I saw a computer left in the guardroom unused and gave the proposal to use it for book in/ book out purpose. I was then suddenly given the task of completing it. It was a very tough project as I knew nothing at all about creating a program. Though there is already a almost completed program written in access in the computer, it didn't help when I didn't use access before. Things became worse when I discovered that there is no one who knows how to use access in my platoon. I landed myself in deep shit. Having no choice, I read up about access and spent countless of hours trying to figure out how does access works. In the end, I managed to figure how access works but I knew very little about programming language which takes months to learn. By trying out many times, I manged to get the programme to work. I even added in the function of taking photos for identification purposes. Now, booking in or out only requires to key in NRIC no instead of writing in the book. It saves time and paper. I am glad that I managed to learn something and make a significant change to my camp unlike many who wasted their time in army.
1 of the things I missed most would be my dogs. After taking care of them for so many months, I had develop a feeling towards them. I especially missed playing with my favourite dog- Yellow, a rather hyperactive dog. Another thing I missed is the playing of table soccer. Every night, when we got nothing to do, we would play table soccer. I played defending most of the time and became well-known in my camp for solid defend. I became so good in it that I won most of my games. I also miss the games my camp-mates and I played like basketball, monopoly or watching movies together during our free time.
Time fly and I have now ORDed. I will miss both the good and bad times I had gone through with my camp mates. I wish them all the best and hope that they will endure through this difficult time of manpower shortage.
Ah bing || Saturday, November 10, 2007
When I first sign up for the course, my initial thought is that this would be a slack course and it also excuses me from having to start my detention barrack's duty. But how wrong I am. Dog handling is not as easy as I had thought.I was rather lucky to get the dog- Ranger from 2PDF (people defence force). He is a very old dog, almost 10 years old which is equal to human age almost 70. He is the 2nd oldest dog in the course and is enemy of the oldest dog in the course, Marco (11yrs old). Both Marco and Ranger are very well-known to be obedient, though Marco is slightly more obedient than Ranger. They can't stand each other. They would go crazy and starting barking at the sight of each other. Ranger has a good sense of smell and will go crazy at the scent of blood from any menstrating female dog, which happened during our course. He also has two wives and two children.
Our daily routine:
Everyday we got to fall in by 7.45am and get ready for temperature taking and to wash kennel. We would bring the dog to take temperature by poking a thermometer in its ass and later put the dog inside exercising ground while we wash the kennel. Shits and urine are common encounters when we wash the kennel. Luckily, Ranger is a dog with kennel pride and will not do its business inside the kennel.
After kennel washing, it's time for obedience drill. Firstly, we learnt about the basic commands like "sit", "down", "stay", "heel", "come" and also corrective command "leave" given when the dog made a mistake or not obeying instructions. After that, we went on to do drill. Yes, the same as the one in army- turn left, right, back and marching. It sounds a bit dumb but then SAF stresses a lot in drill in cultivating discipline. So too bad, the dog have to learn our drill too since it is employed in SAF. Haha... My obedience drill is rather good because Ranger even knows how to adjust himself when he is out of position, whereas for other dogs their owners have to push them into the correct position.
After lunch, we usually have lectures which allows us to know a lot about dogs, how to judge their behaviour, how to take care of dogs, how to do basic first aid for dogs and the different employment of dogs etc... These lectures I felt, though couldn't cover very in depth (because this is only a two weeks course) but is sufficient enough for us to know how to handle a dog well.
After lectures, we have baiting. "Dogs are a very dangerous weapon,"2WO Ravi said. I didn't fully understand his meaning until it comes to baiting. When a dog bites, it is not just one hole created. It would cause a few deep punctured wounds on both side of the flesh it bites. The photo of an example of the wounds caused was shown to us and it was very gruesome. We started to realise that handling a dog isn't as simple as thought and true enough injuries occured. For baiting, we have an intruder who would be wearing a baiting sleeve and a prowler doing prowling with a dog. When the prowler saw the intruder, he would call the dog to watch him and then shout for that person to stop. When that intruder refused to stop after three warnings, the dog would be release and he would run forward to bite the intruder. The one acting as an intruder therefore must be very careful and offer the baiting sleeve out for the dog to bite. The prowler would then call the dog back and then do a body search on him before calling for more help using a walkie talkie.
Things often don't go as well as the procedures as stated above. The dog sometimes would refuse to stop biting and come back. When that happens, I will have to choke the dog to make it release its bite. Once, the dog also accidentally bite my friend's left arm which doesn't have the baiting sleeve on. Luckily it is a shallow bite as it realise its mistake and release its bite quickly. I myself was also bitten before. Mine is because the dog bite onto a gap on the baiting sleeve, which actually is my own mistake for allowing it to do so, and created a small hole on my skin. It is very painful though and the pain lasted for three days.
After 2 long weeks, the course finally came to an end. It is not easy and I looked forward to taking care the dogs in the detention barrack. It will not be easy as the dogs there will be fiercer since their jobs is to guard the detainees. And of course, looking forward to the monthly off I will get as a dog handler... Haha
Ah bing || Sunday, June 25, 2006
The place that I was posted to wasn't as bad as I had intendly thought, though the facilities there are rather bad compared to the last two places that I have stayed in. The food is also somewhat different from what I used to eat. The food is cooked by JWs (Jehovah Witness) whose religion forbids them from serving NS and was sentenced to 3 years and 3 months by SAF. They have an secret recipes of cooking all kinds of meat (passed down for generations) which I think is able to match restaurants standard. Security in detention barrack is very high. It is surrounded by a few layers of fences with concertina wires on top of it. The route to cookhouse to have our meal also required us to pass through 4 gates. Therefore, I have a feeling of being locked up too when I first reached there.MP in detention barrack also got quite a bit of power even though we have rather low rank. The detainees have to address us as sirs (uncommon because we only address officers as sirs in other parts of SAF) and have to greet us. There is also yellow lines in many parts of the cells and they have to ask us for permission before crossing. As MP, we can also give punishments like push-up, standing parade (standing at attention position for a long period of time). Especially those who just came in, they were tekan very severely to ensure that they comply to all our orders and also move fast.
As a person who is not fierce by nature, I choose to go to security side, dealing less with detainees. I will be in charge of CCTV, dogs, guard room and also escorting of detainees to courts or hospitals. Therefore, I will be going through the two weeks dog handling course starting from next week back in SAFPU again.
Next, birthday. This year, I didn't really celebrate much of birthday. I didn't even like looking forward to it. So what I did is just have the cake that my dad bought with the voucher redeemed from starhub points during my nights out and go back to camp.
Lastly, hamsters. My hamsters gave birth to the second batch of babies today. This time it gave birth to three babies. Photos can be found in my photo albums...
Ah bing || Sunday, June 04, 2006
After 9 weeks of trainings in the school of provost, I have finally passed out. The ceremony was a simple one without military band playing. No parents were also invited. And the spectators are all our own people who have seen the parade every three months. Yet they said that this is a prestigious ceremony. I just can't help wondering to who is this parade made for...Pardon me for my anger, but I have already lost hope in army. I was posted to detention barrack (army jail). They show us in Tekong that going to MP, we will get the chance to be posted to many interesting places, like into ZPC where we get to conduct raids in camp and capture people who break the military law, or SIB where we get to do investigation on the crimes committed or even the dog wing where we train dogs to become guard dogs or sniffle dogs. At the start of the course, they even tell us to work hard to get posted to the unit that we want. Then came the postings, out of 13 people in my section, 10 was posted to detention barrack and the rest to GSMB to do guard duty. Throughout the platoon, only 1 get into SIB and 1 get into dog wing. Even the company best trainee couldn't get into the choice that he wants which is ZPC and got into detention barrack. I felt cheated...
The duty in detention barrack is mount, dismount and standby. Which is on duty for 24 hours on one day, the next day we get to rest 24 hours at home while the third day doing other stuff like practising C&R and get ready to mount again the next day. There is no weekend for me and if I happen to mount on a holiday, I will still have to go to work. The reason is that the place need people to be on guard all the time. Hai, what is the use of getting off on weekday when my family are at work and my friends are all at the army?
I m quite disappointed with the life in the army. Now, I m looking forwards to my ORD date though there is still a year and a half away. Meanwhile, I will take up courses to fulfil my life. I have already register as a member at Bukit Batok Driving Centre. That should keep me busy for the next few months. After that, I will look for more courses to take...
Ah bing || Sunday, May 21, 2006
When the hamsters started to squeak more often and seemed to be closer than before, we started to suspect that the hamsters that we have gotten are of opposite sex. Soon after, the one that we suspected to be female started to become more aggressive towards the other one. It often chases the male hamster about the cage for no reason. Then came monday morning, my father woke up to find two red baby hamsters beside the female hamster. He quickly separated the male one away as he was worried that the female one might eat her babies when it felt threaten. The babies grew rather fast and by friday when I came home, they already have a thin coat of hair on their skins.This is the 2nd time that my pets have given birth. The first time is when I have rabbits as pet. I remember that time is that we purposely went to find a male rabbit to mate with my rabbits, since both my rabbits are female. One of them were successful conceived and gave birth to six baby rabbits. Most of them were given away when they grew up...
The female hamster don't like people to watch her nowaday. She would carry her babies to a new place everytime we watched her and she felt threaten. Now, the baby hamsters, though still haven't open their eyes, have started exploring the surrounding areas. The mother obviously didn't like it as she often went to carry them back once she felt that the babies are too far away from their nest. My sister's friends have ordered the hamsters once they heard about the news. Hai, girls..... Don't worry, dwarf hamsters will mate very soon after their babies grew up and more hamsters will be expected this year....
Ah bing || Tuesday, May 02, 2006
_The day when we have our live pistol firing
I was actually looking forward to this day when we can fire pistol. Even the firing of GPMG (general purpose machine gun) wasn't as fun as not many people will get to learn pistol. I find it quite "cool" as I think about how the people use their pistol on TV and in movie. When I shoot in the IMT ( simulator), I got an average of nine out of ten for every position. So I was thinking, hmm, I got a little chance of getting something now- best shooter. Getting best in something got a plague and a day off, so I was looking forward to the live firing.On the actual day, the first time I shoot, I got only one of ten. My whole practice was basically screwed up, getting 13 out of 40. However, I learnt the correct technique from Staff sergeant Mark and did much better in the test, scoring 44 out of 50. However, it is not good enough as the two best shooters scored 47 out of 50 and went for another round. Hai, never mind, hope I will get another chance to shoot if I can get into ZPC.
Something unpleasant happened in the live range too. Warning had been given to us again about the pistol being a more dangerous weapon than the rest. I had finally understand why. Pistol, being a short weapon, can being swing easily. So, if the firer talk to a person behind, the pistol will swing to the side too. What happen to my friend who sleeps beside me in my bunk is that he said that he squeeze the trigger and no more bullet came out. However, the sergeant behind him told him and there is still one more round left. Subconsciously, he squeeze the trigger again and a bullet went 45 degree to the side. He was scolded very badly for that and was banned from firing the actual test, which might cause him to be out of course. I think that this is a very important lesson for all of us. Often, we would do things subconsciously especially in the morning when we are tired. However, when it comes to very important or dangerous thing, no matter what, we must stay hundred percent ALERT. My friend would have killed somebody if the pistol swing more to the side. I hope that nothing much would happen to him. Guard duties is unavoidable but I hope that he would not be charged or placed out of course. May god bless him...
Ah bing || Saturday, April 29, 2006
When I first discover that I wasn't posted to sispec (sergeant course), I was disappointed. It is even worse for me when I discover that most of my section mates made it to the sispec. I was posted to MP. Unlike others, I have already knew where I would go if I don't make it to sispec since I have already expressed that I was interested after selected for MP interview. One of my section mate who made it to sispec told me how he wished he was also posted to MP too. I was rather surprised until he explained to me that as a man I would not have as much responsibility as a commander. Furthermore life as an MP is considered to be one of the best vocation in SAF for NSF. I have to agree with that. What's more can I say when large amount of my time is spent in the lecture theatre where I can enjoyed the air-con (18 degree). We also got quite a lot of free time and I even used to watch the chinese series every night as I watched it everyday during my two weeks block leave and wanted to complete the whole serie. Nowaday, I spent most of my free time playing chess.The good thing about MP is that you will get to learn about the military law (chapter 295). A lot of interesting stories are told by my sergeants and officers and it really opened up my mind about what the SAF is really like. Couldn't say much now since these are restricted information...
Even the field camp, which they described until like very siong ended up becoming the slackest outfield activity that I ever went. They talked about having to go without any sleep for two whole days and have to work continuously until all the three missions are accomplished. However, what happened was that most of the time we were slacking around while the spec 2 (future sergeants) soldiers went around to plan the missions which they took at least two hours. When it is time to carry out the missions, it rains. So we ended up sleeping in the five tonner (vehicle). So in the end, the field camp ended me don't really know what is the proper procedures for my wartime role. My friend told me that why do we really need to know about the wartime role? All we need to do is to take instructions from sergeants and just carry them out. I guess that is probably the life as a man in SAF. Just listen to all the instructions from commanders and carry them out. No need to think or worry too much.....
Ah bing || Thursday, April 27, 2006