I survived field camp.

Since W is for Welfare, my 7 days outfield weren't all that tough (excluding the rain). Besides the usual and necessary punishment such as push-ups and leopard crawls and the occasional sand-in-your-shirt, everything was just like in camp.

Day 1:
We had the first of three route marches which I managed to stay till the end. Upon reaching the first camp site, we were hustled to set up the tents. Of course, the commanders weren't satisfied with our performance and told us to break the tents and then build them up again. Due to the need for "efficiency", everyone only wanted to finish the task as fast as humanly possible without consideration for the functions of the tents. Consequently, ground sheets were placed the wrong side up, the effects of which you shall see in day 2. Later on, we had lessons and our first tastes of field rations. Night fell pretty soon and when it did, all I could see were objects within 5 metres from me. I hugged my rifle to sleep and to tell the truth, I slept like a pig.

Day 2:
Nothing worth mentioning, with the exception of the bloody rain at night when I was already asleep. As mentioned in Day 1, the ground sheets were improperly placed, and it was raining inside my tent. Being completely soaked in rain/mud/sand water. it was impossible to return to my sleep. What baffled me the most was how my buddy was able to do it without budging one bit.

Day 3:
It was time for the second route march. The route was so full of upward slopes, I almost gave up halfway. We reached the second camp site, after which the Day 1 scenario repeated. For training, we used blank rounds. As long as there was recoil and gunshot sounds, it beat having to simulate using our mouths to shout, "Bang! Bang! Bang!" Dinner was field cooking, during which we desperately tried to get rid of the instant noodles they kept stuffing us with. Night fell, and I slept like a pig once again. Heh.

Day 4:
We had technical break today, which simply meant no training from lunch onwards and a chance to take shower. No doubt the shower lasted for less than five minutes, it was sufficient to keep our morales high for the remaining days.

Day 5:
It was time to put what we had learnt for the past 3 days to use today. The test was pretty taxing since all of us had to do it twice due to poor performance the first time round. When everyone was done with the test, I was one of the four (un)lucky souls who got a chance to throw a thunderflash. (A thunderflash is a dynamite-esque stick which produces a fucking loud explosive noise when activated, and is used by commanders to simulate enemy fire during the test.) I have my platoon sergeant to thank for picking me and not the other 12 from my section. Heh.

Day 6:
We had our last route march. Maybe it was because field camp was coming to an end, or maybe I was already used to the weight on my shoulders, I felt the last route march wasn't all that tough. The camp site was on a reclaimed land, on which we had to dig our shellscrapes (sp?). Halfway through, it started to pour. Once again, I was covered in mud and still had to carry on digging. Night came, but the rain didn't cease one bit. My shellscrape was slightly flooded, and everyone was freezing. Being the W company (again!), we were relocated to the old sispec where we spent our final night "outfield".

Final Day:
The rain came again when we were on our ways to BIC (Battle Inoculation Course), which was basically a course where we had to do leopard and back crawls under barbed wires for approximately 100 metres. Simultaneously, machine gun would be firing over our heads. At that time, it was still pouring, but since it was the very last item of field camp, we were gung-ho enough to go ahead with it. No doubt it was extremely tiring, I had my OC crawling beside me to give support. He even lent me his legs to step on when the trench was too deep for me to get out of. Heh.

I have never been happier to see the company line after that.

This entry was posted by Kelvin, on Sunday, February 12, 2006.