My Reflection

After 21 days of training, finally I’m back. Back at the airport when the plane touched down, I was overwhelmed but lots of emotions. Some of emotions were sour, some were sweet and some were bitter. The trip to Brunei is definitely very fruitful. I learnt about myself, I learnt about others and I think I have grown up a lot since the trip. Well let’s start from the very day when we reached Brunei.

Just before boarding the plane, SQ8992, almost all my friends were calling their girlfriends and friends. Oh gosh when I look at the time it was like past midnight. Me too I felt like calling someone, just someone and lastly I decided to call Nicolyn. The conversation was short and interrupted because she was calling Starhub to settle some of her stuff. We talk about taking care of ourselves, God, work and school. She told me that God will carry me through in times of tough times which I agree (later in the training). Well time to board the plane! Got To Go! See ya!

The trip was boring; I spent most of my time sleeping although I did try some of the games in the SQ flight. I played rockman and reversi. The flight was about 2 hours long. When we touched down, we boarded the bus and travel until one of the naval port in Brunei, from there we took water taxi to Tempurong. It was another 2 to 3 hours spent. I slept of course, what else can I be doing? I was feeling SIAN. After we reached tempurong, we board bus again and travel about 45min to reach Lakiun Camp (Survival Thru Skill). We were straight away handed over to the Lakiun Camp (LC) personnel. In other words, our OCS instructors are no longer in control of us. Warrant Goh gave as some introduction on the do and don’t and also a whole list of instructions. Kind of long winded but from the way he worked, we can tell that he is an experienced soldier in terms of administration. We were then introduced to our bunk. Oh My God! The living conditions were worse than that of Taiwan, but to us it doesn’t really matters, we are soldiers not sissy. The whole day was all on administration and settling down. We collected our kit bag, went for LC commander’s opening speech. We also learnt how things are secured and waterproof in LC so as to minimize losses of equipment. The timings are tight, so tight that we usually sleep 5 hours per night only.

Soon our journey to Brunei began, we kick off starting with our infantry training. The training programme includes crossing of water obstacle (CWO), exercise Batatyat and exercise Chindit (forgive if I spelt the name of the exercises wrongly, I never really taken note of it). We went through crossing of water obstacles again despites the fact that we had done it before back in Singapore. The CWO is just a standard drill so there’s nothing much to talk about. My good friend Yao Zhong was the dispatcher, therefore he got to stay in water for about 1 to 2 hours. Folks, I can tell you that the water in river batu apoi is cold, staying in there for 1 to 2 hours in no easy feat.

After CWO is the real infantry training. I was the Ex. Batatyat Machine Gun Commander. Basically my role is to assist the PC in handle the MG team to fight the war. Machine Gun is the most powerful weapon in a platoon asset, therefore I thought I’m quite important in the exercise. The mission started at one of the saw mills near our camp. Let’s get moving. We performed tactical movement as usual. The first contact point! Yay I can do something. I pushed forward with the MG team to fight. Well the enemies were on the other knoll, I couldn’t see them because it was a close terrain. My views were blocked by trees and it was frustrating. I wanted to fire the MG even though I couldn’t see them. The idea is simple, if you can’t see your enemies, at least fire a few shots in the general direction. This may suppress them and telling them, WATCH OUT WE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. My exercise PC told me if you see enemies you fire, hold if you can’t spot them. It means I did not fire at all. It was until sometime later when my exercise PC told me to just fire. I ordered the team to fire but guess what? The weapon was faulty, probably due to the fact that it was dirty. We can only fire about 3 shots before it broke down and we got to fix again. In army terms, we called it I.A. Therefore the whole exercise the weapon just couldn’t fire smoothly. Worst of all I left behind a bag of expended blanks behind. It was a chargeable offence if I couldn’t retrieve back. I was quite lucky in the sense that the mission had a small area of operations and I knew exactly where I had left it. I was able to find it back at the end of the whole exercise but of course I felt bad because Lt. Rayant had to follow me back to the forest just to look for it. After the whole thing, we were to harbour and prepare for our next exercise the very next morning. I was the LAW gunner the next mission, so when I harboured I did not get back my LAW but I did know that my LAW was with Jin Yang. So I decided to get it from him the very next morning since the sky was dark (evening) and was raining.

The next morning when I woke up and set for mission, I approached Jin Yang for LAW but he was a LAW gunner as well. Well he told me to look for another one. I searched and asked around for it but no one in the platoon had it. OH MY GOD! Missing a LAW dummy. It caused a delay in the moving out timing (5am), I was lucky that the LAW was with someone in Platoon 1. Wing Commander shouted at us. I told you it was scary when wing commander shouted. It had lots of implicate, we could be in for a big trouble. Lucky in the end nothing happened, of course I had to report to my instructor on this issue. The whole ex. Chindit to me is just tough physically. I was just LAW gunner therefore I could allow myself to be man mode. The LAW was a killer, it is not very heavy but it is hard to carry. It causes a lot of discomfort to my shoulders (actually all the LAW gunners feel the same that day just that we all endured through). We walked in the dark, we did CWO, climbed up many knolls known as the 7 wonders of Brunei. It was really tough. I managed to endure through so it was quite alright. We spent about 11 to 12 hours walking and doing CWO. When we finally going to attack, the sky was about to turned dark. Why did we take so long? I guessed it was 1 person’s fault. I guess all people from foxtrot and delta should know who I’m talking about. So let’s just keep it a secret. The attack was not exactly an attack due the lack of time and we couldn’t fire because it would disrupt the evening prayers. The attack was more of charging. I detached from my section to help in the front assault, my section thought I had some kind of fall and lost consciousness somewhere since the rocks are slippery. Well that marks the end of the mission and the short but sweet infantry training. Really felt like going home already. The real nightmare was about to begin.

Next was the preparation for Jungle Confidence Course. We started off with a mini compass course. We had a pacing course. We paced ourselves 100m flat ground, 100m up slope and 100m down slope. Then we had a walk around the camp to see if our pacing was accurate. My pacing is only 20m off the actually distance so my pacing is considered very accurate. Next we had compass course where we shoot mils (6400mils is 360 degrees) and walked. I am really bad at these. I fail the compass course. I got 0 out of 4 check points. The whole course took the whole morning, in the afternoon we had survival training where we revised on how to use a parang and building all the structures we need to build in the wild. We learnt how to build, hunt and kill. Essential skills like finding water sources, knowing edible and medicinal plants and lastly edibility test. The highlight of the day was the skinning of animals. We were taught how to skin a quill, chicken, fish and rabbit. After the demonstration was the hands-on session. I really hate to kill but I don’t have a choice because for ONE TO SURVIVE, ONE MUST DIE. I got hold of my quill and gentle stroke it. This is to calm it down. I was praying for the quill. When my named was called, I stepped forward, I stroke the quill a few times and on the 5th time, I pulled off its head. I am sure that I made a quick and painless kill because moments before the quill died it shown no sign of panicking. This was all I can do for the quill. I skinned it and removed all the organs. We packed up after the kill since it was already turn dark and beginning to rain. We are supposed to eat what we kill but due to the rain we went to eat in the canteen. That was basically the end of the preparation for JCC less the combat swim.

Just to side track a bit. The canteen sucks, the food is not nice and they charge $3 to $4 for nasi goreng. I couldn’t believe how much we spent on the food. We had no choice actually. Sob~

Ex. Nomad marked the beginning of JCC. It was a 3 day navigation exercises where the team must find 4 check points, 1 mid point and 1 end point. Our platoon had 3 team, all the teams have very strong navigators so I could foresee everyone passed the test. Ex. Nomad is a veto factor so everyone must pass it. The morning began with the inspection, then insertion. The first day was a killer, we were cursed, we kept moving round and round the same point. We manage to find 1 check point only by the end of the 1st day. We just couldn’t hit the 2nd check point. We harboured near intermediate point 6. we built a fire and something interesting happened, a very big insect, about 10cm big, flew around us knocking us hard and landing itself into the fire roasting itself. 2nd day we push on forgoing the 2nd check point because we see no point in going to it. We found 1 mid point and 1 check point and we harboured at the base of our 4th check point. We were damn sure that we will pass. 3rd day morning, we got to our 4th check point and push on to our end point. Along the way we did CWO, there was this funny incident. We reach a river quite deep, we put on our life jackets and securing of all the stuff. We went across it and we thought it was the end of it. We removed all the stuff on our body and guess what? We walked a few metres and a river appeared it looked quite deep so we put on our life jacket all the nonsense. When we were half way through 2 Bruneian walked to us. The river was only knee deep but I swore it really looked deep. The cut off timing is 1200 hour and we reached the end point at 1130 hour. Our group did well but I was worried for the other group who must go for the corrective training. Daniel’s group, they had to stay out field another day. They must find 2 check points and 1 end point. I was praying very hard at night, I hope they make it. Daniel is one of the few I highly respect in the wing. He does things sincerely and with pride. But in the end his group didn’t make it. My good friend Yao Zhong also didn’t have the luck. They also failed. I knew very well that they wanted the badge very much. I had decided if they can’t get it, I must get it for them.

We moved on to the next stage. Ex. Hermit. Hermit is where we were inserted into the forest and we had to find our way to survive for about 6 days. During this period of time, we were given the minimum equipment and we had 13 tasks to do in order to pass the test. My site was a swampy area, I followed Linus to his find his site. He was lucky because the previous batch left him some really good wood. I later when to my site, I was not as lucky. I started off as zero wood. It was very tough for me because my site had a clearing at the back, I called it my backyard. I looked around my area for trees to chop for my A frame but all the trees were too thick and heavy. It is really not feasible to go chop them after I chopped 2 logs. I thought for awhile, trying to be resourceful since people always say that the most powerful weapon is our human brain. I thought about it for awhile and I decide to use the stem of the attap leaves to build my A frame. So I went around chopping and carrying materials from my backyard. At the end of the first day, I manage to build a very small A frame. Well at least it was going to last me a raining night. I had some difficulties in building the A frame because the stem of the attap leaves is smooth and the vines I picked also had very smooth skin, so you guys can imagine how much hardship I went through. My hands were bitten very badly by insects even though I applied insect repellent. 2nd day I moved on to built my traps. Most of us built the monitor lizard trap and bird trap, I did the same too.

You know in times like these, we can really sit down to reflect on our life so far. For me, I reflected on a lot of issues. I realised that I had never really spent time with my family since when I entered army. I realised that things around me are not to be taken for granted. I thought about BGR issues (something sad happened to me before I came Brunei). I can’t really express in words what had gone through my mind, all I can say is that I had grown up during this period. I knew exactly what are the things I treasured most in my life.

3rd day was the reward day, I was so happy to see wing commander, don’t ask me why. Actually the 3rd, 4th and 5th day were all the same. I reflected everyday as well as finishing my tasks. The only thing worth mention was I spent my 4th night at Zhi Cao’s A frame and I broke his A frame. Whahaha.

6th day morning, the water flooded until my thigh level. I woke 4 am in the morning and sit and continued on my reflections. Until about 5.45am that I started moving to the river bank for extraction by the boats. We then took a bus to the helicopter landing site. Down there we had our resupply and HOT MILO. I had about 6 to 8 cups of milo. We needed the energy after 6days of not eating. At 11.16 am our team board the helicopter and was inserted somewhere we didn’t know called 299 Alpha. From there we had our chillbone.

Chillbone is the time where you get to see the true colours of yourself and others. Normally a good team must go through 4 stages before they can really perform as a team. The 4 stages are forming, bonding, storming, and performing. When we enter chillbone, we are in the forming stage where we are new to each other because we had just mixed around. During the exercise we have to complete all 4 stages before we are a efficient team. That was hard because we only have 5 days and along the way we had to battle the weather, the terrain and our personal character. Chillbone was a different experience for me. I broke my physical and mental limit. Before everything, I thought I couldn’t make it, I was afraid I would drag my team down. So I had to overcoming myself to go with the team. It was a self discovering experience, I knew more about myself, my team and what we can achieve even we thought all was lost.