i entered my senior term sometime in sep 1985. it started off with us feeling a little uneasy as we had new cadets joining us. these were people form safincos as well as from the commandos. but well, over time, they managed to integrate into the platoon. the following are some of the things i remembered as a cadet in my senior term:
we had super fast canteen breaks. my platoon mentors did not believe in canteen breaks. or for that matter, any breaks. to get 5 minutes to run to the canteen, grab a drink and run back to class was considered a luxury. even our so called mess hour was no more than 5-10min. but well, we got by.
i got to know schweppes drink as a cadet. it was the drink that defined my stay in ocs. of cos, there was also the soya bean milk that my bruneian buddy always buy back after his nights out. it was funny but somehow, becos our instructors did not believe in canteen breaks, whatever breaks we got, we really cherish them and everything we gobbled down in that short span of time, we treasure them!
my mentors has this habit of punishing us. and they were rather sadistic when it came to punishments. we had things like leopard crawling back to our companyline from the peng kang hill (through the front gate, foxhound avenue, safincos/ siw field and pass the various ocs companylines). by the time we reach our companyline, many of us had our slack all tattled and torn. and for me, my knees and my elbows were bleeding from the rough tarmac road surfaces.
i vividly recalled one incident that developed into hell for the platoon during senior term. it lasted about a week plus. what happened was that we had a rough night and we decided to fall in a little later during the morning reveille. we ended up running 1 round less around the siw field. it so happened that one of the mentor (colin) stood at his bunk and counted our rounds. when he questioned how many rounds we ran, the platoon under-officer (cadet appointment holder) told him we did what we used to do. for that, the whole platoon was punished. colin told my pc and we got a good trashing from him. i recalled him saying this - since you guys cannot tell the truth, you guys are not worth to be treated like humans. from now on, we shall command you using our whistles... one whistle meant one type of punishment, two whistles mean another, and so on. and for the next week plus, we were simply punished non-stop. got turned out for change parade almost non-stop. made to go through defaulters parade almost daily after lunch. our lunch was 5 minutes for the whole platoon. what we did was - the first person got a trayful of food, the rest just run pass the tray, grab a spoonful, swallow, ran out and fall in and run back to do defaulter's parade. it was pure hell...
senior term was also characterised by a lot of platoon exercises. and with these exercises come many appointment holder and missions. to my instructors, these are perfect opportunities to humiliate us. frankly, i went through the training but did not learn much. i remembered i was a platoon commander for a raid mission. the exercise lasted 4 days. and all i recall was there was a lot of harrassment and a lot of scoldings as we went through the planning and rehearsals. during one particular moment, i got a earful from my mentors. but becos i was the type who smile a lot, i ended up irritating my mentors. in the end, i was harrassed even more by them...
senior term also involved 2 overseas exercises - brunei and taiwan. let me talk a bit more on brunei here. all i recall was us getting to the camp in a barge. it was a 6-hr barge ride. and once we arrived, it was non-stop packing/ unpacking, topo exercise followed almost immediately with sect patrolling, platoon missions before linking up to do a company mission.
for the topo exercise, i had fun. and it was fun not because of anything but because my buddy was a bruneian. and luck had it that our section's topo start point was his house! well, of course our instructors did not know. so... what happened was, we debussed, got despatched, bashed into the vegetation, and waited for night fall. then we went to his house, slept through the night and the next morning, his relative drove us to a location close to the check point... heh heh...
exercise-wise, well, those days we did a lot of section patrols. and the patrols were all those cauldron and thrust, and what have yous. cannot recall much except that it involved a lot of walking and walking. frankly, i think most cadets, once they go into exercise-mode, they just switch off, let the appointments gabra and just follow orders. well, that was what happened. and it went on and on and on... seemed like forever... and that it was platoon patrolling for another 2 days before linking up to do a company mission.
during the final company mission, i was part of the block force and we had to carry the 84 rrs, the gpmg and lots of ammo. and to get to the block position, we had to continuously bash through lallang non stop for couple of hours. it was mentally torturing not knowing the direction of move as all around us, the lallang looked the same. and once we got to our block position, the assault started and soon enough the reinforcement came. we were put on pressure to conduct a leap and frog back to the objective. that was about 1-2km away. by the time we reached the objective, my oc refused to cut the exercise until we move up to the top of the objective to deploy, which we did. once we were deployed, oc declared the exercise end. that was the only time many of my peers and i literally knelt down, and cried unabashedly. we were simply too exhausted physically and mentally.
all in all, it was almost a non-stop 3 week stay in the jungle. and of cos being in a tactical exercise, we were not allow to talk. we could only whisper to each other. by the end of all the exercises, we came back to camp and we continued whispering without realizing that we could talk normally!
the following were some additional tidbits about our brunei training:
- that was the first time we saw cicadas! and our pc aka ho hc was so proud to show us how to catch queen cicadas, how to set up our mosquito nets so that the cicadas do not crash into us while we sleep and so on. and of cos, to top off all show-offs, he proudly caught a young green cicada, pulled off its head and all its legs and chewed the torso... ewww.
- for reasons unknown, we were given condoms for our brunei trip. and i remembered this becos being young and well,... innocent, that was the first time many of us came close to a condom. well, of cos, it was kinda exciting for me... and a little embarrassing. but well, all it needed was for my pc to make fun of the condom by blowing a balloon out of it. i remembered cos we were all asked to assemble in the bunk after the exercises as our pc wanted to talk to us. and i recalled him telling us that "we fuckers are young and still virgins and many of us have not even done it with women before" and then he took out a condom and blow it... heh heh...
1985 - 2/85 iocc (1)
1985 - 2/85 iocc (2)
1985 - 2/85 iocc (3)
1985 - 2/85 iocc (4)
1986 - 2/85 iocc (5)
we had super fast canteen breaks. my platoon mentors did not believe in canteen breaks. or for that matter, any breaks. to get 5 minutes to run to the canteen, grab a drink and run back to class was considered a luxury. even our so called mess hour was no more than 5-10min. but well, we got by.
i got to know schweppes drink as a cadet. it was the drink that defined my stay in ocs. of cos, there was also the soya bean milk that my bruneian buddy always buy back after his nights out. it was funny but somehow, becos our instructors did not believe in canteen breaks, whatever breaks we got, we really cherish them and everything we gobbled down in that short span of time, we treasure them!
my mentors has this habit of punishing us. and they were rather sadistic when it came to punishments. we had things like leopard crawling back to our companyline from the peng kang hill (through the front gate, foxhound avenue, safincos/ siw field and pass the various ocs companylines). by the time we reach our companyline, many of us had our slack all tattled and torn. and for me, my knees and my elbows were bleeding from the rough tarmac road surfaces.
i vividly recalled one incident that developed into hell for the platoon during senior term. it lasted about a week plus. what happened was that we had a rough night and we decided to fall in a little later during the morning reveille. we ended up running 1 round less around the siw field. it so happened that one of the mentor (colin) stood at his bunk and counted our rounds. when he questioned how many rounds we ran, the platoon under-officer (cadet appointment holder) told him we did what we used to do. for that, the whole platoon was punished. colin told my pc and we got a good trashing from him. i recalled him saying this - since you guys cannot tell the truth, you guys are not worth to be treated like humans. from now on, we shall command you using our whistles... one whistle meant one type of punishment, two whistles mean another, and so on. and for the next week plus, we were simply punished non-stop. got turned out for change parade almost non-stop. made to go through defaulters parade almost daily after lunch. our lunch was 5 minutes for the whole platoon. what we did was - the first person got a trayful of food, the rest just run pass the tray, grab a spoonful, swallow, ran out and fall in and run back to do defaulter's parade. it was pure hell...
senior term was also characterised by a lot of platoon exercises. and with these exercises come many appointment holder and missions. to my instructors, these are perfect opportunities to humiliate us. frankly, i went through the training but did not learn much. i remembered i was a platoon commander for a raid mission. the exercise lasted 4 days. and all i recall was there was a lot of harrassment and a lot of scoldings as we went through the planning and rehearsals. during one particular moment, i got a earful from my mentors. but becos i was the type who smile a lot, i ended up irritating my mentors. in the end, i was harrassed even more by them...
senior term also involved 2 overseas exercises - brunei and taiwan. let me talk a bit more on brunei here. all i recall was us getting to the camp in a barge. it was a 6-hr barge ride. and once we arrived, it was non-stop packing/ unpacking, topo exercise followed almost immediately with sect patrolling, platoon missions before linking up to do a company mission.
for the topo exercise, i had fun. and it was fun not because of anything but because my buddy was a bruneian. and luck had it that our section's topo start point was his house! well, of course our instructors did not know. so... what happened was, we debussed, got despatched, bashed into the vegetation, and waited for night fall. then we went to his house, slept through the night and the next morning, his relative drove us to a location close to the check point... heh heh...
exercise-wise, well, those days we did a lot of section patrols. and the patrols were all those cauldron and thrust, and what have yous. cannot recall much except that it involved a lot of walking and walking. frankly, i think most cadets, once they go into exercise-mode, they just switch off, let the appointments gabra and just follow orders. well, that was what happened. and it went on and on and on... seemed like forever... and that it was platoon patrolling for another 2 days before linking up to do a company mission.
during the final company mission, i was part of the block force and we had to carry the 84 rrs, the gpmg and lots of ammo. and to get to the block position, we had to continuously bash through lallang non stop for couple of hours. it was mentally torturing not knowing the direction of move as all around us, the lallang looked the same. and once we got to our block position, the assault started and soon enough the reinforcement came. we were put on pressure to conduct a leap and frog back to the objective. that was about 1-2km away. by the time we reached the objective, my oc refused to cut the exercise until we move up to the top of the objective to deploy, which we did. once we were deployed, oc declared the exercise end. that was the only time many of my peers and i literally knelt down, and cried unabashedly. we were simply too exhausted physically and mentally.
all in all, it was almost a non-stop 3 week stay in the jungle. and of cos being in a tactical exercise, we were not allow to talk. we could only whisper to each other. by the end of all the exercises, we came back to camp and we continued whispering without realizing that we could talk normally!
the following were some additional tidbits about our brunei training:
- that was the first time we saw cicadas! and our pc aka ho hc was so proud to show us how to catch queen cicadas, how to set up our mosquito nets so that the cicadas do not crash into us while we sleep and so on. and of cos, to top off all show-offs, he proudly caught a young green cicada, pulled off its head and all its legs and chewed the torso... ewww.
- for reasons unknown, we were given condoms for our brunei trip. and i remembered this becos being young and well,... innocent, that was the first time many of us came close to a condom. well, of cos, it was kinda exciting for me... and a little embarrassing. but well, all it needed was for my pc to make fun of the condom by blowing a balloon out of it. i remembered cos we were all asked to assemble in the bunk after the exercises as our pc wanted to talk to us. and i recalled him telling us that "we fuckers are young and still virgins and many of us have not even done it with women before" and then he took out a condom and blow it... heh heh...
6 comments:
I was in OCS the same time (2/85 IOCC), but in Bravo Company. It was pretty much the same as you described.Even after all these years, some of my worse nightmares are based on events from those years! Anxiety dreams where you were afraid of getting confinement before you book out!. Anyway, one colourful CSM we had was Encik Oh Cheng Kah. What a character! His defaulter parades were legendary. Even in Bravo, we heard about the incident involving the morning run. It was great reading your piece. Brought back a lot of memories! Thanks!
hey, surprised to have someone from 2/85 reading my blog! well, yup... those were memorable days. lots of bitter sweet memories. well... still have not complete writing about ocs. might reorganize the writings abit. so,... ya, wait out! :-p
PS: yup, i remember your ock too! very terror. we over echo side also fear him. and i kenah once from him when i did cos over the weekend. he screamed from b coyline and asked me to go over just to scold me for wearing vest and slack when i should be in smart 4... wtf right? heh heh...
I bumped into someone who knew OCK last year. He said OCK is a changed man now, especially after his wife passed away as a result of cancer.
I stumbled into your blog after I googled '2/85 IOCC' a few months ago. Interesting read! Glad you followed up with the following articles on OCS. Too bad you were confined during R&R in Taiwan. It was weird coz most of the night clubs in both towns were out-of-bounds to SAF personnel. We were standing in front of one, arguing if we should enter and CO, Lee Meng Tong came behind us and reminded us in a loud voice that we would be CHARGED if we did!!
What memories!
:-)
i have always wanted to write about my life and my experiences. so writing about ocs is but a matter of time. i have yet to complete it and will probably add a senior term (3) sometime.
reflecting, tough and terrible defining moments are always memorable. i don't think i will ever write so much about anything else in my life like i did for ocs.
it's good to reconnect with someone from the past. thanks for writing.
I was from Bravo IOCC 2/85 too. 31 years now and I wonder if we would stop and try to recognize that face if we were to dump onto one another in the streets.
Small world.. Cpt Amarjit Singh, Lta Helmie, Cadet Terrance Sng, Cadet David - big tall fella, are some of the names I can recall. Ring a bell ?
Over the years, I've chanced upon Luke Ng, cadet Goh K.P. from RJC. Heard years later that Luke Ng got his head kicked by of the mentor during one of the exercises, that mentor nearly got his rank taken away.
Cadet Goh K.P. was one of the mentors' favorite . This chap would check out when many of us stay back on a Saturday to wash our stuff to be ready for the next week. He would then drive ( his girlfriends'car we heard ) the next day to do his washing. He drove a Honda Accord, and our OC was driving a much smaller car.
One cant really talk about OCS without at least a mention of Encik Oh Cheng Kah.
I am the one who got a total of 17 defualters parade from him.
such memories...
Responding to a post 6 years ago. I was in Bravo IOCC 2/85 too. Wow... 31 years and I wonder if we would recognize the faces if we were to cross path.
Some of the names I can recall - Cpt Amarjit Singh, Lta Helmie - CJC, we hear he topped SAFINCO, and topped OCS, Cadet Terrance Sng - SAJC or CJC , I think, Cadet David- tall big fella, Cadet Yacob who was my buddy whom I dump into years later and we were interviewing for the same job ! Cadet Goh K.P-RJC, Cadet Goh did very well from day one and was clearly in the instructors' good books. He looks the part, behave the part, did many things well, and right. And there was Cadet Goh, a scholar from Temesek JC, he had a difficult time
And certainly Encik Oh Cheng Kah. I got 17 defualters parade from him.
memories...
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