for this posting on my senior term part 2, i will talk about our training in taiwan.
if there is anything about my ocs i recalled most, it would be the punishments. no, not just the defaulters parade, or the turn outs or the holding of push up positions until our body contorted like crazy... it includes the formal punishments - yes, getting charged. you see, until then, i had never ever been punished formally, even during my recruit and junior term days. i have heard so much from people that it would be impossible to pass out of ocs without getting charged. i almost did not believe them until my overseas training in taiwan. let me talk a bit about taiwan.
for the exercise in taiwan, it was also similar to brunei in that we had topo followed by lots of exercises. what i remembered most about the topo exercise was this. there was a particular checkpoint up on lao fo shan (old buddha mountain) it was checkpoint "k". and after reaching that, our next checkpoint was at the base of the mountain. since we were not allowed to walk on tracks, we had to bash through the vegetation. we ended up descending the mountain by jumping from boulder to boulder along a dried up stream. after about 3 hours of jumping, my section mate leading the section suddenly screamed and refused to move any further. he insisted on climbing back up the mountain. the whole section went into a conflict mode. and then we realized why. there was a huge spider in front of us and is so happened that this section mate was arachnophobic! in the end, one of us took out our weapon and fired a blank onto the spider... (may the spider rest in peace!) and we continued our journey down the mountain.
as for the exercises, instead of being in the forest like in brunei, we were deployed on a ridgeline. a very windy ridgeline for that matter. the winds was so strong at times that we could literally suspend ourselves in the air. anyway, we dugged our trenches along the side of this ridgeline and stayed in it for 3 weeks. during the 3 weeks, we did the different types of platoon level missions. i could still remember the smell of the mint plants that we bashed through in the dark while on a platoon dawn attack mission. i was appionted ex platoon commander for a platoon raid. the exercise lasted 3 days and i hardly slept during that 3 days. anyway, it came and it went. as the finale for 3 weeks outfield in taiwan, we did a company dawn attack mission. it was during this time that i knew what people meant when they say one could fall sleep while he walks... heh heh... oh, by the way, 3 weeks in a trench was no joke. but of cos, after a while, we got used to it. my buddy and i even create little holes in the trench where we kept little fresh water crabs as pets! hahahaha...
ok, back to the formal punishment. what happened was towards the very end of the exercise, we had a company attack mission. as we close in towards the form-up place, we had to negotiate a rather steep slippery slope. all these while, the ocs commanding officer (a ltc lee meng tong) was walking behind me. as i tried to descend the slope, i slipped. naturally, i grabbed my rifle and next thing i knew, i misfired. before i knew it, lee mt towered over me and told me i will be charged. i ended up with no post exercise r&r, i got confined to base 4. and once i reached sgp, i was immediately charged and put on 7 (or was it 14?) days rp. sighs...
some little tidbits about my taiwan trip...
- before taiwan, we all ordered our jackets from a common vendor so that the whole company could don a common looking jacket. problem was, we all ended up getting confused which jacket belonged to who. heh heh...
- reporting early to camp (8pm if i recalled correctly). do the pasar malam of my hand luggage before making our way to changi airport to load up the charted plane. those time, we were made to wait along nichol drive at the back of the airport. interesting to see so many people peeing into the longkang at the wee hours of the night.
- loaded the aircraft and flew to taipei on a chartered flight. a sandwich and an apple was what we had on board. nothing near to the inflight food we knew about. and heh heh... in the plane, i had "fun" with another guy from my platoon... naughty me. but i was not out yet and felt really awkward after that...
- taking 2.5 tonners from taipei airport to base 4. 6-7hr journey. we were all in our black and whites and slept on the ali baba bags.
- taiwanese food was one helluva kind. sticky rice and sweet vegetables... ewww... but after a while, to us hungry cadets, any food is good food. sticky or not.
- i was confined during the r&r. and my daily routine revolved around area cleaning, area cleaning and more area cleaning. and as cadets, we were really nothing. i was asked to clean the toilets, dig the choked up drains, scrub the water tanks and what have yous.
- toilets in the base were the ultimate. it was a culture shock for most (if not all) of us. firstly, the partitions were so low that you could chit chat with your neighbour (who was also shitting) face to face. so, imagine if you have constipation! hahaha... secondly, the toilet bowl hole that you shit into open onto a common drain that serves all (yes! all) the toilet bowls. thus, when someone upstream finishes his business and flushes, the water will clear all the shit along the drain and if you are lucky enough to be at the last downstream toilet, you will get everybody's shit flowing pass you below your arse! and worst still, if someone's shit is anything but normal... ok, shall leave the rest to your imagination.
- for the bathing area, it was nothing but an open area. and in the middle of the area, you get a huge concrete tub of water. and we would all congregate around the tub, and scoop bailfuls of water to bath. well, i know some people are shy and some people cannot imagine how not to get a hard on when bathing in such communal fashion. but look here, as a cadet, we are either too hungry or too tired to even think of anything that could stir our loins! lol!
- some names we were familiar with were: chi4 niu2 ling3, heng2 chun1, man3 chou1, wan4 li3 de2 shan1, lao3 fo2 shan1, tai4 ping2 ting3, gui1 shan1, and so on... all prominent landmarks of southern taiwan.
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)
if there is anything about my ocs i recalled most, it would be the punishments. no, not just the defaulters parade, or the turn outs or the holding of push up positions until our body contorted like crazy... it includes the formal punishments - yes, getting charged. you see, until then, i had never ever been punished formally, even during my recruit and junior term days. i have heard so much from people that it would be impossible to pass out of ocs without getting charged. i almost did not believe them until my overseas training in taiwan. let me talk a bit about taiwan.
for the exercise in taiwan, it was also similar to brunei in that we had topo followed by lots of exercises. what i remembered most about the topo exercise was this. there was a particular checkpoint up on lao fo shan (old buddha mountain) it was checkpoint "k". and after reaching that, our next checkpoint was at the base of the mountain. since we were not allowed to walk on tracks, we had to bash through the vegetation. we ended up descending the mountain by jumping from boulder to boulder along a dried up stream. after about 3 hours of jumping, my section mate leading the section suddenly screamed and refused to move any further. he insisted on climbing back up the mountain. the whole section went into a conflict mode. and then we realized why. there was a huge spider in front of us and is so happened that this section mate was arachnophobic! in the end, one of us took out our weapon and fired a blank onto the spider... (may the spider rest in peace!) and we continued our journey down the mountain.
as for the exercises, instead of being in the forest like in brunei, we were deployed on a ridgeline. a very windy ridgeline for that matter. the winds was so strong at times that we could literally suspend ourselves in the air. anyway, we dugged our trenches along the side of this ridgeline and stayed in it for 3 weeks. during the 3 weeks, we did the different types of platoon level missions. i could still remember the smell of the mint plants that we bashed through in the dark while on a platoon dawn attack mission. i was appionted ex platoon commander for a platoon raid. the exercise lasted 3 days and i hardly slept during that 3 days. anyway, it came and it went. as the finale for 3 weeks outfield in taiwan, we did a company dawn attack mission. it was during this time that i knew what people meant when they say one could fall sleep while he walks... heh heh... oh, by the way, 3 weeks in a trench was no joke. but of cos, after a while, we got used to it. my buddy and i even create little holes in the trench where we kept little fresh water crabs as pets! hahahaha...
ok, back to the formal punishment. what happened was towards the very end of the exercise, we had a company attack mission. as we close in towards the form-up place, we had to negotiate a rather steep slippery slope. all these while, the ocs commanding officer (a ltc lee meng tong) was walking behind me. as i tried to descend the slope, i slipped. naturally, i grabbed my rifle and next thing i knew, i misfired. before i knew it, lee mt towered over me and told me i will be charged. i ended up with no post exercise r&r, i got confined to base 4. and once i reached sgp, i was immediately charged and put on 7 (or was it 14?) days rp. sighs...
some little tidbits about my taiwan trip...
- before taiwan, we all ordered our jackets from a common vendor so that the whole company could don a common looking jacket. problem was, we all ended up getting confused which jacket belonged to who. heh heh...
- reporting early to camp (8pm if i recalled correctly). do the pasar malam of my hand luggage before making our way to changi airport to load up the charted plane. those time, we were made to wait along nichol drive at the back of the airport. interesting to see so many people peeing into the longkang at the wee hours of the night.
- loaded the aircraft and flew to taipei on a chartered flight. a sandwich and an apple was what we had on board. nothing near to the inflight food we knew about. and heh heh... in the plane, i had "fun" with another guy from my platoon... naughty me. but i was not out yet and felt really awkward after that...
- taking 2.5 tonners from taipei airport to base 4. 6-7hr journey. we were all in our black and whites and slept on the ali baba bags.
- taiwanese food was one helluva kind. sticky rice and sweet vegetables... ewww... but after a while, to us hungry cadets, any food is good food. sticky or not.
- i was confined during the r&r. and my daily routine revolved around area cleaning, area cleaning and more area cleaning. and as cadets, we were really nothing. i was asked to clean the toilets, dig the choked up drains, scrub the water tanks and what have yous.
- toilets in the base were the ultimate. it was a culture shock for most (if not all) of us. firstly, the partitions were so low that you could chit chat with your neighbour (who was also shitting) face to face. so, imagine if you have constipation! hahaha... secondly, the toilet bowl hole that you shit into open onto a common drain that serves all (yes! all) the toilet bowls. thus, when someone upstream finishes his business and flushes, the water will clear all the shit along the drain and if you are lucky enough to be at the last downstream toilet, you will get everybody's shit flowing pass you below your arse! and worst still, if someone's shit is anything but normal... ok, shall leave the rest to your imagination.
- for the bathing area, it was nothing but an open area. and in the middle of the area, you get a huge concrete tub of water. and we would all congregate around the tub, and scoop bailfuls of water to bath. well, i know some people are shy and some people cannot imagine how not to get a hard on when bathing in such communal fashion. but look here, as a cadet, we are either too hungry or too tired to even think of anything that could stir our loins! lol!
- some names we were familiar with were: chi4 niu2 ling3, heng2 chun1, man3 chou1, wan4 li3 de2 shan1, lao3 fo2 shan1, tai4 ping2 ting3, gui1 shan1, and so on... all prominent landmarks of southern taiwan.
3 comments:
now naughty boy, define "had fun".
And what? on the plane seat? how did u managed that without being seen?
heh heh germs... that's for me to know and for you to find out... heh heh... ok, hint hint - jackets. :-x
my fantasy is quite limited...so i can't imagine how. But someday, i'll squeeze it out of u!
...er er but don't take that literally.
Haha
Post a Comment