training/ stints overseas - country z

this visit occurred in 1999. and i remembered this particular trip because i lost my "nanny" during this trip. you see, when i was young, my landlord's wife took care of me whenever my mum went out. over time, i came to see her as my nanny. we kept in contact even after my family moved out of the squatter and i would frequently visit her though my growing up years, even after she moved into bedok public housing. she was sickly bedridden old woman when i visited her in 1999, just before i left for country z. during that visit, i told her i will be away for about 2 weeks and will not be able to visit her. i promised her i'll call on her again when i come back. she held my hand, looked at me and told me that she couldn't wait for me. she said she would be gone by then... she left during that period i was away....

ok, back to the trip to country z. the trip was conducted as part of a bilateral exercise between singapore and country z armed forces. we took turns to host the bilateral exercise and for that year, it was country z's turn to play host. it was a relatively straight forward exercise (as was all bilateral exercises) complete with quite a bit of formalities, touristy visits and events as part of the hosts' hospitality. it was, after all, an effort to not just bring military co-operations better, but also to raise awareness of each other's culture and country. what was most memorable about that trip was the fact that it was cold, really cold. and we were told that it was due to the winds blowing from the antarctic that caused the temperature to dipped extra few degrees suddenly. thankfully, it was a war-game exercise and everything was conducted in the basecamp and we were largely protected from the cold.

otherwise, this trip was rather fun. the war-game area was that of the actual areas around the basecamp and as part of the familiarisation of the exercise ground, the host planned for us to conduct recce of the actual defence locations. it so happened that these locations also coincided with some touristy spots where people would go to view whales and dolphins and thus we literally became tourists even as we were planning out our attack plans and discussing direction of assaults, fire bases, form-up areas, etc. so convenient right? well, we didn't complain. we had a ball of a time. i couldn't recall much of the exercise proper except that the whole event lasted slightly less than a week and it was well-paced and everyone enjoyed it. i managed to take a couple of days leave after the exercise and stayed back to do a bit of sight-seeing. it was a really good experience for me.