in this last part, i shall focus on the final weeks in ocs. also, i will capture snippets of my life in ocs in general, snippets that couldn't fit in anywhere in my earlier postings. here goes...
- when we entered ocs, we thought bmt had made us strong and hardy. but we couldn't be more wrong. during the 9 months, we were broken into our elements and slowly rebuilt. we came out of the process transformed. thinking back, ocs in those day built endurance and character. it is so different compared to the scrawny cadets these days. for example, i once saw a few lanky soldiers walking and playing catching as they walked along the side of a road in safti mi. initially i thought they were either some downgraded clerks or some hokkien pengs from other camp. and just when i thought how badly behaved these soldiers were, i saw their rank. they were young officers who had just passed out. sighs...
- for our booking in on sundays, many of us had to board the bus 175 at peninsular plaza bus stop. and because our book in time was no later than 11pm or 11.30pm, you could find most of us at the bus stop at 9.30pm. and it is not difficult to spot us - white long sleeve shirts and black leather shoes. usually the bus would be crowded with cadets. and for those seated, they would be asleep (as usual). for me, i would be listening to my walkman or tuned in to the radio, 10pm - chinese orchestra music.
- we had lots of different stand-bys (checks). one of the most interesting one (perhaps lamest one) was stand-by book in/ book out attire. we had to fall in in our white long sleeve shirt, black slacks, black socks and black shoes. and sgt arthur would personally check our attire to make sure our socks were black (cannot have stripes or patterns), our shoes were black. no need to be shiny but must be clean. and our long sleeves were those typical business wear type. no fancy slim cut or cuff links or big elvis presley collar etc. just plain business wear. well, you could say we looked like we were mourning the death of some mafia if we were to put on sunglasses, but frankly, i thought we looked rather smart. and we wore our black and whites very proudly, after all, not many had the honour to be selected to be officer cadets.
- jurong west extension/ bukit batok/ etc were non-existent then. instead, there were cemetaries, kampongs and factories. the roads were dark and often single lane. when we reached pasir laba camp, many would end up queueing for popiah outside the camp gate. that would be our final taste of civilian food before a week of camp food.
- during the last months of senior term, pasir laba cookhouse started serving pre-cooked food. well, what the cadets get today can be considered top grade delicacy compared to what we got. vegetables were yellow and tasted like rubber (literally). and the meat also tasted like vegetables too - ie rubbery. rice were often undercooked. for breakfast, we started getting more variety - pows, mee goreng, hor fun, etc. but that didn't mean it tasted any better. in fact, we preferred to earlier days when we would at least get fresh bread and strong coffee.
- we went through boxing lessons, unarmed combat (hia! hia! hia!)... breakfalls, sparring, etc. the ptis were crazy! but well, they had hearts of gold. i remembered sgt ivan. a gungho looking (a little crazy and cranky i thought) crew cut pti. but he hated the mentors to his guts. and whenever he saw us being punished, he would secretly protect us. remember the hell week i wrote about? well, sgt ivan kept us safe. when the mentors sent a cadet halfway through the pt lessons, sgt ivan knew it was to tekan us, he sent the cadet back and asked the cadet to relay the message to the mentor that they should respect the time allocated to him. he brought us to the training shed and let us rest there. we were forever grateful to him. (sadly, i heard he was charged with either insubordination or misconduct sometime after we passed out. and if i didn't recall wrongly, he died of some illness a few years later).
- the last field exercise in ocs were these exercises called ex panther and ex tiger. they were conducted back to back. ex panther was a platoon raid whereas ex tiger was a delay exercise. the exercises involved conducting coastal hooks from punggol to tekong, raid the communications station there, and then do another coastal hook to ubin as part of our efforts to disengage from the enemy. i had the misfortune to yet again be appointed a major ex appointment holder for the raid exercise. my second raid after taiwan. sighs...
- foot drills became the order of the day towards the last couple of weeks. we started having sword drills, wearing metal studded boots, peak caps, slow marches. it felt really good to be doing those drills and putting those horrible punishing days behind. and i vividly recalled what sgt arthur made us do - carry hankerchief. officers are gentlemen and gentlemen do not wipe their perspiration using their hands. he would scream at us. till today, i still carry hankerchief. :-)
- we were put through grooming lessons, don't wear white socks with black shoe, tan li lien (oc gazelle) would scream! use your cutlery from outside in... lessons to prepare us for dining in. talking about gazelle, the final weeks of ocs was kinda interesting. that was when the lady cadets returned from their ojt to pasir laba. and so apart from seeing ladies around (which was non-existent earlier), we also started hearing them singing during the morning runs... gazelle gazelle la la la... the first time we heard them, my buddy and i ran to the bunk window to take a look (for my bruneian buddy, to oogle i believed)!
- we went through the platoon assault course. gruelling weeks of training. we were the first batch to do it. and we put in all our efforts into it. it was an inter-platoon thing. we trained in the morning, rest for an hour, trained through lunch, rest an hour, trained through dinner. the pace was punishing. but after all that months of training and punishments, this was really nothing. we did not win in the end, but we had fun. when we crossed the end point, we were served chilled schweppes. it tasted like heaven!
- during one of the toughest time in senior term, one particular mentor who had returned from studies and who got attached to my platoon told us -
"you guys must be like plasticine, the more you get whacked, the harder you get." yup, indeed. about a month before passing out, one of my platoonmate lost a magazine and another a saw weapon gas regulator during an exercise. we realized that when we returned to camp at about 3am. this angered our pc and our mentor. and we got turned out even before we could unpack our stuff. we were made to forced march back to the live firing area to search for the items. miraculously, we found them. and after that, we were again made to force march back to companyline. on top of this, we were also made to go around the siw/ safincos field a couple of rounds. and it was when the going got real tough when one of my platoon mates shouted out the words of the mentor -
the harder you whack us, the stronger we get. and magic happened. we all regained our strengths. we sang out loud, no, we screamed out loud, our voices echoed in the quiet of the night when we did our rounds at siw/ safincos. it was so loud we woke the safincos trainees and they gathered at their window panes to look. it energized us further. nothing else could break us at that time. we were very very united as a platoon. and we pushed on faster. and it was clear to the mentors by then that we were no longer afraid of their physical punishments. and we could clearly see the mentors panting and falling behind us. we had finally outpaced them - physically and mentally. the feeling was exhilarating! everyone in the platoon felt it. after that incident, somehow, the mentors treated us with a little more respect. they started speaking to us nicely.
- echo company mounted a live firing exercise for the president before we passed out. as in all presidential visits, the camp was spruced up, we had to do our area cleaning... etc. murphy struck. after picking all the leaves we could possibly pick, we had a thunderstorm. and we were made to wake up at 3-plus am to do another round of area cleaning. and immediately after that, we had to prepare for the live firing. the live firing was so scripted and every step was so rehearsed that it became also unreal. but well, we knew the school could make no mistake. and we went along happily knowing that we would be passing out soon.
- towards the very last few weeks, we had our dining in and the certificate presentation ceremony. i was put in charge of decorating the whole auditorium and the companyline. and i had a lot of fun sculpting and painting the eagle, the bravo brave and the ocs scroll. even i myself was amazed with the 3-d effect when they were mounted.
- dining in was fun. we sang and we danced. and we screamed out our echo company song. together in electric dreams. that was the song that we never fail to sing in all our happy hours. many of us got drunk during the dining in. i remembered collapsing somewhere in some storeroom with a very good friend of mine (from bravo company). to be frank, i had a little crush on him. i remembered we were both trying to rip each other's shirt off. for me admittedly, it was in part due to my crush on him that i did what i did (i tried to loosen his pants too, and when he resisted, i stopped). but for him, i was sure it was not becos of some homosexual tendencies. anyway, we were just too warm and the place was really stuffy. of cos we were unsuccessful. we were just too drunk. we ended up sleeping side by side amongst many other of our peers. the lines between bravo and echo became blurred that night.
- as senior cadets, we had the honour of initiating the new junior cadets. and it was then that we realized how much we had gone through, how much we have grown - both in terms of character and our physical size. and certainly, we also learned we could and what we couldn't do to the new cadets. of course, we bitched about it ços we wanted to do what we experienced before to the new cadets. then again, our hands were tight.
- we saw new cadets staring with envy at us when we did our rehearsals. they were doing a lot of area cleaning... we could feel then that we were on "the other side". we were proud of our achievements. and our morale was very high. in that final 2-3 weeks, something happened. somehow, we felt transformed. we carried ourselves with a certain dignity and stature we never did before. we walked tall. we talked like seniors. well, at least i felt it. hmmm... perhaps it was in contrast to the new cadets. and personally, i thought we struck a certain awe in them when we talked to them. well...
- on the very final moments before the passing out parade, sgt arthur told us very strictly that we must return the arms and the stores after we march out of the parade square. he jokingly said that that was the last moment he could talk to us in such strict tone cos after we march out, he has to address us as "sir". well, that moment was a tat emotional for some of us.
- after all the rehearsals, we finally marched into the parade square on that evening of 22 mar 1986. in front of our proud families and friends. we survived ocs!
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)
ps: about a week before we passed out, we got the gloomy news that hotel new world had collapsed.
