6th entry - Returning to Army
Its been one year since my last "reservist" in-camp training, and I'm back again for another 2 weeks.
A flashback to last July: I was with more or less the same group of NS buddies who returned the previous year - Daniel, Ken, Richard, LZ and SW - plus a few new faces e.g. Michael (an actor and school teacher), YS ("lifeguard") and Tay ("CO PA"). YS and Tay were both the youngest in the group, as they were recalled not long after their ORD. Most of us had a lot of fun doing a whole lot of crazy stuff e.g. looking for durians around the camp.
Sadly, this year there are are fewer of us. Richard has served his NS liabilities and received his good service medal last year - he tried appealing to the SAF to extend his service but apparently they rejected his appeal to serve the country. I was quite sad after I came to know, as he really made good company during the 2 weeks. Daniel and Tay asked for deferrment but we do not know why... Its disheartening for the group, especially since Daniel was the "party livewire" and "class clown", and Tay knows the camp inside out and has good connections within the camp.
This year two new faces joined the group: Ng (another "CO PA") and Cheok (a horticulturist). Cheok seems pretty ok, and Ng is friendly but a bit more of a loner.
Morale among the group is lower but its not only because of the absence of our buddies. We were briefed that there was a possibility that we might be split up next year - the CO wanted to assign us to permanent vocations and projects and if they need to activate one vocation or project then the team will be brought back, so there will be no guarantee that the entire group comes back because all of us are put in different vocations...
It gets worse. Apparently, the discipline for NS-men is set to get stricter. Firstly, the Institute Sergeant Major is particular about uniformity in the dress code and the Regimental Sergeant Major is sticky about punctuality, so for the weekly runs on Wednesday and games on Friday, we need to wear the same attire and turn up on time. There is even a parade for us on the 2nd day at 0745hrs - a first for all of us. And we were told about 3 NS guys who were recently caught for using camera phones in the camp and got punished with 3 days of confinement.
Well, there is a silver lining. One of us in the group is going to walk away with a $100 voucher for the best performing NS-man in the group. I'm not sure how they will gauge our performance since most of us do not actually contribute very much in 9.5 days to be honest, but really - who the hell cares?! We are here to have fun, and have fun we WILL!!!
A flashback to last July: I was with more or less the same group of NS buddies who returned the previous year - Daniel, Ken, Richard, LZ and SW - plus a few new faces e.g. Michael (an actor and school teacher), YS ("lifeguard") and Tay ("CO PA"). YS and Tay were both the youngest in the group, as they were recalled not long after their ORD. Most of us had a lot of fun doing a whole lot of crazy stuff e.g. looking for durians around the camp.
Sadly, this year there are are fewer of us. Richard has served his NS liabilities and received his good service medal last year - he tried appealing to the SAF to extend his service but apparently they rejected his appeal to serve the country. I was quite sad after I came to know, as he really made good company during the 2 weeks. Daniel and Tay asked for deferrment but we do not know why... Its disheartening for the group, especially since Daniel was the "party livewire" and "class clown", and Tay knows the camp inside out and has good connections within the camp.
This year two new faces joined the group: Ng (another "CO PA") and Cheok (a horticulturist). Cheok seems pretty ok, and Ng is friendly but a bit more of a loner.
Morale among the group is lower but its not only because of the absence of our buddies. We were briefed that there was a possibility that we might be split up next year - the CO wanted to assign us to permanent vocations and projects and if they need to activate one vocation or project then the team will be brought back, so there will be no guarantee that the entire group comes back because all of us are put in different vocations...
It gets worse. Apparently, the discipline for NS-men is set to get stricter. Firstly, the Institute Sergeant Major is particular about uniformity in the dress code and the Regimental Sergeant Major is sticky about punctuality, so for the weekly runs on Wednesday and games on Friday, we need to wear the same attire and turn up on time. There is even a parade for us on the 2nd day at 0745hrs - a first for all of us. And we were told about 3 NS guys who were recently caught for using camera phones in the camp and got punished with 3 days of confinement.
Well, there is a silver lining. One of us in the group is going to walk away with a $100 voucher for the best performing NS-man in the group. I'm not sure how they will gauge our performance since most of us do not actually contribute very much in 9.5 days to be honest, but really - who the hell cares?! We are here to have fun, and have fun we WILL!!!
posted by sunshine wallflower at 12:36 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home