My Army Daze. The day after .....

Long as it was, my enlistment day had to end somewhere. That was at about 2359H, when the instructors told us to "light-off". That was their way of telling us, "Recruits, now you can sleep!" I don't think it was just me; but as soon as our botak heads hit our beds, we were sleeping like babies. We had never been so shag and exhausted in our life! Of course, we had no idea then that life in the army would only get worse.

Then, as I lay asleep in the squeaky bed, deep in my dreamland, I heard, as did many of my platoon-mates, a voice that went "Golf company, wake up! Golf company, wake up!" It was only 5 am. Huh? Time to wake up? And I thought I only caught a wink! The voice went on for a good 5 minutes, between intervals. If I tried hard enough, I could still hear that deep and loud voice, which belonged to a fella recruit named Jeffrey Ong. I remember how on the ball (an army lingo - more on that in subsequent post) Jeffrey was. He was always the first to rise in the morning, the first to cross the finishing line during the IPPT, and if given a chance, I suspect he would be the first to be in the front line to fight for our country. Basically, he was all that I wasn't. But he also became the platoon's "human" alarm clock (self-appointed). LOL.

We were always sleep-deprived. And I missed the sun badly. The moon? It was shining when we light-off at 2359H, and shining still when we rose at 0500H, sometimes earlier at 0430H if we had a shooting range exercise. I hated the moon!

Many of us had never shared much personal time and space with others the way we did during the BMT. Imagine having to do so with recruits of different shapes and sizes, the fit and the weak, the meek and the garang, the bright and the sotong. This is communal living quite unlike those we have with our neighbors, friends and relatives. And like a husband and wife team, it's important that we get along, or life would have been one living hell.

Happily, got along we did. We had no choice. If someone blunders up, the whole platoon got punished. So we were forced to help one another, to complete a task in a specific time as instructed by the instructors.

My fellow recruits-in-suffering

I have vague memories of my fella recruits. Other than Jeffrey, there was lanky Gilbert Leong whom I had caught on TV once talking about, if my memories serve, some sort of investment in a TV programme. He was really tall, and was the one who was always humming songs like "Tie a yellow-ribbon round the old oak tree" in the bunk, especially during book-out time. He was also a bit of a drama king. Once we were told to go fight a bush fire (don't ask me why, but since when had recruits become firemen?), I lost my footing and fell on a rocky ground. Gilbert started shouting, "Casualty! Casualty! Someone fell! Casualty!" Damn drama, man!

There was the very courteous Wee Tee (can't recall his surname). I remembered him because he was scolded by the OC for his good-manners. You see, the instructors and the OC would tell us recruits to "drop down 20" at their every whim and fancy. This is the army lingo to tell us to do 20 push-ups as a form of punishment. Once we had done so, we must ask permission to stand up; so we went, "permission to recover, Sir?!". The instructors or the OC would usually respond, "carry on" unless they want to tekan (another lingo) us. So in this instance, when our OC said, "carry on", our friend Wee Tee quipped chirppily, "thank you, sir", to which our OC shouted, "Don't be a cartoon! When I say RECOVER, don't thank me! There's no Thank You in the army!!" How's that for friendly forces? Hee.

Within days in the BMT, one could also tell the sotongs or blur kings from the smart-alecks, the keng kings (one who malingers) from the hardworking. The blur kings are the one who fumble over things, and who couldn't seem to understand simple instructions. There was this chap Low Chin Fie, who asked his mum to sew up the opening of the pockets of his army pants, when the instructions from the instructors were to just sew up the hems of the pockets. It was funny, but the blur kings are usually the one who inadvertently sabo the whole platoon. There were also some who weren't blur but acted blur, very much like the keng kings. The latter are those who malinger to avoid work. I remember a chap called Anthony Liang, who feigned a sprained-ankle just to avoid going on exercise. I knew because I saw him in the toilet walking up-right instead of limping the way he did out in the open, especially in front of the instructors. But I didn't blow the whistle. Don't ask me why.

I remember Ng Fatt Keong, who became a photographer for Pioneer Magazine (I think he signed on as a regular).

Blur kings, keng kings or smarty-pants, we were forced to stick together come hell or high water. We trained together, suffered together, and I'd like to think that we came out of the BMT ordeal a fitter, a more disciplined, and overall, a better person.

Some wonderful friendships were formed out of the camaraderie we experienced during BMT. I've lost touch with my buddy Tan Kian Guan and often wonder the whereabout of him or what has become of him. I'm sorry I can't remember many of the rest of chaps, and even if I were to run into them on the street, I doubt I could even recognise them. Not even the platoon's photo may be of help.....

27th Intake Basic Military Training
Golf Coy Platoon 28
23rd March 83 - 17th June 83

Category: Yesteryear