Whatever doesnt kill you makes you stronger

This post is on Army Food.. am sure the rest of you have lotsa stories, so just email your addresses to us, or add as comments...

Throughout BMT, the only things I remember were actually quite edible were:
a. Lor Mai Gai for breakfast
b. Braised chicken thigh with rice for dinner
c. Curry chicken thigh with rice
d. Soo Chow Fried Rice
e. Kueh Lapis...

Everything else was on a vile-ness scale... the ones I remember being most nasty:
1. braised mutton..
2. chee cheong fun.. so hard and dry I've seen cracked ones..
3. mee rebus... with the cooked noodle flipped out of the inverted metal container, and the cook using his bare hands to claw a bit for you...
4. friend vegetables with sand...

What's amazing is how the tastiness depends on the ambience... my best meals were out in the field, where we had instant noodles and sardine sandwiches... squatting in a circle under truly starry nights in Thailand... followed by Marlboro reds to get rid of the fishy taste.. heh...

{Ed: The official bit on Army food can be found here}

Big Yellow Tab

As an BMT instructor, this was my favourite trick to pull on my recruits.. totally good clean fun, but hilarious nontheless..

A regular nightly feature during BMT is supper, a.k.a. nightsnack.. what usually happens is each platoon of around 40 people is supplied with 2 big 20-litre thermos ("insulators") of coffee or tea... Having come from an active infantry unit, and it being the last 5 months of my NS, I was more switched-off than the other "born and bred" instructors, and more of a mentor and friend to them than a disciplinarian...

How do you think the army makes 20-litres of tea each at a go? can't be letting 300 small Lipton Tea teabags dangle from the side of the insulator right? So I tell them that Lipton has specially made giant teabags for the exclusive use of the Army, complete with the Yellow Tabs which are A4 size... surprising thing is most of them believe it!

A week after they have been educated about the giant teabags, I'll complain that the tea that night was too dilute, and send 2 of them to the cookhouse to ask the cook for another of the non-existent giant Lipton teabags...

ok.... it doesnt sound so funny when I type it, but try visualising a giant teabag tab dangling over the container, that you have to pull up and down with both hands in order to ensure that the essence is diffused from the bag...

Ahem!

This is a classic which I've heard from various sources quite a few times:

I dunno about the rest of you, but prior to the army, I had never been naked in the presence of other guys.. and mind you, I was in the garang NJC dragonboat team and all, so I'm no wuss..

Anyways, during the physical test a few months before enlistment for BMT, X (as with all other guys) was made to line up in his underwear with 9 other guys, waiting to see the army doctor.. at some point, everyone is told to pull their undies down to their knees... "turn your head to the left and cough" was the instruction and test to determine if one suffered some medical ailment.. hernia or something..

X grabs the tip of his dick with his thumb and forefinger, directs it to the left, and coughs..

Fatty Bom Bom

It used to be where we had to go to CMPB to be certified fit to run around and once that is done, the merry go round begins.

Most people use their fitness test scores from thir JCs and Polies, where the standards for chin ups etc are freaking slack i am sure :P. Being the lucky bastard that i was, i did my high school overseas and as a returnee, had to do the NARFAR test. Failing which, i would not get a 6 week discount on my 2.5 years. Not surprisingly, i failed the chin ups (i was a portly 97kg at 1.68m tall).

I still remember the company Foxtrot, platoon 21. So fat we were that when we fell in at the company line, we would take about 1.5 times the space of a regular platoon. Anyway, they had a special phase for us "fatties", Fitness Training Phase, where all we would do is get run to our deaths by torture agents clad in all white, Physical Training Instructors (PTIs). Those prissy all white monkeys were roundly hated. There were also of course wild rumours about a "Monkey God" PTI who was sent to DB for running a recruit to death.

MOST people passed the test after 3 or 4 weeks of that punishment. Either the really round lost so much weight as to qualify for UN food aid, or the skinnies put on enough muscle mass to finally weigh more than their girlfriends.

The regulations stated that reps per set was restricted to a maximum of 20 push ups at a time ...but there would always be that mysterious person at the back of the lot who skipped one count and we would ALL start from ZERO!! Bloody hell! Lots and lots of tears were spilt, some from anger, some from the great sense of the injustice we felt but mostly from the futility of it all. However, almost all of us dragged, squirmed or in some cases, weaseled our way through. (Cue breasting the tape of a marathon music).

The irony of it is that the fatties would eventually be among the fitter ones. Having built muscles to carry five ton bodies around for years, losing a couple of tons meant we could run a lot faster and longer.

With that, we were qualified to start what is called Basic Military Training. :)

Twelve O'Six

January 1996, Somewhere in Kanchanaburi...

It must have been the 14th hill that my platoon commander (PC) had brought up over instead of around.. the sun was scorching, the cow dung was worse than anti-personnel mines.. and the last drops of water in our bottles had been shaken into our mouths half an hour before that...

Then I saw my PC collapse before my very eyes.. heat stroke / exhaustion apparently.. worst thing about him (and being his runner) was that he perspired profusely all the time, and that cuased vile B.O... anyway we had no choice but to unbotton his shirt and pants for him..

Because we were always taught in BMT to try to pour water over the body of someone who was suffering from heat stroke to cool him down, yet we had absolutely no water, someone suggested that we pee on our PC... tempting and logically as the thought was, the prospect of spending some time in Kranji Hilton (i.e. Detention Barracks) got the better of me...

Anyway, 5 minutes later, the PC was still floored and slurring... tried to comms the safety people, and they asked where we were... like the fuck I know.. if I did, we wouldnt have been climbing up and down 14 hills... so they suggested that we ignite a smoke grenade and they will try to spot us...

What's the one lesson that they tell you you should never forget about throwing a smoke? well... aside from the obvious one that you throw the grenade and not the pin? that you let it ignite before throwing it... but my Section 2I/C was so smart... he threw it straightaway, and true to form, the ground caught fire...

Before long, the fire had spread and was chasing us as we dragged our half-alive PC and his stinking webbing, losing 1 pair of boots and 1 helmet amongst other things hauling ass down the knoll...

Half of the hill was on fire, and the smoke from the fire was so thick in the sky that the safety guys had absolutely no trouble finding us...

The PC lived, and he had the audacity to lecture us after that on how we nearly burnt down a hill and threaten to make us sign 12-06s for the trees... yah right, as if we were to naive..

2 years later, I was told that there was still a bald hill in Kanchanaburi...

I met Satan in the Army and lived to tell the tale..

The search for SATan started one day in February 1995, when a few of us recruits were sitting around the GS Table talking about nothing in particular.. As you may know, each soldier has a name tag on his No. 4 uniform, usually bearing the initials of his first and middle name, followed by his last / family name. For example, Lim Beng Huat's name tag will read BH Lim. Tan being a common last name in Singapore, we agreed that there must be someone's name tag who read SA Tan, and swore that from that day on, we would always be on the vigilant lookout for Him... The search was long and weary... it's not easy trying to stare at the name tag over the chest of a lady Lieutenant when you are a "chao private", or to walk close enough to your division commander in order to make out the faded letters... It was the 2 months before I was due to ORD, and I'd given up the search, when one day, after bringing my recruits to Physical Training session, I saw a PTI with those elusive characters in navy blue over the virgin white of his singlet... SA Tan! What an anti-climax though... he turned out to be one of the softest PTIs around... and even invited every recruit to call him Sergeant Satan after that...

235 35 35

Originally posted on My Very Own Glob {Curiosa Felicitas}

For the benefit of Woof! who was so stoked by the sentimental Army post that he left a comment that had to be truncated, and then pressed the publish button three times some more; and for Malaysian boys who wish they had the benefit of National Service, here is an Army anecdote. Look away now, girls. It probably is not funny to you, but I swear it'll bring a tear to Woof!'s eyes from laughing too much. Guaranteed.

Wonsaponatime, Attila Combat Team ('A' Coy, 46SAR) had a new NCO (now known as Specialist) who was incredibly inept at everything he did. The entire company viewed him as a danger to everyone else. Once I even had to ride my bike into a ditch to avoid being run over by the Armoured Fighting Vehicle he was commanding.

We felt a little sorry for Cpl Tan Ting Tong (I can't remember his real name), for he wasn't cut out for Armour, much less as a commander in Armour. But because he was the one most likely to get us killed, there was a concerted effort from both the officers and men to get him out of the company. Bit hard, given that you don't get dismissed from a unit because of stupidity.

And so, we hatched a diabolical scheme to make Cpl Tan Ting Tong to do something so inept, but without danger to his company mates, that would see him get transferred out.

During one field training exercise, we parked our vehicles in formation and rested for the night. Cpl Tan was still on alert in his commander's cupola, in his vehicle, One-Two-Bravo. Me and the company sergeant major asked him if he was hungry. He said yes.

We then said 'Did you know that you can order pizza through the radio comms'?

'Izzit?'

'Yes, you dunno meh? Switch to this frequency, order what you want, give your location MGR (map grid reference) and they will deliver, no matter where in the jungle you are.... and if more than one hour, you get one free garlic bread and pepsi'.

The trap was set. We went back to company HQ's vehicle, One-Niner, tuned our radio to 'Pizza Hut' frequency and waited.

Faster than expected. And in proper military radio protocol:

*crackle* * buzz* Hallo Pizza Hut, Hallo Pizza Hut, This is One Two Bravo, message, over.

Stifling laughter, our company 2IC (2nd in command), took the radio handset and replied,

'Pizza Hut, send, over'.

'One Two Bravo, err... um... want to order one Super Supreme, over'.

'Pizza Hut, say again, over'.

'One Two Bravo, one Super Supreme, over'.

'Pizza Hut, roger that, would you like a drink with that, over?'

'One Two Bravo, errrrrr.... that's a negative, over'.

'Pizza Hut, that's a roger, what is your mike golf romeo (MGR), over?'

'One Two Bravo, umm.... wait... ummm two... six... three... four... seven.. two, over'.

'Pizza Hut, confirm mike golf romeo two six three four seven two, over'.

'One Two Bravo, umm... that's a roger, over'.

'Pizza Hut to One Two Bravo, roger that, rendevous at your location in figure zero five mike, please prepare exact change'.

'One Two Bravo, ummm, ok, roger'.

'Pizza Hut, out'.


For dereliction of duty, unauthorised use of military communications and generally flouting Article 25 of the Singapore Armed Forces Code of Conduct, Cpl Tan Ting Tong was given a field demotion to spare MG gunner. Later on, he was transferred out of Attila, and even later, out of the Battalion. His replacement, Cpl Koh Lian Thye, was almost just as inept, but that's several other stories altogether.

All stations one niner, this is one niner, rodeo now, over

It is now 15 years since they gave me five sets of number four (the tops I still wear, the pants I had to buy new ones). I am still at it, and proud of it, some say, for perverse reasons.

But seriously folks, I wouldn't have traded this for anything in the world. My Army gave me some of the mental and physical shape I'm currently in. My Army showed me life, death, despair, hope, perseverance, friendship, loyalty, strength and compassion.

I remember turning 20 while I was cleaning an Armoured Fighting Vehicle with my section mates, and our sergeant (Sgt S Nathan) stopped work for my mates to sing happy birthday to me, and Sgt S Nathan (Sarge, what does the S stand for? S stands for Sergeant, you mother cheebye fucker, don't ask me again) lit me a cigarette and told me to faster wake up my idea because I wasn't a teenager anymore. (I last saw Sgt S Nathan at the airport a few years ago as I was leaving on a business trip. He had quit the Army and was working as an airport policeman, one of those who stand outside the immigration counters checking passengers' passports and tickets. The other passengers were a little shocked to hear our exchange of greetings that went something to the effect of 'Cheebye, Sar'n Nathan, it's you! Cheebye what cheebye, kepala boootoh Buddha (my nickname), where you going, mother cheebye fucker?' And he still wouldn't tell me what the S stood for.)

I remember doing guard duty at the Padang on my 21st birthday even if it was a Saturday because I signed three extra duties for fucking up on a mission - my buddies snuck out and bought me a cake and satay from the satay club across the road.

I remember doodling the names of my girlfriends while we listened to long lectures on weapons and tactics. I remember falling asleep during lectures and being made to run and hug a tree because the lecturer said I looked like a sleeping koala. (Not as bad as the other trooper who was made to writhe like an upturned cockroach poisoned by Mortein).

I don't pretend to be anywhere near a proficient professional soldier, and I could never be one. I'm still nervous around live ammunition and flinch at a gunshot or tank round explosion. I remember shitting bricks when my unit was mobilized as a stand-by perimeter security force for Changi Airport when SQ117 was hijacked, loading into my weapons and vehicles what I remembered was damned a lot of live ammo, enough to blow up several aircraft. We never left our camp compound thanks to the swift resolution of the crisis, but it was enough to let us know the stuff they trained us for, they expected us to be able to carry out.

I lost a battalion mate to a training accident that I was involved in, and lost two more to suicide. And these things stay with you the rest of your life. I nearly copped it too, but was saved on several occasions by my buddies, and I, in turn, was given a chance to save their skins also.

When I went abroad, I made it a point to try to put these things behind me, and purposefully avoided keeping in touch with the Army and my buddies. But my subconscious did not let me. When I returned to Singapore and was recalled into another unit (because my original unit had almost completed its 13 year cycle), I was mortified.

I called up my buddies again. When we met up, we embarrassed ourselves crying at a Delifrance outlet. My buddies shared with me how they coped with the trauma, and how different reservist training is these days to when we were full time soldiers. They told me not to worry a bit because even after a 10 year hiatus, I'd remember everything I was trained to do. They also told me not to worry too much about anything else, because 'if you survived what we survived, you can do anything'.

I'm a lean mean fighting machine again

I am officially fit. I passed my IPPT and was awarded $200 for doing it well. Keeping trim the past year has paid off, finally.

It's the first time since 1991 I've gotten a monetary award for IPPT. Did I mention I'm officially fit now? 5711F Trooper, Armoured Fighting Vehicle (M113 Ultra/OWS), Class One, I am.

I shall now over-dramatise my achievement. Look away now if you can't handle it. This is my Olympics. I didn't think I was gunna make it, but I did, despite getting two hours' sleep last night, running around since 6am (part of my job), swimming at 2.30pm for half an hour (part of my job) and getting stuck in the Orchard Road arvo jam (part of my job).

I arrived at Maju Camp at 4.45pm, booked in, waited an hour and started the first station of the test and suffered a cramping calf muscle, falling over in the process. Then my right knee decided to buckle and later swell (but not as bad as what Metastasis suffered). I had a tummy ache from drinking two cans of Red Bull and gobbling a Snickers bar half hour before the test. I had a pounding head from thinking too much about the test. I had dry mouth. I had a slight rash. I had IPPT syndrome.

I also suffered the internal giggles because it's always funny to be back in camp and being ordered around by PTI sergeants whose Ingri buay sai. Very tiring.

Then after completing and ace-ing the chin-ups, sit-ups, standing broad jump and shuttle run, a big mumfucking thunderstorm threatened to cancel the last and most important station: The two point motherfucking four klick run.

You see, the Singapore Armed Forces is a fair weather Army. Heavy rain with a chance of lightning and all soldiers are ordered indoors. Several soldiers abandoned their test and went home. I was too tired to make a move so quickly, so I waited, napped for half an hour, and one of the PTI sergeants said 'OK gennermen, the Cat One storm revise to clear liao, please put your tlanspongder on your sue and lie up before the yarlow lie'.

I put my right foot on the yarlow line and cramped up, but still ran like all buggery. For about three minutes. Then I had cramps, headache, tummy ache, stitch for the next eight. Next thing I know, I'm done. And I knew I passed. Very happy. But not as happy as when they passed me the slip of paper that said, Total: 22, Result: Pass, Award: Silver, Payment will be made to your bank a/c.

Originally posted on My Very Own Glob {Curiosa Felicitas}

Singapore men are the new women

So says my platoon mate Chua KH, 433rd Battalion Singapore Armoured Regiment Bravo Tactical Team Seven Section One Second Light Anti-Tank Weapon Gunner and journalist.

He makes that sweeping statement while we clean our new SAR21 rifle after a day at the firing range, and after receiving a phone call from his girlfriend, who has obviously exasperated him somewhat.

We're sitting at the foot of our beds while we meticulously rub carbon off the gas regulator and the other small parts of the unfamiliar weapon with pieces of flannel held with tweezers. Takes a lot longer than the old M16, we complain.

Singapore men are submissive, can follow orders and are easily trained.
KH's girlfriend apparently hasn't been sensitive to the fact that he is in camp for all of six days sacrificing his precious time for the security of the nation. She has asked him to help her assemble her new IKEA cupboard on Saturday, the day we get out-processed, without as much as an iota of consideration for his tiredness and need for some tender loving understanding.

A piece of flannel 2 inches by 1 inch is too thick when folded by the eye of the five piece pull-through rod to be pulled through the barrel of the rifle. We struggle with the cleaning. There's still carbon all over the little nooks and crannies of the rifle.

Singapore men are the new Thai women.
KH says Singapore women use and abuse Singapore men. Singapore women are obviously oblivious to the universal hardship that Singapore men have to endure: 13 years of part-time National Service, 2.5 years of full-time National Service, going to university and graduating 2.5 years later than Singapore women, getting jobs later and still expected to be the bread winner and provider for parents and children, and still be expected to wow women and sweep them off their feet. It's a hard life. It's a Thai woman's life.

And the parts of the rifle are just as hard to put back together as they are to clean.



Batteries not included. No, seriously.


Originally posted on My Very Own Glob {Curiosa Felicitas}

Symptoms of fire

Last week during ICT, we were treated to the usual round of lectures, done by instructors in an army of the 21st century - powerpoint slides, flash animations, the works. Lectures usually precede practical field training, and despite our sniggering, they usually help in our understanding of what we're supposed to do in the field.

Except for our fire evacuation drill. The first slide was of five points, and titled 'the five symptoms of fire'. My mates and I spent the next twenty minutes giggling, and could only remember three 'symptoms': heat, bright light and smoke.

'Symptoms of fire' became our catchphrase for the week.

Absolute discomfort

When we're not sick, we forget the aches, the drowsiness, the struggle to have control over our faculties.

I think I am talking about what it will be like in the next week during in-camp.

No matter how much I prepare myself mentally for the training, it never seems adequate for the gradual shock of being knee deep in mud, baked in the sun under the kevlar helmet that now collects evaporated sweat on its underside, buzzed by a hundred mosquitoes and stung by ants just as stunned to find your limb isn't a plant. You can talk about it to death. But the shock comes from having to stay that way, assaulted by the heat, the itch and the dampness for hour after debilitating hour.

Then comes night. Your eyes struggle to adjust. Everything is a blur and fumble. They give you night vision devices which only shows everything up as green in colour, and gives you motion sickness. The mosquitoes seem to multiply exponentially. The volume of their buzzing increases several hundred decibels it seems. The ground is damp when you sit on it, and you are still sweating. Worse, your uniform begins to stink as bacteria grows on the fabric. Three more nights to go.

Every single square inch of your body is irritated. You gradually become aware of the immense acreage of your skin. A few reddish welts appear on of all places, your knuckles. The goddamned mosquitoes really know where to sting where it irritates most. Knuckles, between fingers, ears, middle of your back. You'd put more repellent on if not for the fact it keeps getting washed off by your own sweat and the chafing that is already turning your skin red-raw.

You tell yourself you'd love nature if only nature loved you more.

Your nose, if you were fortunate enough not to have a cold or flu, is assaulted by the plethora of different smells. First up, your stinking uniform. That unmistakable sourish smell. Then, repellent. Then, the mud. Then, the sourish smell of the soldier next to you. You try to block everything out, but you can't, and you can't sleep because of that. They tell you to sleep, because there's a mission in two hours, and you're desperate to sleep, but can't...

A few loud buzzes by mosquitoes looking for the next best place to sting after scoring all your knuckles, two ears, eyelids and lips, and you're just putting down your arm from waving ineffectively at them when a whisper goes up "wake up wake up, get ready". There's a few muffled grunts in reply, and some soldiers in your section fall back to sleep, but their mates rustle them up again. You stand up and pick up your weapons and gear as quietly as possible, but nevertheless clanging every possible thing against every possible hard surface, prompting another whisper from the dark "shhhh. quiet".

You listen half asleep to instructions and then excuse yourself to stumble several meters from the group to take a leak. You will your urine to pass quickly, so as to minimize the chances of any insect invading the insides of your pants. You stare at the dark to make sure you have been pissing downhill too. And of course, you excuse yourself just before passing urine, to make sure any slumbering spirit has vacated the area just in front of you.

The next few hours you trudge quickly with your tactical team, hoping the guy leading knows where he's going. Your back aches to high heaven, your smell has turned a different kind of sour, you are hungry and the welts on your body are swelling as your pores open up again.

You walk for what seems like many hours. You see the dim blue light of dawn. That pause in the weather just before the sun rises. It may rain or it may shine. Either way, there is a strange morning breeze. You feel refreshed. It takes a bit of the sour smell off. The men in front of you suddenly make frantic hand signals. A thumbs down signal followed by a flurry of hand signals. Enemy in front. 100 metres. Entrenched. GPMG. Section two left, section three right, section one stay with me. You are awake now.

There is a fizzing sound and a sudden smell of burning cord. You are more awake now, because in 4 seconds a flash bang grenade (thunderflash) explodes at your feet. You and your mates are pushed instinctively into action. Thumbs flick switch from safety to semi on the rifles and you raise your weapons, point and shoot three round bursts at where you think the enemy is, because you haven't seen them yet. Someone sees them and yells directions. The battle starts and ends about ten minutes later. You are exhausted, thirsty, but very awake. You smell burnt gunpowder all over, and it's still coming from your weapon. It is a comforting smell. If it's raining, you like the warmth of your rifle. If it's dry, you like the smell.

You get a bit of a rest over the 'enemies dead bodies' while the support team comes and patches the injured up, counts the dead and replenishes water. You check yourself and discover you've torn a trouser leg and your knee is bleeding and your knuckles are cut up. You pour a bit of water over your wounds and joke about it to the guy next to you who seems to be in worse shape, so you shut up. You are asked to 'stand down' after half an hour, and you finally take off your helmet, drink a whole bottle of water and fumble through your backpack looking for something to eat. The supply train comes and distributes more ammunition and food and the next hour is spent reloading bullets into magazines and waiting for further orders. By now, the sun is up and angrily drying up your sweat, matting your hair and hardening your uniform. If it's raining, the drops pelt your skin through your uniform and you feel as if your underwear has shrunk two sizes.

And you have to do it all over again for the next three days.

John

There was this trooper in my company by the name of Tang Tat Fong, who was given the nickname "John", for he was abysmally unremarkable, and had a stutter that was exacerbated by stress.

Once, when his platoon (3rd) was being unreasonably punished by their maniac sergeant, SGT Vannan, through a series of individual verbal grilling, John landed his mates into deeper shit by not being able to answer his sergeant's persuasive questions coherently.

On second thought, John's exploits weren't unremarkable, for they are the ones I remember most, and although the description "fondly remembered" comes to mind, to say it is so is to be rather perverse.

John was a walking catastrophe. If anything were to go wrong, it seemed he was always involved. The funniest incident occurred one night during a battalion exercise. Most of the able-bodied troopers had dismounted from their APCs to attack an objective somewhere in the small Singapore jungle.

The sick and injured were tasked to remain with their vehicles to guide the drivers (who are effectively blind save for the tiny periscopes, which are muddied anyway) who manoeuvre them to rendezvous with the troopers after an objective was captured. John was, not surprisingly, one of the sick troopers, and had to guide his section's APC as a "vehicle commander".

This task involves little more than telling the driver to turn left, right, go straight or in reverse, all through the intercom system. Its only a little harder at night, for the driver is blinder than usual then. A bit risky considering rough terrain and an eleven tonne hunk of metal hurtling downhill at 60km/h. There was a ditch on the right side of the dirt track the APCs were travelling on, and John's APC was heading into that ditch.

Normally, the danger is averted through a sharp yell of "DRIVER! HARD LEFT!" or "DRIVER! STOP!" But according to the driver's recollection of the event later, the transcript of communications in the intercom system went something like "DDDD D DRIVER! L L L L L L L L L L ..." followed by a loud crash, for the APC had gone into the ditch, followed by a pause of about 20 seconds, then followed by John's ultimately futile instruction, "LLLEFT!"

I was behind John's APC on my reconnaissance bike, and informed commanders in a flurry of frantic radio transmissions. The Encik (as the company sergeant major is addressed) came to the scene to find the occupants of the APC shaken but unhurt, a sigh of relief was followed by a comment to John, more out of resignation than anger, that "is there ANYTHING you CAN do?"

Encik said this because a few nights prior to this accident, John was involved in another hilarious snafu, this time, on foot. Our company was tasked to do a recce patrol, which entails basically walking the whole night in a dark jungle, which would be darker if not for the lights from nearby HDB estates. We kept a minimum of 5 metres from each other (any closer and we'd cop a scolding for having a "cluster fuck").

Tang, being the designated MG-Gunner (a tautology - MG stands for Machine Gun), had a heavier weapon to lug, and within an hour of the exercise, had lagged so far behind that his platoon mates had to keep dragging him back near the front. After about four hours, he disappeared again.

At this time, we had been patrolling near one of the training camps which had a high barbed wire fence running at least four kilometres. Normally, the section commander would do a head count every few hours. This time, I think he waited too long. Tang was lost again.

Getting worried, and disregarding recce etiquette (i.e. keep as quiet as possible), the platoon shouted for him to hurry up. No reply. "JOHN TANG!" No reply.

They backtracked several hundred metres and shouted again. There was a faint and tired "coming coming coming". The other troopers cursed under their collective breaths and rehearsed the abuse they were going to heap on Tang when he caught up. He did catch up. Only on the opposite side of the high fence.

The bankrupt look on his face at that instant of realisation, I will remember for the rest of my life.

John was a slightly-built man, shorter even than I, and was saddled with bad eyesight (that's why the MG-gunner role) and prone to occasional asthma attacks. (On the night of his fence fiasco, he later collapsed with asthma and was left lying at the side of a road as the rest of the company moved on, having thought that he was only just lagging behind. Thankfully, an alert sergeant went back to retrieve him).

His plastic-frame (and this was years before they became fashionable) glasses were perpetually broken and held together with scotch tape. He seemed to break or damage everything he touched (I never let him near my recce bike, for the one time he was assigned to partner me in a listening post, we crashed four times in an hour).

He'd draw his MG from the armskote to mount on the APC, and come back to the armskote (where I was in charge, amongst my many other responsibilities) a few minutes later with a broken machine gun, stuttering his way through an explanation about it having fallen over the side of the vehicle. It is not often someone BREAKS a machine gun.

At the end of full-time NS, we had a ROD party at the Neptune restaurant, where being real troopers, we drank to excess and molested each other's dates. John had no date, but he did drink to excess. So much that we had to carry him home.

At his flat in Toa Payoh, he looked at my buddy and I and as tears rolled down his face and fogged up his glasses, told us that he didn't know what to do after ROD. Unlike the bulk of us, who were either going to university, a job, or jail, he said he had no prospects at all. I was slightly impatient dealing with his sobbing, as we always dealt with sissies harshly.

I said something to the effect of, "sure you can do something lah, we armoured troopers man, anything can do".

This was my feeble attempt to "boost his morale", as they say in NS-parlance.

He gave me his bankrupt look.

This time I asked, "what are you good at? What do you like doing?"

"I like to play the piano".

Piranhas

Of the many things HQ Platoon were tasked, one of the more mundane was the organising of entertainment for the officers and men of the company. We had OC’s Evenings, which were events with stage skits, dancing, singing, but mostly beer drinking contests. We also converted a classroom into a video screening room and borrowed videos from Boon Lay to play on Nights Off, for the benefit of those wise enough to stay in camp instead of making the 20km journey into town, wasting more than half the Night Off.

In the platoon commanders’ office on the ground floor of company line, we had an aquarium inherited from the previous batch at ‘A’ company. It was empty when our batch arrived at 46 in March 1989, except for the pebbles and a plastic shipwreck.

HQ Platoon filled it with water, and went to Boon Lay to buy guppies. Encik Ang was unimpressed. The aquarium had to be something more entertaining. He asked for "fish that ate other fish". So we bought bigger fish, the names of which I do not know. These buggers ate all the guppies and then took bites out of each other. Encik Ang was livid, and abused the platoon for buying "useless fish". One of my bunkmates, Pte. "Big Fat Yoyo" Teo Ho Yeo, who was the soldier with the most "kang tow" (or connections), told us he could get piranhas, even though it was illegal to keep them in Singapore.

So we bought the piranhas, which looked more harmless than we imagined. But boy, did they eat every damned thing. Funnily enough (and to our benefit), they were not into cannibalism. On slower nights on company line (and there were few), we’d catch lizards and cockroaches and throw them into the fish tank, then watch the little buggers tear at them with their razor sharp teeth. Great care was taken to keep the creatures we caught alive until we put them into the tank.

This blood sport continued throughout my national service days. Money was extracted from the officers and NCOs of ‘A’ Coy for the maintenance of the aquarium, and for the purchasing of little frogs from Boon Lay market. Yes, we fed the live frogs to the piranhas. The officers would jostle for viewing space in front of the fish tank on "feeding nights" and members of HQ platoon including myself would take turns to throw the frogs into the tank.

Cleaning the fish tank was a task none of us looked forward to. There was always a risk of the little fish biting our fingers off. A garden hose was used to siphon the dirty water through the office’s window into the back garden. We’d empty the tank until the dorsal fins of the poor fish were above water and their bellies were scratching the pebbles. Once, an absent minded member (ok, it was me) of HQ platoon left the operation unattended and came back to find the piranhas thrashing about in two centimetres of putrid water. Clean water was then put back into the tank, and there’d be another fortnight before we drew straws (ok, lom chiam pas) to decide who would clean the tank.

Near the end of service, during the month of April 1991, 46^th was billeted to train in Taiwan for three weeks. Usually, there’d be a few slackers left behind on medical grounds. This time, amazingly, ‘A’ Coy was at full strength. On hindsight, it was probably because Taiwan was the most fun of overseas training destinations. No one wanted to miss out. Everyone had heard of the "easy Taiwanese chicks", even though that turned out to be more fable than fact.

Company line had to be looked after by some sick soldier from another company. HQ platoon painstakingly instructed this soldier to look after everything — water the plants, lock the doors, and FEED THE FISH. We told him that the fish were "meat eaters", as that was the closest Hokkien equivalent we could muster for "carnivore".

When we returned from Taiwan three weeks later, the fish tank was empty save for the pebbles and the plastic shipwreck. Encik Ang came into our bunk and said simply, "Fish are gone". We went to ‘C’ Coy to interrogate the caretaker. He said the fish had all died. We asked why and whether he had remembered to feed them. He said he did as instructed, feeding them "meat". We asked what "meat" exactly.

The stupid bugger had fed Spam to the piranhas.

Japanese Gardens

Sungei Gedong Camp 2 was a traditional Army camp. Four company blocks surrounding a parade square cum heliport. Each company block had a small carpark and little patches of green which were designated "platoon gardens". Each platoon was responsible for the design and maintenance of their little patch.

'A' (for Attila) Company's 1st platoon, which I belonged to for 5 months as M203 grenadier, was possibly the laziest. Platoons 2, 3 and HQ platoon came up with Japanese Gardens complete with koi ponds and aviaries (they went to the market at Boon Lay to buy canaries. Regularly too, considering the poor birds' lifespans were abysmally short once they arrived at 46th.)

We had a Garden Competition, which was won by Platoon 3 hands down, for their beautiful horticulture and koi pond. Platoon 1, led by Sergeant S. Nathan and 2nd Lieutenant Alan Ang, came up with a theme garden which I thought reflected our ingenuity more than our laziness. We called it "The Grand Canyon". It was made of nothing but rocks and pebbles of all shapes and sizes.

Garden Comp was the brainchild of Staff Sergeant Ang Teck Hock, the cunning but illiterate Company Sergeant Major (CSM) or Encik, as he was formally addressed. The competition’s aim was to foster camaraderie and hopefully provide little oases in an otherwise drab camp environment. "Boost morale", Encik would say. But one look at "The Grand Canyon", you'd only want to look overhead to check for vultures.