It turns out that 9 months is actually a comparatively short time to become a military officer, no doubt compressed to fit the constraints of 2 year National Service. In the other armed forces of the world, officer training takes years and is a much more serious endeavor – we hear a rumor that the Thai Officer training course involves killing a rebel and coming back with his head. The only kind of decapitation we will do is that of quails, in our Jungle Confidence Course.
OCS was a lot of fun. I definitely had my best memories of my army days here – it was the camaraderie, the sense of grooming as officers-in-the-making, the overseas trips to Brunei and Taiwan. We were a competent, capable young bunch, and I met lots of good friends. The facility was top-notch – we were well-provided for – great food, simple but comfortable living conditions, and there was a sense of grandeur everywhere.
We are organised into Wings (the equivalent of a company), comprising of 3 platoons which have about 30 cadets each. We quickly meet our instructors (Lieutenants), Platoon Commanders (Captains), Wing Commander (Lieutenant Colonel), and one of the most memorable people in my army days, our Wing Sergeant Major – Warrant R. An absolute legend, he was a mustachioed Indian old-timer who drove us up the wall with his long-winded speeches, terrified us on the parade square, and cracked us up with his colorful metaphors:
“we are going to transform you… the metamorphosis… from caterpillar to butterfly…”
“you bloody swine!”
“you stinking maggot!”
He was also a big fan of giving us nicknames – one of my friends was unfortunate enough to inherit the moniker “Chicken King”, which I still find hilarious to this day.
Our Wing Commander, LTC N, was a well-spoken, intelligent and inspiring man – a rare find in the military. He told us stories about the need to follow one’s ‘moral compass’, and the importance of personal integrity. One main criteria for passing the Officer Cadet Course was adhering to the set of values we were expected to embody – honesty, integrity, leadership – and any act of dishonesty – stealing, cheating, lying – could be a reason for going OOC (out of course). While the values presented to us were in black and white, and looked good on paper – we later came to see that situations in real military life often came in shades of grey.
He shared with us anecdotes from his own career about moral quandaries he found himself whilst working under generals and people with big titles. In these unsurprisingly political environments – it was often a choice between supporting projects and agendas of his bosses, which he sometimes knew to be unworkable and flawed, or being honest at the risk of his professional advancement. As a result of following his ‘moral compass’, his career had gone ‘henta kaki’ (Malay: march on the spot). As cynical as I was about the military and all the brainwashing that was going on, I could sense that this was a man that spoke from the heart and from experience, and I respected him for that.
Training was separated into 3 terms, where we were streamed into various formations / divisions:
- Tri-Service Term (Air Force / Navy / Army Cadets all lumped together) (3 weeks)
- Service Term (Air, Navy, Army cadets go their own way. Army cadets get to choose between Infantry, Armour, Artillery, Signals, Combat Engineers after Service Term. I choose Infantry) (12 weeks)
- Professional Term (Only Infantry / Guards / Commando left) (25 weeks)
Throughout the 9 months, we are given various appointments at the platoon and wing level to assess us for leadership – cadet duty officer, cadet platoon commander, cadet wing commander, cadet 2IC. There are also school level appointments – cadet school commander, cadet school sergeant major – these guys are gunning for the prizes – the Sword of Honor (the top cadet) and Sword of Merit (top 10% of cadets). Somewhere down the line, I am appointed cadet wing sergeant major for 2 weeks. What a power trip.
As officers, we needed to understand the capabilities of various weapons and the situations our men were to be put under (eg. carrying an machine gun tripod for kilometers), and for this reason, training was incredibly varied. We would be in the classroom doing a computer based test on tactics on day, and detonating explosives the next. It was certainly interesting and it gave us a birds-eye view of what ground level Army operations were like.
Some events that stand out in my memory:
- Cleaning weapons (Boring)
- Computer based training and tests (Hmm… Air conditioning…
) - Explosives (I am selected to detonate one of the larger explosives. What joy. I light the fuse and run like hell… BOOM!)
- Booking out (Best feeling in the world)
- Navigation (Fun. Challenging. It turns out to be my expertise)
Live firing of weapons. (Fun for the most part, especially with the larger weapons: General Purpose Machine Gun – works really well. Mows down things really quickly. Wouldn’t want to be on the other side of this. The tripod is a nightmare to carry. 
- 84mm Carl Gustav. Another beast – freaking heavy. Really loud when fired.)
- Unarmed combat (Arm locks are fun to do, not fun to receive)
- Chemical defence drills (Doing PT in biosuit + gas mask = not fun. We have to experience a room filled with pepper spray without gas mask for half a minute = not fun)
- Commissioning Ball (Disappointed that J, who is in Oxford, can’t make it)
Range shooting – Qualifying for Marksman
One of the most exhilarating moments of my army life was qualifying for the Marksman badge at our range shooting test.
It was a difficult test where you had to hit 85% of your targets, and there was a fair degree of luck involved – your weapon could jam, you could have a bad rifle, etc, and as such, only a handful of us qualified for it. It was split into a number of sections, I think it was three sections, each with different positions, conditions, and distances, eg. shooting from a foxhole at 300m, proning at 100m, shooting from the hip at 15m, shooting at night and in the day. After the first shoot which went poorly, (I think it was barely a pass), I mentally resigned myself to getting a mediocre score, let alone getting the Marksman badge. My second shoot, amazingly, went really well, and I didn’t think much of it until someone asked me if I was still in the running for the badge – I mentally counted my points and realised that I could qualify for it, if I hit nearly all my targets in the last shoot! In fact, I could only allow for 1 mistake in the last round of 12 targets. Interesting…
It was a run-down format, where you had to shoot a number of targets at 300m and run down to the 100m to shoot a couple more. In the next few minutes, I would experience an interesting state, which I would identify a few years later as a ‘flow state’, after reading “Flow” by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. I went through the shoot with a strange sense of calm – I was slightly tense but very focused. It was as if my mind and my body was on auto-pilot, and I went through all of my motions effortlessly. It was a state of detachment – my consciousness was just watching the ‘me’ go through the shoot. The fact that I was wearing earplugs and heard total silence in the midst of all this frenzied activity was a good metaphor – it seemed as though the ‘volume’ of everything else around me – the other shooters, the other targets which were not my own, was turned all the way down. I could only register the details that mattered to me – my breathing, my footsteps, my gun firing, my target going up and down.
I am shooting a perfect score until the very end – the second last target. The target pops up. I squeeze the trigger. I miss, dirt spraying from the sand bank where the bullet had landed, centimeters away from the target.
It all comes down to the final shot. I cannot miss this one. It has all boiled down to this moment! I can feel the anxiety rising, but it happens so quickly I don’t even have time to think – I squeeze the trigger as the final target pops up. It hits. I am a marksman! I am ecstatic! I tear off my helmet and high five my buddy, who is shooting beside me. It is a wonderful, beautiful moment that I will always remember – I have snatched success from the jaws of defeat! I am congratulated by my peers as I return back to the training shed, grinning jaw-to-jaw. A friend tells me that they have been following the soap-drama from afar, and were cheering too as the final target went down. I bask in the afterglow of my glory for several days.
The JCC – Jungle Confidence Course
The Jungle Confidence Course, held in Brunei, was probably the most challenging and intense experience I had in the Army. While we were no stranger to the forest environment by this time – the Bruneian jungle was an entirely different ball game to the training areas we had been used to in Singapore. This was the real deal, Heart of Darkness style. Here, Mother Nature ruled supreme, and we were her guests.
She was everywhere – she was high up in the forest canopy, a ceiling of green so thick, so dense that it blocked out the full-strength of the mid-day sun. She was sprawled on the forest floor – mud, root, leaf and soil, stream and river, rotting, decomposing, returning to the ground and emerging up again. She was in the air – buzzing with all manner of insects – giant mosquitoes and blood-sucking flies, happily nourishing themselves at our expense. At night, chestnut-sized cicadas, attracted to the bright lights, rammed themselves endlessly at the lamp posts (“thuck! thuck! thuck!”), only to fall into a writhing pile underneath.
We were well-trained, no doubt – we were given lessons and exercises in navigation, we were taught how to make shelters, to make traps and to identify edible plants – but passing was entirely left up to us, for at the core of passing the JCC was mental toughness.
We have a brief program of a couple of days before the test proper – a compass course, more survival lessons, making bird / iguana traps, and an instructor shows us a demonstration of skinning a goat. For us city boys, it’s interesting and unnerving at the same time. Blood is everywhere. He passes round the decapitated head of the goat. A bunch of flies are getting very friendly with it. A friend is looking rather squeamish as he handles the head, nearly dropping it as he passes it to me. I end up holding it awkwardly with my thumb in its eyeballs. I apologise silently to the goat, and pass it to the next guy. I wash my hands assiduously after.
After, our instructor hands us each a live, fist-sized quail from a metal cage. (no doubt purchased from the local market) We are told that in order to overcome any squeamishness about killing, we have to decapitate our quails with our bare hands, one-by-one, in front of our instructors. One urban legend goes that a commando failed an SOF (Special Operations Forces) selection due to his refusal to kill needlessly. What a romantic. I’m not really squeamish about killing, but I’m not a big fan either. I just want to get it over with. My quail feels warm and fluffy in my left hand, chirping expectantly, as I stroke its head gently in its last moments. A nearby sign pronounces: “FOR ONE TO SURVIVE, ONE MUST DIE”. My name is called. I grasp its neck firmly between my fore and middle finger with my right hand, and twist hard. Its head comes off, blood spurting, wings flapping. Life drains away quickly, and I throw its body into the bucket full of quail bodies. I feel numb, sad, and relieved all at once. We eat our cooked quails later. It’s tough and sinewy, with lots of small bones. (Not really related, but I try going vegetarian for about 9 months years later in University)
Before we know it, it is test day. We draw arms and carry all of our equipment to the parade square, where there is a thorough standby – instructors are checking for any contraband items – extra food and GPS units being the most likely.
The test is 13 days long, comprising of 3 back-to-back exercises:
- Ex Nomad – “Navigation” – 3 days of a checkpoint-based navigation exercise
- Ex Hermit – “Survival” – 5 days of solo jungle survival
- Ex Chillbone – “Escape and Evasion” – 5 days of navigation back to camp after being dropped by helicopter in an unknown location, with 1.5 day’s rations.
Exercise Nomad – “Navigation”
For Nomad, I am put into a detail of about 7 cadets, one of them is a good buddy of mine. I am glad. Navigation in a pure jungle setting is much trickier as opposed to a forested setting with some urban landmarks, as it is difficult to pinpoint your location and there is a lot of guesswork involved – you cannot see any landmarks due to the forest canopy and paths are not clearly marked. Movement at night is nearly impossible. Also, there is a fair amount of ‘bashing’ involved – moving through the jungle without following a path – a slow, painful and arduous affair which involves a lot of hacking with your parang (machete) and a lot of thorns. Not fun.
It goes well until Day 2, when we have a minor scare – some of us split off from the main group to find a checkpoint in the vicinity, leaving the others to rest with the bulk of our equipment. While this practice was fairly common, it was not strictly legal – we could get in trouble if we were caught. We find the checkpoint, but get lost whilst getting back. We try our best to find our companions for several hours, but no luck. We find ourselves going in circles. We start to worry – night is falling soon and we have none of our equipment with us, save what we have on our SBOs (Standard Battle Order – a vest with pockets). We don’t have our communication set. We have run out of water and we don’t have our water purification tablets on us. We are really thirsty – nearly everybody starts to drink unpurified water from streams at the risk of getting a stomach bug. I have done enough outdoor stuff to know that you can get really ill from drinking untreated water – and I certainly don’t want to fail because of that – I hold off even though I am really thirsty.
Suddenly, we see figures moving in the distance, in the midst of the vegetation. It’s another team! We are overjoyed. We holler over. They tell us where we are on the map and give us a couple of puritabs. Renewed and certain of where we are, we manage to find our main group just before night falls.
The next day, it goes well and we make the required number of checkpoints – we have crossed the first hurdle!
Exercise Hermit – “Survival”
This exercise simulates the conditions the individual soldier faces when he is stranded on his own, and has to wait for rescue. In order to survive in the jungle for a extended periods of time – weeks, or even perhaps months – he has to make the jungle his home. This means building a shelter, traps, and other structures such as a smoke tent to preserve food – fish, fowl, monitor lizards. The smoke also keeps the insects away. We are only allowed basic equipment: a parang (machete), a small knife, a torchlight, water purification tablets, a fishing line and hook, and some writing material – we have to make do with what the jungle provides us: poles from trees, vines, and leaves.
Passing this test is not just a matter of staying alive – that is easy for just 5 days – we have an entire checklist of items to complete: traps, an A-frame shelter, a bird trap, a monitor lizard trap, and a smoke tent, amongst other things. These will be scored on quality and effectiveness – apart from the total score which contributes to the overall assessment, we will be given food as reward if we do well.
We are taken by inflatable boat and are deposited at sites along the river in pairs – although it is a solo exercise, we will have a buddy 200 meters away from our site for safety. While it makes it easy for our instructors to visit us, it also means that it is really muddy – most of us have waterlogged boots for about 5 days, myself included. Not that it really makes a difference – we’ve already had soaked boots from the navigation exercise. One of my friends has a really bad site – mud up to calf level – what a nightmare.
Day 1
I assess my site quickly – it’s nothing remarkable, a little muddy perhaps, but it could be worse. There are no old spars left behind by the last candidate – a possibility for reduced work if the spars are in good shape – I have lots of chopping to do with my trusty parang.
Speed is of the essence on the first day – you want to get as much of the grunt work when you are fresh (mainly chopping), and you definitely don’t want to be sleeping on the ground. Hours later, I have about 20 spars and I gather some vines to lash them together. I make my A frame quickly – I have done a fair amount of pioneering stuff in Scouts so it comes easily to me.
By nightfall, I have a sturdy A-frame with half a platform – I call it a day. Sunset is around 6pm, and it’s difficult to work in the dark. I spend my time lying on my A frame – it’s not very comfortable, the poles that form the platform are irregular and jut out here and there, but I am glad to be resting, after a full day of chopping. My stomach is growling. By the next day, the hunger pangs recede in my consciousness, and my stomach stops producing gastric juices as it realises food is not coming in anytime – it’s amazing how the mind and body adapts.
Night is pitch black. Muslim prayers come on just after sunset and before dawn – they seem to be broadcast loudly on speakers. They are eerie and reassuring at the same – I don’t understand any of the chanting, but at least I know civilisation is nearby. The life of the forest surrounds me with sound – frogs croaking, an occasional monkey howl, birds and crickets chirping, the patter of rain on trees.
It’s not comfortable enough to fall asleep and I can’t really move on the small platform, so I just lie there, motionless, soaked, tired, wide awake and desperately wanting to fall asleep. The flies and mosquitoes are attracted to anything warm-blooded, and that means me. These are not your garden-variety types – there is a monstrous type of blood-sucking fly that has a insanely huge proboscis – you can literally feel it needling into your skin when it bites. I smell faintly of rot as well, given that I’ve been wearing the same uniform for days now – I’m sure that makes me doubly attractive to my winged friends. After a while, I don’t even bother to wave them off – there is no point.
There is absolutely nothing to do but wait until sunrise. Time passes really slowly. It is a lot of time to reflect. I think about family, I think about J, I think about life. I get worried that I cannot recall what some of my good friends look like. With nothing familiar around me and nobody to talk to – all of the things in everyday life that reinforce my comfortable sense of identity, I start to question my sense of self – who am “I” really? It feels like I am losing it. I try to write in my notebook with my headlamp on. It’s too much effort, and I give up soon after. After several hours, I finally fall asleep out of pure exhaustion.
Day 2
I’m glad for daylight – I have a sense of purpose again. I finish up the rest of the platform of my A-frame and start making a roof for it, gathering the biggest palm leaves I can find and weaving them together.
Weaving is a good break from chopping, but it is time-consuming. I worry that I am running out of time – inspection is on day 4 and I have nothing but my A-frame so far.
I work on my bird and monitor lizard traps on the latter half of the day. Making traps is very difficult! It involves a lot of intricacy, and attention to detail. For it to work, everything has to be exactly right – the length of the sapling, the springiness, the noose, etc. This is hardcore engineering with minimum of equipment. I have new-found respect for the natives who do this every day. I make my traps as best as I can – intricate handicraft is not my forte – I make them good enough to pass, but I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be coming back finding a bird in my vine noose. We are given a fishing line and hook as well – I don’t bother fishing either – it’s not my thing.
I later learn that one of my friends actually manages to catch a monitor lizard with his trap – a 10 pound monster snared with a device made from a tree sapling, twigs and vines. Even the instructors are impressed. He becomes a hero overnight.
It pours at night, and I am totally drenched, despite my palm roof. Everything is wet. Soil becomes mud. Mud gets everywhere. It is absolutely miserable. I cannot wait to get out of here.
Day 3
More building on my traps and smoke tent.
Wing Comm comes to visit. It’s good to see him, and we talk for a while. He is a fatherly figure – usually playing the good cop in the scheme of things, but stern when he needs to be, and always with genuine concern. He says, we’ve crossed the halfway point now, hang in there. He leaves soon for the next cadet – there are many to see. I do more touch-up on my things – shaving little bits off here and there, dressing it up, for tomorrow’s grading. The ‘wayang’ (Malay: “Theatre performance”) machine is in full gear.
Day 4
Grading day – I make sure my site looks as good as it can. One of my instructors comes by and looks at my jungle crib – it’s an OK score, not excellent, but definitely good enough to pass. Some of the other cadets take a lot of ‘pride’ in their handicraft – my pride is variable – I am all about minimum effort, maximum result.
I get 2 packets of rice for a reward – I polish off the first one, but I can barely finish the portion even though it is just about 2 bowls of rice worth – my stomach has shrunk that much. In fact – I feel like puking – I think I ate too fast. I hang the other portion on my A frame, while I go take a leak.
When I come back, my second packet of rice is nowhere to be seen. There are no tracks and no traces of the packet. It clearly wasn’t ripped apart as there is no rice anywhere to be seen. It must have been an animal fairly dexterous to have unhooked it from the pole. A monkey? A lemur? I was gone for maybe 2 minutes. I am pissed off at losing valuable food and unnerved at the same time. I feel eyes on me all the time now.
Day 5
A glorious day, spent demolishing all our stuff. Some are reluctant to destroy their intricate, well-built structures – I have no such attachment. I am only too glad to get out of here. I leave my A frame for my final night, to be demolished tomorrow.
Day 6
Extraction day. I demolish my A frame and trudge out to the river bank, where we are taken to a central area to prepare for the final exercise. I’ve never been so happy to see a rubber dinghy.
We talk about what we did to pass time later – one of our platoon mates casually mentions that he was only too happy to pleasure himself on his A frame. It is hilarious. We are all mind-boggled at his admission and his ability to rub one out in extreme conditions. He earns the title “Jungle Wanker” from then on.
Exercise Chillbone
We all meet at a central area – where we are given hot Milo. It is heaven. I drink 4, maybe 5 cups. Medics are at hand – treating small wounds. Other than trench foot and some cuts, I am fine. We are glad to see each other – there is so much to say but no energy to say it. The final exercise weighs heavily in our minds. We hear stories about people who dropped out – hornet stings, guys who cut themselves with their parangs, teams who didn’t make the navigation test. We all desperately want this fucking badge.
This exercise is a simulation of an “Escape and Evasion” setting (although there is no escape really) – we are behind enemy lines and have to get back to a safe rendezvous point for a chopper pickup to safety.
We are issued our equipment and rations – 1.5 days worth of combat rations for 5 days. We are given the final rendezvous point and the cutoff date and time – anything after means failure, regardless of how well you’ve done in the other exercises.
We are escorted to the LZ (Landing Zone), where we are to board a helicopter. It will drop us in an unknown location 30-40km away from our base.
We wait in a section, just in the edge of the clearing, for our ride to nowhere. Minutes later – we hear the distinctive pitter-patter of helicopter. Sure enough, it is moving towards us in the horizon. It is a Bell UH-1 “Huey” chopper, one of the infamous icons of the Vietnam War. We are meant to communicate with the chopper pilots with our radio sets, but really, they can’t be bothered – hot shot Air Force pilots for sure aren’t going to indulge some Army cadet in running through some drill.
It descends slowly until it is right in front of us. They weren’t kidding about clearing debris from the LZ – the downwash from the helicopter is incredible – it is like standing in front of a full force gale. Dirt is spraying everywhere. By now, the helicopter pattering has grown into a deafening “WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP” – we can barely hear ourselves speak. The airman by the door gives the thumbs up and signals for us to board. Our instructor yells, “GO GO GO!” – we scramble in.
I manage to sit next to the door – I have an excellent view. The pilots look very cool – perfectly calm in all of this chaos, their visors on, muttering undecipherable commands on their headsets, checking their instruments. I can see their call sign on the back of their helmets – “RAZOR” or “STAR SCREAM” – something elite and badass. The engines power up as we lift off – the chopper wobbles slightly as we leave the safety of the ground. We rise up into the air, weightless, unhindered by gravity. It is magical.
The LZ becomes a tiny patch of soil as we ascend up in the sky. The jungle is so different in the air. The view is incredible – we see streams, small settlements, and green everywhere – there is jungle as far as the eye can see. Holding on to our rifles, helmets on, surrounded by the deafening roar of the helicopter blades – it is a scene out of Apocalypse Now, minus Wagner.
Our magic carpet ride doesn’t last for long – we are descending. Minutes later, we are ceremoniously booted out of the chopper back to terra firma incognita. Yep – we are infantry, we’d better get used to it.
Thankfully, it is in an open clearing and we can see a couple of hills in the distance – we spend a couple of minutes to work out where we are via triangulation with our maps and compasses. We are about 90% confident of our approximate location – it’s about 35km away from where we need to be. We check our equipment and start our long trek back.
The next 5 days are a blur: fatigue, walking, having uncertainty about where we are, bashing through jungle, getting thorns in every part of our bodies imaginable, wading through streams, scrambling down cliffs, getting sick of combat rations, helping each other along, having arguments. It’s perhaps a cliche but you really do see one’s true colors when put under physical and mental stress. I fell out with a good friend during this exercise – I can’t remember the details but I think I got frustrated with his ability to navigate and lead properly even though he was the designated navigator, and basically took over. Sadly, our relationship never really recovered after this.
A good thing about being the navigator is the constant mental activity and having some sense of control – a bit like how you will never mind being a car with sudden acceleration / braking when it’s you being the driver, but you certainly will as a passenger. Being the leader means you always know where you are (or at least have an idea), you know how long it’s going to be, and you have something to occupy the mind.
As much as possible, we stick to tracks and paths already made – but they are few and far between, and they change frequently with the constantly growing jungle. In the jungle – streams are the equivalent of roads, rivers the equivalent of highways. Travelling along a stream is a good idea – they are one of the most common landmarks, and it is much easier to pinpoint where you are than by moving in the jungle. However, moving along a stream in the jungle is difficult, owing to the thick vegetation and mud on its banks. Some cadets were desperate enough to float in the rivers, since we were provided flotation devices for river crossings. Of course this was highly illegal and dangerous (crocodiles anybody?), but I think the thought had passed through all of our minds at least once.
We start to worry on day 3 – progress is slow in the thick jungle, we are just about halfway there. The margin for error in the next few days, is certainly not large, if there is any at all.
Day 5 is a desperate day – we are very near to our final rendezvous, about 5 km away, but time is ticking. As tired as we are from nearly 2 weeks of our trial, we are feverishly driven to finish it. To have come so far and to fail at the last moment – that would really suck. I remember us scrambling down a small waterfall / stream, slipping and falling on the rocks with our heavy equipment, while our team of 7 was stretched in a line across several hundred meters.
We are practically running by the final few hundred meters, as we catch sight of an army truck and a rover. We yell to the rest who are straggling behind. Wing Comm and 2 of our instructors are waiting by it, having a cigarette and grinning at us. We are flooded by relief and joy at finally finishing. It’s over, finally over. As we reach them, Wing Comm heartily congratulates us. We’ve made it by a few hours. I collapse to the ground, exhausted.
Back in camp, we reacquaint ourselves with our bodies. It’s good to be able to sit on a chair. It’s good to be dry and warm. It’s good to be JCC qualified. As I strip off to take a shower and shave off my beard, I notice my bunk mates are looking at me funny, and a friend asks me if I am all right. I look down at my chest and realise I have lost a lot of weight – some of my ribs are showing. I feel fine though. I weigh myself later and discover that I am 5, maybe 6 kg lighter. I have lost about 8% of my body weight in 2 weeks. I think – this has to be one of the fastest ways to lose weight, ever.
In the end, about 2/3rd of us passed the course. It an experience that stays with us always – after going through this – what else is hard? Cramming for an exam? Working 18 hour days? It seems so trivial in comparison.
Taiwan – Ex Starlight
Another highlight of OCS training was going to Taiwan for training. Training in varied environments is seen as important – who knows where war will be fought? Taiwan has a more temperate climate, which means that the vegetation is less dense, but also means that we have a lot more walking to do. The terrain is much more open than the claustrophobic urban jungle of Singapore – we actually manage to have a line of sight from one hill to another. For the most part, we enjoy the colder climate – it is refreshing from the sweltering heat of the tropics.
One of the highlights of Ex Starlight is a navigation exercise called Red Beret. Lasting about 90km, 3 days long (in theory), Red Beret is also a competition – there is to be a plaque presented to the winning team – the team which completes all the checkpoints in the shortest amount of time.
As we form teams of 7 cadets each, it turns out that I am put in the ‘odd’ team – each platoon can make about 4 teams, and the remaining few are lumped together with the other leftovers from the other platoons. While cadets see each other frequently at the company level, the bulk of interaction is usually constrained to your platoon, and it is a good chance to get to know the other cadets from the other platoons.
We have a briefing the night before, and receive the map and our checkpoints. We are told the rules – no walking on ‘main’ roads, no buying of any outside food, and certainly no taking of any vehicular transport. While taking a taxi was clearly cheating, we were less sure about walking on roads and buying snacks from local vendors. Both of these were common practice, as told by senior batches, and it surely wouldn’t make any kind of sense to bash through vegetation a couple of meters parallel to a road. Also, what is the definition of a ‘main’ road? It was not the first time we had encountered such grey areas, and we recalled our instructor’s dictum on such matters, “You can do anything, just don’t get caught.” A friend explains to me the concept of the ‘Rover Drill’ – in contrast to the ‘Arti Drill’ – if you are walking on the road and you see a military rover (presumably with our instructors inside), drop everything and dive into the bushes. It’s hilarious. Should we practice? (Artillery Drill – every infantryman knows this in case of bombardment – if “Arti!” is called out, you drop everything and jump into the nearest hole / fortification / cover you can find) As I mark out the checkpoints and plot a route, it doesn’t seem so long after all – in fact, at a push, I think it can be done in one day. My other team members look at me funny.
The next morning, we are dropped off by tonners (military trucks), and as soon as the instructors are out of sight – we dump all of the rations which we don’t need, carefully saving the packets (no littering – we have to account for every bit of packaging later). 3 days of rations weighs a ton, and our plan is to travel fast and light. Jettison drill!
We start off by being obedient cadets, and try to minimise walking on the road, but by a couple of hours, we are too tired to care. We move fast, and the checkpoints fly by. I am lead navigator, and navigating in Taiwan is easy compared to jungle-type environments. In contrast to other navigation exercises, there are no stragglers in this group slowing us down – everybody is quite fit. It’s awesome. All of us are really tired, but we keep pushing, inspired by winning and getting back to camp early. I later learn that the better cadets were chosen for this team – platoon instructors didn’t want to ‘lao kui’ (lose face) by having their platoon’s cadets drag down a combined team. We hardly see any rovers around so we don’t get to practice our rover drill, which I am quite happy for – I’m not a fan of jumping into bushes in my full battle gear – helmet, weapon, fieldpack and all.
Such is our speed of the group that we hardly see any of the ‘ninja vans’ that we have all been looking forward to patronising, kitchens on wheels – fridge, deep fryer, stove, grill and all – operated by the Taiwanese locals, who are only too happy to make a buck catering to the steady flow of 星光部队 (xing guang bu dui) – Starlight Warriors who find their combat rations anything but stellar.
A sampling of the extremely unhealthy and extremely delicious Taiwanese goodies available form a ninja van:
- 香鸡排 (xiang ji pa): Fried Chicken Cutlets
- 甜不辣 (tian bu la): Taiwanese Tempura
- 豬血糕 (zhu que gao) Deep fried pigs blood – black pudding (does it get more unhealthy than this?? )
Exhausted and thrilled, we end up at the final checkpoint after 14 hours, certain that we had won by a mile, and possibly set a course record. We turn out to be right on both counts. Back in camp and happy to be sleeping on beds while everybody else was sleeping rough outfield, our instructor is less than pleased. Our ridiculous timing makes it very obvious that we had walked on roads, and there is talk at the top about disqualifying us, and even possible disciplinary action. It is a bizarre situation. Maybe we should have waited for a bit before finishing to make it less obvious? If we are disqualified for using roads then surely every team should be disqualified as well? Would we be honored or disgraced?
In the end, we are presented with medals and all, and spared of any punishment. I feel like a million bucks during the prize presentation ceremony. Apparently we had some supporters – one of the Platoon Commanders saw how hard our team was pushing along the way. We are all grateful for the leniency.
The rest of Taiwan is a lot of fun – there is a lot of clowning around with fellow cadets during exercises, and frequent visits to the ninja vans. Even the camp food is excellent – the Hainanese Chicken Rice in camp is delicious.
At the end of the trip, we have a few days of R&R in Taipei – the real highlight of our trip. Taipei is a city of incredible food and buzz – from the night markets to the 槟榔妹 (bing lang mei) – betel nut girls – scantily dressed women who stand by the roadside selling betel nuts. Being cheap Singaporeans afraid of mouth cancer, we are only too happy to ogle by the side while not buying anything.
Commissioning
Before we knew it – we were practising for our Commissioning Parade. It was a bittersweet period – as glad as we were to be finishing, we knew that life outside OCS would not be the same. Practicing for the parade wasn’t fun – we had days of endless rehearsals – standing in the sun for hours on end, while the School Sergeant Major barked at us and made us run round the parade square if we got anything wrong.
As the prizes were announced, I was disappointed that I didn’t get the Sword of Merit – I felt that my performance had been above average. In retrospect – I am glad I didn’t win it – SOM / SOH winners are slated for higher level appointments in their reservist training, and I am not keen on taking more responsibility. Also, I was happy in OCS because I was always myself – I never went out of my way to do things to impress or to score points – I excelled in things out of genuine interest, navigation for example. Besides, I was never the model country-loving, pledge-reciting officer.
We are given our officer swords for the rehearsals, and are very tempted to do some Zorro style action back in our bunks, until we hear a story that has to be the sorriest reason to fail OCS after everything – 2 cadets from the previous course were expelled because they were play-fighting with their swords, a week before passing out. We keep the swords safely in their sheaths.
The day finally arrives. The drill looks sloppier to me than on the rehearsal days actually – I can imagine steam rising off the top of School Sergeant Major’s peak cap. But we don’t care – we throw our caps in the air – we are officers! We now have a gleaming golden bar on our epaulets. Our Wing Sergeant Major salutes us smartly one by one. The reversal of power roles is strange indeed.
We arrive back to OCS the weekend after commissioning – curious what was in store next. Along with a few others, I am assigned to an active infantry battalion – it turns out to be near my house – this should be good… right?
Back to My Story – Part 3a: Army – Basic Military Training
Continued in My Story – Part 3c: Army – Unit Life
Ken -
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