2 years (part 1)

1.5 weeks left to ORD.

Congratulations Yan Bo on your 110 wpm typing speed. I can only manage 100. Feelsbad.

Just now, I was trying to find a comic that resonated with me till this day. First frame was depicting a platoon of soldiers marching towards a camp, saluting a sergeant. Second frame was the soldiers marching home, with coffins, crutches, bandaged heads, still saluting.

I think you know the reason why. 3 times injury to my right arm. PES B2. Prawn allergy. PES C.

Prawn

Allergy

Let's head back to the first day. April (censored) 2016. D-Day. The day where a nervous skinny boy, who just scraped through with silver IPPT so that he doesn't have to suffer for an extra 2 months, shivered on a rickety boat traveling to Tekong.

Oh how sweetly we smiled. We had a decent lunch (very good by Sembawang's standard) and then the inevitable separation. Carrying my bag and waving goodbye to my parents was an extraordinary feeling. I felt like I'm going to grow up, like leaving the nest. This only made me feel more nervous. I need to fly. I'm by myself. This is the army. What am I going to expect?

All these questions and no one to answer them.

****. School 4. 2nd Coy. Rocky Hill Camp. I was given a 4 digit number. I didn't have a name. I was that number. What I was issued on that day was a dogtag. On it was my NRIC and my blood type. I was told to keep it on me at all times. What did it mean?

It means if I could die any time. And that's the way they are going to identify me. Because a dead person can't reply with his 4 digits. Who is this guy? He can be burnt alive, six feet in the ground, chopped into pieces, and nobody will remember him without his dogtag. Everyone is the same (well I'm referring to men la the sergeants and officers are different) and that was apparently made clearer through the symbolic shaving of our heads on that night.

Before that, I went to put my things into my bunk, My sergeant was there and he gave me my padlock to my locker. Today, I removed the padlock from my locker and brought it home. Brought back my field pack and everything, but I digress. I had my bottle labeled with red tape (I typed rape for some reason ffs) and with my 4 digits. Did admin shit and got to know my bunkmates. My buddy was from AJC. I knew him, he was quite popular. From the football CCA, relatively good looking. Sociable, you know. And he didn't know me. Why? I was the exact opposite.

Other than that, I had a former tuitionmate inside. We were on good terms and talked to each other casually. I thought to myself, this is pretty alright. At least this place is not totally foreign. The rest of the fellas were mostly from JC. They were smart people, people who I thought I could maybe go along with. I still remained quiet and observed.

What happened next was hazy. It's been nearly 2 years. I tried to remember marching commands but had a tough time. Malay commands. I only relied on kekerin and kekanan to decide on where to turn. Whatever in front was a load of bull. At least for me. Marching was an interesting experience. I never joined any uniformed group CCAs before so I didn't know. It wasn't particularly tough but it became annoying when we were told to semula. Before eating.

Onto the sergeants. My unit sgt was pretty alright. But there's 1 in the company that likes to fuck around. Let's call him PS. I'm pretty sure PS is an alright person if you're his friend. But as a sergeant, it looks apparent that he likes to abuse the power he has. He likes to shout. A lot. And as a recruit, I was terrified of the consequences.

I don't know how much you know about me, Mr Pei + any non existent reader I have, but in my 2 years I exhibited respect to everyone above 3SG. Why? Because I know I can suffer if they want to make me to. I know. 3SGs to a lesser extent after BMT of course. But you never know.

I remember waking up early in the morning to draw arms. The standard wake up at 5am and eat breakfast and do jack shit until 7am and do jack shit and draw arms until 10am ,the usual. PS had to top off my first experience of this by shouting. We also had to practise signing on some paper because we had to sign some shit and we cannot cross the line.

So I heard that the reason for this is that when you scan a copy of the paper the signature may not be clearly seen but seriously? This just got me started on the inflexibility of the army.

I remember on one night when I was showering I realised that the shower doesn't turn off. No matter how hard I tried to pull the button back up it didn't stop. Being the good eco warrior that I am I went down to inform my sergeant. I honestly thought that they would come up and check and if they saw it we would be screwed.

I got screwed instead. I came down in slippers (honest mistake) and this sergeant who looked a lot like Jia Dian told me to go up, shave and come down. LOL. It was the first lesson I had, no one cares about these things. These things are minor stuff. It's not their property, not their water, they don't care, why should they? I just needed a good reminder that nobody cares and I got it. Fair enough.

I thought the 'wayang' stereotype was overexaggerated in the movie Ah Boys to Men. I haven't seen this type of people before but when I came into BMT and later my unit, I actually got to experience it myself. It is judgemental from my part but I felt that there was a strange difference the people who genuinely wanted to help and those who helped for their own purpose. Maybe I am wrong but it was an interesting feeling. Other than that, there was nothing interesting about my bunkmates. They liked to go and stalk girls on instagram (fair enough) and talk about clubbing with the sergeant. From then on I knew the sergeant was chummy with the more outgoing people and the introvert that I am ended up in the corner of the room listening to music from YouTube on the tablet. I didn't talk much to anyone in general, not even to my buddy M. I only talked to C who played League and is a gamer like me.

Fast forward the mundane marching. The hectic mealtimes. The hectic admin time. The opposite from hectic waiting time. It was that day. 2 weeks into BMT, on a Thursday (next day was my first book out day) I had a practice session for SOC. The first time went well, I could do everything. On this occasion, everything felt normal. Then it happened, causing a major impact on my next 2 years.

I was at the low rope station. I heaved myself up on to the rope and tried to climb it. As my feet tried to grapple on the rope, I didn't realise my arms were supporting the whole of my body weight while doing so. I wasn't using my thighs and till this day, I've started to doubt the proper way to climb a rope. I heard a pop sound and I lost all upper limb strength while halfway on rope. I fell down on my back. The fitness instructor rushed to me. I screamed out "Oh my god!"

There wasn't any pain. But I knew something went wrong. Terribly wrong. I tried to lift myself up but my right arm was completely limp. As if it was dead. I clutched it and walked out of the sand pit. I was given an ice pack and a kind angmoh officer helped to take my top off. Adding to the excruciating physical pain, was the mental pain. I couldn't believe that I got myself injured again. This is the 3rd injury to my right arm. What did I do wrong? I could only grimace as some disinterested medic took his own sweet time to get on the vehicle to send me to Ladang.

The sergeant that brought me along was a good one. I can't remember what happened but I was sent to a dressing room with a bunch of guys who looked like they couldn't be arsed about me and were doing some dressing or some shit. All I had was an ice pack and some mysterious injury. I had every emotion in the world except positive ones. And what I had to deal with were a bunch of uninterested people who took their own sweet time. I ended up sitting in a room with a bed. I was given a pillow but I couldn't, for the life of me, find a position to rest my arm on. Every time I tried to move my arm I felt like someone was clamping hard on my arm and yanking it. It was a crazy feeling that got me making unintelligible noises. The sergeant got me porridge and a banana, which I ate using my left arm. He also passed me his phone to call my mum. I can never forget how she sounded. Regret and pain overcome me after the call and I cried. I tried to stop but I couldn't. If you know me well, I am a very emotional person. My tuition teacher used to call me a SNAG (sensitive new age guy) but I'm pretty sure she just meant I'm a pussy. But I digress.

I was told the boat arrived. At like 6 or 7. You know what's the fun part? I missed the previous boat because the dumbass sergeant that was supposed to take my bag was late. Besides, why was there a need to take my bag?????? I don't need it, if there was a dying soldier do I ask him to wait while I take his bag? Shit doesn't add up. I was dragged on board and this Indian sergeant was looking at the news and he showed me one article on the boat. Yeah, cool story bro. It's not like I got my pressing issues at hand like a fractured arm or anything. Oh wait.

When I got onshore, I got into an ambulance. Guess what happened. That's right, the S@F special. I waited for half an hour. While the driver was using WhatsApp. What was he doing? I don't know and till this day the mystery of the ambulance driver will never be solved. I arrived at Changi General Hospital and my parents were there with their shock and worry. I stumbled and dragged myself door through door, getting a diagnosis and got my arm plastered up. I was sent onto an A ward thanks to my father who was worried so much and I got to rest in an air conditioned room by myself. What time was it when I was lying on the bed? 11.30pm. Go figure.


The next day. The OC came to visit me. I have no idea what he said because I couldn't be arsed. I was still in pain and what he said was just the standard wayang to parents that officers do. I can tell something though. He didn't give a shit about me. In fact, I can say nobody in my unit, my company, my sergeants officers everyone didn't give any. Why can I say that? Because throughout the whole duration of my MC, roughly 6 months, no get well soon messages or visits by my 'supposed buddies' were made. Of course, we weren't close initially. But I thought this so called camaraderie that NS always advertises, how my officer said you will look back and want to relive those moments with your 'bros', I laughed to myself. Nobody cares. Rule number 1.



During the roughly 3 day hospital stay I actually ate good food and slept the whole day. My mother bathed me and I tried to pee by myself because peeing while lying down is extraordinarily difficult for some reason. I guess I'm not used to it. I used my phone the whole day and did nothing. Quite the contrary from my life in BMT. A group of doctors will come and visit me in the morning and I came to the decision of not undergoing surgery and letting my bone heal back by itself because coincidentally the bones were in place to heal itself. The pros of undergoing surgery was that it will be much quicker for me to recover but there was a risk of my wrist being permanently disabled because my arm is so thin, nerves could be damaged during the surgery. I took the safer route and opted for conservative treatment. Looking back, I'm happy for my decision. It netted me a long 6 month mc and there was no risks involved albeit the pain.

When I was discharged, life became hell for my parents. They took turns to take care of me and bathed me. My mum fashioned a plastic bag to cover my right arm for bathing and both of them took leave to ensure that I can get through each day. Every day, I felt sorry for being a burden to my family. The monetary costs, the wrinkles on their foreheads, their white hair. It was thanks to me. No doubt, I struggled to pick myself up and felt self hate and uselessness. I thought to myself every day questions of what if, why me, how can I. The only escape that I have was my computer, which I fortunately was somehow able to use with my arm. I rested the cast on a pillow and rested it on my right leg raised on a stool. My wrist works so I could use a mouse. I can't remember what I did but it took 6 months LMAO. It took 6 months before I was back in action.

Did I really just use the computer for 6 months? Of course not. I had trips to Tekong for some fking reason?? Let a nibba sleep at home ffs? The MC that I used only can cover up to 84 days so I had to go back once in a while. I also had to bring my stuff back from my locker. The first time I went back, I was greeted by a dumbass sergeant (who is coincidentally Bing qian's friend) who didn't know what is the difference between going to Tekong and meeting at Tekong. I was asking if I needed to physically go to Tekong to endorse my MC or I can do it at the ferry terminal and the dumbass didn't understand what I was saying. It took a blasting from my father via phone call because he was bringing me from home and he couldn't be arsed with some dumb cunt. He then sent an apology to my father via sms LOL.

When I reached Tekong my former sergeant was there. He didn't show any ounce of care for me. We took the bus to Rocky Hill camp and I was given 10 minutes to change from my civilian clothes into admin attire. Does this even make sense? I'm a guy with a bandaged right arm on a sling. Not even this can exempt me? I'll let you think about this one. I tried to negotiate but the cunt wouldn't barge. I still had the recruit mindset then and thus I never dared to argue.

Got downstairs, I was forced to eat lunch (get a load of this, because of their dumb safety guidelines) and then another ooc guy came to help and take my stuff to the terminal. My father waited 4 hours just for this. What can be done in 1 hour.

Endorsing my MC got me fear in this 2 years. I desperately tried to down pes for 75% of my NS life because I was magically still in PES B1. That's right, prawn allergy and you're PES C but fracture your arm and you can still do physical activity. What told the MO so? This pink book they have in a drawer. That book overruled common sense and logic. There was this 1 guy from parkway parade who I think was a professional doctor and was a consultant at Ladang. He walked from room to room and when he came to my room his diagnosis was to consult the pink book and say no down pes. This still makes me laugh now. The MO is a mere puppet. They don't have experience nor knowledge to be a real doctor. It's understandable but so frustrating. The book says fractured takes a few months for recovery. Ok. So you can go on your few months of mc and after that come back for bmt and injure yourself again. That's how stupid they sound like.

My mc ended in October and I was sent to recruit management in Tekong. It was a place for recruits who ooc and are waiting for their new posting. That's right. You can't stay at home because no MC but we don't know where to put you so just go to Tekong everyday and do nothing. I reported there from 8-5 and what I did was bring hot water for some old guy and run errands like shredding paper. I brought my own newspapers to read and caught quite a few interesting Pokemon. The ferry terminal specifically put no playing of Pokemon Go in Tekong. What a joke. I dimmed my phone light, put on an incense and got max spawns on the ferry to and fro. Kept running out of pokeballs.

So after a week there I got sent to Kranji Camp 3. I thought it was going to be my permanent posting so my father and I came on the weekend to scout and find the fastest route from the MRT to the camp.

I was sent there for 1 day only.

I also got lost in the camp for 1 hour because the ST couldn't be arsed to give me good instructions. I ended up walking to Kranji Camp 2. I reached at 7.30 am and was supposed to report at 8am. I ended up late.

What did I do there? I stayed in a room with other bunch of misfits. All ooc. I made a friend there but he got posted permanently as a clerk for finances there. Lucky him because Kranji Camp has good food as compared to where I ended up in.

Sembawang Camp. My home for the rest of my NS life. A place right at the northern tip of Singapore. Inside it were transport battalions 1TPT, 3TPT, STC and the navy NDU. A small dusty camp with a mass of foreign workers surrounding it. The Sembawang shipyard was next to it and the number of foreign workers on bicycles made me feel like I was in their country. They made travelling via bus hell as they were unruly and pushed themselves in like animals. Taking 856 soon became taking 169 because I felt that in Yishun there were less of these savages. It turns out they also take 169. Whatever. My father, in fear of me injuring myself by competing with these buffoons always wanted me to take a taxi to camp. I wanted to save money ($10 a trip) so I declined most of the time.

I was sent to the S1 branch first then Q.M branch. That time when I arrived was coincidentally during the milestone parade. Everyone was busy and I remembered arranging chairs in the parade square with my jockey cap on. The boss then was MJ, master sergeant and central pool ic. I was shortlisted as one of the hardworking guys by my upperstudy D1 who was a paikia but treated most people well. He made me his understudy and I later took over him as the IC of Optics Store.

Yeah. I am a storeman now. This stint made me learn a lot about human relations and working in the real world. D1 hated people who slack and keng. With his tattooed body and brash actions, I feared D1 and made it a point to not provoke him. He hated one of the relatively new guy C because of this. C was friendly to me because he was an outcast and since I don't discriminate against anyone (and I had no friends anyway) I talked to him a lot. D1 warned me to not associate with him but I just maintained a friendly disposition to everyone. I soon knew why he said that.

COS stands for company orderly sergeant. But it's a duty that everyone below sergeant did over here because there's not enough sergeants. So REC Shawn ended up doing cos duties. And C scammed me of 2 weekend duties where he was the reserve but I ended up doing them because "he would pay me back". Me being the dumbass naive little 小孩子 that I am trusted him because I'm new around. Mum always told me to help others. Why not, I always loved to help others since young. He'll repay me right? Right?

He didn't. He kenged and siamed everything. He had protection from arrows and did a matrix cosplay. Every time I asked him when he was doing my duty, he had every excuse in the book. In hindsight, I should've known better. I was in a bubble since primary school, that people are generally positive. They would do what they promised right? Right? Lol. It was a good lesson for me however. I think learning this in the army is way better than when I'm out at work. Things got complicated due to D1 punching C and then C got transferred to Pr0ject T3am because he was useless in our unit and he subsequently got an even more slack job there by taking photographs and creating slideshows and videos for the big shots. What justice right? I didn't bring this up to my superiors because I thought that stirring shit up with him will instead bring more trouble to me. Some people, you just have to avoid in life.

Being the IC of my store was a blessing. I was sent to a store with air con and arguably the least daily work out of all the stores. The worst store in my opinion was armskote. I have to wake up with the armskote boys every time there's range around 6am and we had to stay back on the same day until 7pm. They had to ensure the rifles were cleaned and accounted for, had stricter LAB inspection guidelines and more responsibility than anyone else. The armskote IC M and B were my comrades in doing everything, especially illegal things. In the army, there's a famous saying "You can do anything, just don't get caught".

And that's what we did. For LAB. We made miracles. With the Signal Store ICS R and K, we were the CE store boys. The problem with our stores is we were not required to do a lot of physical work compared to other stores. However, our items cost a shit load, and we will be fucked if we lose or screw anything up. It was a question I asked myself a lot before I came in. Would I rather have more work and less responsibility or less work and more responsibility? The answer is, gladly the latter for me.

Yeah, I had my fair share of screw ups. I however did not receive any extras. I may cock up by forgetting how to do things but I never ever offended any higher up. I still got work done at the end of the day. I am proud of that at least. The CE boys got the most offs thanks to our R.Q MT .

Let me introduce to you my officers. The Q.M himself is a good guy, 3 years my senior, disappears from work regularly and is biased towards some but otherwise takes care of us very well. He's the head of the branch only by name because there is someone else who has way more experience and responsibility in this department. Enter R.Q. with the 1WO rank. She is fiery and caused me the most pain during my stint but mellowed down before I ORDed. I report to her directly because she's the accounting officer for the regiment and she worries about CE items the most. Insane right? I am just a private ffs. To get a perfect grade for LAB, we had to work our asses off under her whim and fancy. Until we learnt LAB changes their expectations like me changing my mood. Then we have the man the non CE items store ICs report to, C.P.I.C with MJ and SF replacing him. Both had pros and cons which were polarizing. I will go into detail later. But these two usually didn't bother me. Because they know someone else bothers me way more often.

How do you find this post? Please take the time to rest your eyes for 2 minutes. Practise good eye habits. I'll split this into two for the sanity of both of us.