Exercise Giant & An Early Tribute

Giant was not bad. Besides the lack of sleep and confusion and minor safety breaches and near-loss of certain equipment. Certain deployment grounds were really a nigthmare I'm tellng you. Areas like Lam Sum. And the worse it yet to be. o_O The pace of the exercise was manageable. Quite relaxed if I might say. First time working with our Gunnery counterparts. Maybe that explains the relatively leisurely pace of the fire missions and deployments. But I'm not complaining of course. Haha. The food was not bad too. Morale was rather high after the exercise I must say. Last obstacle for the course cleared! =)

1 more week to POP. 7 more days to graduating as a specialist of the Singapore Armed Forces. The missing link between the Officer Corps and the rank and file. 5 months or so of training, culminates to Saturday, the 25th of November 2006. The end of a relatively carefree trainee life, the beginning of a life of junior-middle management. One that comes with a certain degree of power and authority, yet requires an enormous amount of responsibility. One that promises a lot of shit if you don't balance that power and responsibility effectively and efficiently. A life that almost certainly consists of numerous extras and possible punitive measures. Oh well.

With 1 week left, it still doesn't feel like we're passing out anytime soon. I don't know why. Weird really. I had that "feel good" feeling towards the end of BMT and SISPEC BSLC, but not for this course. Somehow I still feel so unprepared to take on the challenges of being a leader, especially since I keep forgetting so many things I'm supposed to be proficient in. Goodness, in fact I still feel like a normal private soldier, always dependent on others to take the lead, of telling me what to do and with seniors always needing to keep watch over me all the time. Really weird.

Yes I know POP's next Saturday, but I just thought of giving this early tribute to some of the people and things that made the 105th/1st Artillery Specialists' Course a little less mundance, a little more memorable and well, enjoyable (to a certain extent). =)

1) "Pierce" Ang Kok Yen "Brosnan" - for the most fun times doing guard together and for the most realistic imitations of our course commander, Jensen Ng and many others.

2) Felix "the Meanix" - for being mean. Haha no lah. For sharing cab and stuff. Aiya you know lah.

3) Alvin Chow "Keng" the H_______ g__ - for being the tactical "tuang" king and for just being your funny stupid self.

4) "Wilfred Why" Lee Wei Hong - for being so smart and fast at picking new things up and for always asking why.

5) Daniel "The Manual" Leong - for sharing the same tastes in good food and for carrying all the manuals. Haha

6) Eric "The Barbaric Maverick" Soong a.k.a King Kong - for being so hardworking and on the ball. I really don't know how our detachment'd survive without you man.

7) "Johnson" Tan Wei Cong - for being so sporting, for letting us laugh with and at you for your rather strange but humourous antics at times.

8) "Simon" Tsai Mun Keong - for your funny talk and accent and for always irritating Eric. =D

9) Eric "Noobric" Poh - for having the same surname as our course sergeant major and for CS and for pinching nipples.

10) "Frankie Veggie" Fu Zhe Zhang - for being vegetarian and making noise with your singing. My Mohawk friend, do take care and don't let your alarm clock ring at 5 a.m next time in unit alright?

11) Gun No. 52503. Will be using you for the last few times this week. Will miss all the deployments, fire missions, PMCS and cleaning sessions. NO. Haha. Of course not.

And the list goes on. =) Gotta sleep soon though. Having a rather bad cough and cold now. Must be the lack of sleep and nonsense we ate during Giant. Ah well. Will write again soon.