Monday, July 04, 2005

2 weeks of pain, constipation and endless waiting..

Seriously there's quite too much content about ICT that's worth blogging. How about just some highlights? Hehe..

In-process
Me, Chew, Gary and PC met at Zhenghua's Kim San Leng coffeeshop to have an early breakfast. By then the 2 goons had already smoked at least 2 or 3 sticks of ciggies, blackening their black lungs further before I arrived. I was late because I had to pack my slightly damp clothes and stuff into my bag. Ahh.. the result of last minute underwear purchasing.. Hehe!

Also noteworthy was that LCP G aka 看医生 did NOT turn up in ONLY full uniform. Thankfully if I might add.. LOL!

Me and Chew kena marked for not having proper haircut so the 2 of us had to surrender our PRECIOUS pink ICs to the RSM's clerk or whoever he was. Then we cleverly went to our bunk first instead of queueing up for the barber's. We tuang-ed for a while and with our cunning sense of timing, we managed to siam the parade. May I exclaim "song bo?"

Later on, meaning the next day, LCP 看医生 finally found out his IC was confiscated because of his long haircut, not because the unit would return it to him at the end of 2 weeks. Winner... -_-"

Well as per the first ICT, first few days are full of planning so we had a lot of free time to ourselves. Some carried out their individual body maintenance (IBM), some read books (WWM, me and PC), some read and re-read and re-re-read the newspapers (practically everybody). One lonely soul was in S1 branch trying to get a chance to talk to CO and it was only when we went to E-mart that I bumped into him.

It was the glorious! It was the legendary! Or as quoted from LCP CK Chan "World's greatest" 笑饼!!!! LCP K Lim!!! He really was the 'star' of this ICT.

Cold, hungry, tired and to top it off, fuckin wet.

There was a live firing exercise conducted at Basic Main Range (BMR) and it would also serve as a showcase of Armour's firepower to the CDF (Chief of defence force) of Singapore and Malaysia. I won't go into details but it would suffice to say a PA system was needed and 2 sets of 29 inch television sets would have to be set up to show the CDFs some particular images.

We had set up the PA system the previous night as a mini-rehearsal of sorts so setting up the PA system on the actual day was quite a simple task. Next was the TV sets. After we had set them up, and everything was swee-swee, it started to rain as WWM predicted correctly. He quoted Murphy's Law by the way, basket...

Anyway what happened next was that the rest of the companies ran for cover while we ran towards the PA system and tried to get everything under shelter as fast as we could. Looking back, I can only say that the situation couldn't have possibly gotten any worse because I think it was raining damned heavily. We were soaked to the skin within minutes.. Big bloody F.. and it was only 9am. Cat 1 status till 0930 hours. Nabey Chao Turtle!

0930 hours, went to set up the PA system again in our wet and soggy underwear as well as SAF's latest "liquid cooled goretex boots". Morale at this point, was not even at ground zero because I had already declared morale has gone underground through quivering lips and chattering teeth to Willis and BSO.

Actually if you noticed, we didn't save the TV sets. That's right, we didn't. I was damned happy about it anyway because the TV would bloody spoil and it would be CO and BSO's own problem since CO arrowed the task to a super understrengthed and over-arrowed platoon and BSO gong-gong go and accept it. (Note: 9 men were taken by RSM to be sentries for the BMR live firing)
We later learnt that GX and BSO went to rescue the TV sets by placing them on a tonner. Problem was that the tonner's flaps were all opened because it was serving as the seats for the audience. Which meant that it might as well have been left in the rain.

Bang, boom, bang-bang-bang!
I witnessed my first armour live-firing that morning. With a huge boom and a small shockwave that followed, the AMX-13 tank engaged a target 800m away. My personal favourite was the 40/50, the BX engaged a target and fired 3 tracer rounds, vapourizing another target. I could only smile to myself as some cockanaden NSFs still gong gong wait for the tank to fire with their digicams. Why?

They didn't wear earplugs. Hur hur hur.. needless to say I think none of them managed to get a good shot because their hands were covering their ears..

Well, LCP K Lim got to go back to camp to get ANOTHER BLOODY 2 TVs for the VIPs but he didn't bring his earplugs. Well done.. Willis suggested putting ricola into his ears instead. Hahaha! Joke of the day man..
Anyway carrying those 4 TV sets was no joke and I ended up straining my back muscles quite badly. Bad enough to be unable to take a crap without grimacing.. chao turtle..

That was one of the main highlights of the week, the other one being IPPT.

No more SOC, no more IPPT, today is my book out day, doo da doo da dey..
We went to Khatib camp to take our IPPT test, which was ridiculously near Veggie's home. Hurhurhur.. the test is now fully computerised, with all of the stations using photogates to ensure that you do chin ups or sit ups properly. PTIs were also on hand to "no-count" people such as Steven Lim who did about 10 odd chin ups. I think all of them were no-count because his arms were not straightened. Cheers to our superhero..

Well, WWM told me to chiong the first 2 rounds of the 2.4km run so I tried to follow. Off we went and WWM ran at a very fast pace, I decided to try to follow suit and before I knew it, WWM tripped a guy and the guy fell onto the ground. Sibeh zer.. but WWM shouted sorry while increasing his speed.. wahaha! I also decided not to stop because if I e-brake, people will kick my ass and we'll all buang into one another into a huge ball and we'll roll out of the track..

Ok crappy jokes aside, I failed miserably at 13:10minutes. Bah... not even close to passing.. WTF! I was walking by round 4 and totally cui-ed by the time I finished. Conclusion: Chionging is dangerous and may not necessarily produce results. Chao turtle..

More about the next week's activities later...

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