| by comrade commissar | Thomas | @ Friday, January 21, 2005, 11:28:00 PM | permalink |
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She & I were sitting side by side in a cinema theatre-like room. She abruptly got up & walked out a exit. I followed after her. The next thing I knew was - We were in a supermarket & were apparently shopping, pushing a heavy trolley of groceries in front of us. Then I stopped in my tracks, along that supermarket aisle & realised. I was in a dream. I was neither at a cinema not at the mart. I was fast asleep in the lecture theatre during a particularly boring talk. First incident of self-awareness in an unconscious state: Day 3, 10th Jan 2005, on Pulau Tekong.
I woke up. --- My name is my name. It proclaims to the world my status as a unique individual. In the army, I am simply tagged as P1303. (P = my company Pegasus, 1 = my platoon number, 3 = my section [room] number, 03 refers to my bed number) Every other recruit among the 4000+ that are present on Tekong at anytime can be identified in a similar efficient & sterile manner, with a letter in front & 4 digits behind. My ID tag (more commonly known as "dog tags" because, well, putting them on makes you look like one) has my NRIC number, blood type, & religion on it. A dog tag consists of 2 pieces of metal. Should I die as a soldier, 1 is to be put in my mouth for identification, the other rushed back to HQ for the sake of records. I visualise a scenario - My imaginary corpse lying deep in the darkest parts of the brutal jungle in the midst of terrible combat. In a matter of days I will be little more than decay & bone. After months, the "T T TAN" on my uniform yields to weathering & decomposition. Anyone who comes across the same spot by chance after that would not know how my personality was like, what my views & beliefs were, what I liked to eat, or do for leisure. I would be no more that a piece of grimy metal, & a heap of nutrients for the tropical verdancy. --- "Water parades", where everyone are required to down between 1 to ½ litres of water in order to prevent heat injuries & dehydration, are conducted on a constant basis. Before each water parade, the platoon (1 platoon = 50+/- people) will be required to bellow the SAF Core Values. I hope that these values are not in any particular order or arranged according to priority & importance, because I noticed that "Ethics" & "Care for Soldiers" are the last 2. --- The word "fuck" no longer has any sexual meaning in my mental dictionary. It means being in deep trouble. It means frustration, anger, a blind outburst at an invisible nemesis. It is a word that can be used among/in conjunction with a myriad of other colourful phrases that often make references to relatives, various parts of the anatomy, & body fluids. My PE teacher in my former school (MI) said that he used to use vulgarities copiously until he got into the army. I think I finally know the reasons for that change. --- On Wednesday, 19th Jan, 1600h+, my platoon were getting ready to march to our next activity for the day. All of a sudden, 1 of the officers shouted "1304!, 1404! ... Fall out!" 4 guys were called out. The officer who summoned them then paused to talk to his nearby colleague. I managed to make out the words "... not enough ... need 1 more ... this ... lah ... OK." Then, a loud "1303! FALL OUT NOW!" I was worried that I had committed some crime for which punishment was now going to be dealt out. Turns out that the officers did not have enough people sentenced to guard duty. Guess who got "volunteered"? Guard duty for that day lasted from 6pm till 6am the next day. My own role, specifically, was to do 2 patrol shifts, 1 at 8-10pm, 1 at 2-4am, with another guy. Each shift requires 2 rounds of walks around the entire Basic Military Training Centre (BMTC), which totals up to around 4km a shift. Between the shifts, we are allowed to rest in a room, or sleep on the beds available if we want. The mattresses were old, moldy things, & the filthy stale sweat stench of a thousand guard duty personnel who have slept on them before us filled the room. Fresh new clean bedsheets & pillow covers were provided. We were tired. Well, WTF. We covered the mattresses & pillows with the sheets & slept on those same beds anyways. --- Patrols around BMTC, other than causing sleep deprivation, fatigue & blisters, does offer some positive opportunities. We get to enjoy the cool night breeze (sort of), & take a stroll along a path that stretches along the coastal part of the island facing the Singapore mainland. From here, it looks like indistinguishable mix of trees & buildings, sprinkled liberally here & there with dashes of lamps & street lights. One building stands out - we can see the Changi Airport tower. Its function & shape makes us me & my patrol buddy call it our very own Statue of Liberty. And from Libby's direction, Freedom flies over our heads every 10-15 minutes, Boeings & Airbuses so low that we can probably hit them with M16s. Their jet engines in a jeered, "I'm on my way to New York/Beijing/Paris/London! How about you?" --- I'm not sure whether Tekong is hell, & hence the outside world civilised heaven. On one hand, our superiors can be the most unreasonable, savage of individuals. Shout "Ya ya, papaya!" 50 times aloud if you blurted out "Ya" rather than "Yes or No, Sir (or Sergeant)". Push up positions at the parade ground at high noon, hands sizzling like meat on the frying-pan-hot ground. Being verbally abused at random. But 1 night, I saw an officer gently pat a stray dog (there are quite afew on Tekong), & gave it some food. When we do marches, packs of these dogs follow us, in a sort of "master & follower" sort of manner. They don't fear us, people who are here to learn how to kill. Over in Singapore people, supposedly civil beings are abandoning living creatures onto the harsh streets on an everyday basis. When I walked about the town area today, I confronted the overwhelming mass of human traffic & noise. On Tekong, there's peace , even with the daily marching out, the double-up, & the falling in. |
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