Monday, November 08, 2010 4:36 PM
:\
12.53am
oh well. (:
wallaby, the land of the freezing cold nights,
angry magpies, $5 microwave meals, sabina points,
kangaroos, wallabies, gum trees, sandflies,
camp growl canteens, kabanas, kebabs,
exploding heaters, racists and lotsa beef.
17/10/10 - 08/11/10
okay la firstly i must admit that
despite whining and complaining like crazy
i'm quite glad i went for this trip in the end.
mostly cause of the huge training area
(abt 4 times the size of sg in total),
which makes a lot of our training
relevant and not seem so lame afterall (:
accomodation there sucked though.
we were really housed in tentages,
sleeping on safari beds on sandy floor,
so when it rained,
the whole floor became an entire mess of mud.
yup we had over 50 tents in total la. D:
there wasn't any proper toilets either,
we had to shit in a shit hole,
then pour sawdust into the hole
to cover up the stench.
cui.
haha sometimes i think i'd rather stay outfield
than in camp cause i dunno.
camp conditions are almost the same as outfield
plus the scenery's a lot better outside (Y)
and you don't get arrowed to do random saigang (Y)(Y)
okay if a picture had to sum up the entire
shoalwater bay training area,
it would be this.
long sandy tracks,
going up and down small hills
winding along all the way
and lots and lots of sparse vegetation.
first week was component training the whole way.
company mission exercise (CME) was for us
to do all the planning for the coy lines.
then section/platoon ALFS we weren't involved,
so we got deployed as enemy for the scouts.
haha okay la quite slack for me la
since i was the enemy 2IC,
so not really supposed to actively catch scouts
just go around checking to make sure
no one got bitten by a snake or what la.
second week mainly just ex valiant conqueror (vc)
which was undoubtedly the highlight of the trip la.
more of a summex for us AISL guys
cause we've never really been through a bn exercise before,
so with this i guess it'd be easier to understand
what we've (or rather, they've) learnt so far.
we got off to a great start to a great exercise (:
s2's vehicle couldn't start on the first day.
so we waited for almost 6 hours
for the technicians to repair.
in the end couldn't repair,
so had to bring in another vehicle
and cross load all the stuff zzz.
nevertheless, life goes on sigh.
it would've been nice if we just
declared ourselves dead and went back to sleep,
but oh well sigh.
worse still, CO seemed to like dawn attacks,
which meant really little sleep throughout the exercise,
ranging for 10mins to 3 hours ):
planning/practice in the evening,
move through the morning,
attack at first light.
okay la must admit
that the feeling of standing in the vehicle
throughout the night while on the move
as a vc or mg gunner
for 8 hours (2am to 10am),
in temperatures of abt 14 degrees (excluding wind chill),
sand blowing through my hair,
hands almost numb with cold,
down that stupid hilly shogan axis, >: (
is really a once in a lifetime opportunity.
but once is enough la heh.
CO's vehicle!
and the view from s2's vehicle
hanging around behind CO's veh.
like some kind of dog like that.
oh and we got to try out the TES set thing
the laser game thingy haha.
which was quite useless also actually.
like there was once CO was giving a briefing
to all the OCs and PSOs and stuff
then suddenly we got attacked by 3 SOF enemies
who mistook us for brigade hq.
by right everyone should've been dead,
then maybe exercise cut haha.
but CO went to argue with the ABGTC ppl
the umpires and stuff
and in the end everyone got revived sigh.
aiyah didn't make much of a diff for me either way.
i didn't even put in the battery to start the system haha.
(:
yup then after ex vc was brigade life firing
which i thought would be the climax of the trip
but turned out to be a huge disappointment ):
the F16 dropped dummy bombs,
the arti bombardments were almost negligible,
and AI tanks firing was sth we've seen over and over again,
so pretty much the same old la.
only interesting part was the 2 apaches who came down
and fired .5" and hellfire missiles.
then everyone was like ooohh for 10 seconds hhaha
but that's abt it ):
ya it looks more interesting than it really is
so can guess how boring the whole thing was la zzz.
they officially allowed cameras for bde live firing
so naturally the whole thing became like a camwhore fest la.
esp for the ORDing personnel (:
40SAR specs (:
AISL 01/09 (:
AISL platoon 5 with our pc (now rsm)
P5S3! :D
haha then servicing and mantainence
and handing over of all the stuff back
for the last week or so.
time really drags by
when you have absolutely nothing to do la ):
boring like hell.
RnR was no better either.
rockhampton town was really
just a town.
buildings rarely above 2 storeys high.
if singapore's policy is to build high
theirs is to build as wide as possible la.
and its totally local-centric la
(if there's such a word haha)
the shops there are like all
grocery shops and stuff
coles woolworths and target.
which is like fairprice giant and isetan la.
totally nothing to do can.
our RnR landed on a weekend
and they said australians are v family orientated
so the shops closed at what
3pm-4pm like that.
and really the streets are totally deserted la.
boringggg.
everyone couldn't wait to get back home la.
after rockhampton, everything in sg is exciting pls.
with chongchen and jiehao
at some central queensland uni.
where we had our lunch haha.
meals there are quite good initially
cause rockhampton's the beef capital of australia
so there's tons and tons of beef.
but after a few meals
it really starts to get disgusting haha.
quantity yes, quality nooo ):
oh and the locals there are really quite racists.
shan't elaborate more,
but i'm glad to be back in sg
where the streets are safe. (:
but like ken yeow said,
no matter what kind of shit you're in,
one day it will come to an end.
we left rockhampton 07/11/10
and after another 7 hour flight
reached back singapore yay (:
its quite surreal really
to think back and realise that
in the short span of 12 hours
i changed from a SAF training troop in australia
to a normal sg citizen
who doesn't have to go back to camp
for full time service anymore.
not saying anything or what
but i'm quite glad my army life
turned out exactly the way it did haha.
okay i shall make a post-ns post
one day when i get the AISL pictures
from jinghui haha.
because cider is the elixir of life