My Dec ICT - A Quick Review

To be honest, it didn't turn out as good as I expected.

I was once again reminded of one of the reasons why I hate army. They are super rigid and will never compromise. Other than that, there is always the mantra of: "In army, you rush to wait, and wait to rush". And trust me, that is very sickening. Army is a super inefficient organisation. But that's what you get when your staff are people who would rather be anywhere else than there. In short, nobody gives a damn.


Here's a quick run-down of my 5 days in camp:


On Monday, everyone in there was like quite lost and did not know where to go. There was a gatekeeper we had to get through in order to do our in-processing (in-pro), where we register ourselves. The gatekeeper is also known as the Sergeant-Major. He was literally standing there in front of the line like a bouncer. He would then check you haircut that it matched the "SAF standard". If yes, you can book in, if not, too bad you got to head to the dreaded barber at the side. It's $4 for a quick cut, but trust me you wouldn't want to do it.

I've cut my hair about 3 days before, but it still look rather long by their standards. In fact, that guy took a very long look at me and ask the other old man there: "so how?". Then he said: "ok lah, got slope". LOL, I damn heng. My friend behind me with shorter but more 'pong'/volumized hair, kena caught. Which, I still feel quite sorry for him coz his is definitely not as long as mine. My 2 officer friends also got caught, and had to go to the barber. Long queue sia. The whole in-pro took so damn long.



On Tuesday, we had to wake up a little earlier to do some UNSCHEDULED battalion PT (physical training). I guess I should have expected the unexpected. The rest of the morning was taken up by SAR21 weapon training. I'm already trained in it, so it's basically a refresher course. The OC (officer-in-command) of our company said that since there is nothing much in the evening, we could book out for the night and just come back to sleep. Sadly, the CO (commanding-officer) who is bigger rank, override it. So.... Maximum disappointment for all of us.



On Wednesday, we had an IPPT test which was tiring. Too long never exercise, fitness all gone down the drain. The afternoon was Signals training, to refresh knowledge on radio communications. This is where I feel Army can improve. We are practically using WW2 type models of radio and communications systems. They are so super heavy and complicated to operate. All just for simple voice communication. Me thinks, they should just lay LAN cables in line laying, and use good encryption to secure the network. So much better, and more information can be communicated faster. But hey, it's Army and it's inefficient. Heck, we don't even get walkie talkies til 2014 or smth like that. We finally did get our nights out in the evening. I think we booked out at 6.30pm and had to be back there at 10pm. Not very long, but better than nothing. Went to West Coast Plaza for the first time. Don't even go there. There is nothing at all! So boring. Ate Sushi Tei with my friends, and tapau Bubble Tea back.



On Thursday was the out-field day. I haven't been out field for damn long, and I'm still as sick of it as before. Little know fact, I am a little bit of a clean freak. I don't even lye on my bed before bathing first. When out field, cleanliness is nonexistent, everything is dirty. The floor is muddy, and you have no place to wash you hands and stuff. Add on the fact that you have to wear the sweaty long sleeve uniform with helmet and everything, it feels damn "kau-wei". My morale is always at minimum when I'm outfield. The exercise was a success though. Our line comms worked perfectly. I guess CS2105 helped out a little? Not really. Another idiotic issue happened when we got back. The storemen there are bastards. The close the store strictly at 5pm, so that they can book out. And they also refuse to accept the things we return them. We returned them exactly the amount we loaned, but they say not enough. It is also in exactly the same condition, but they say we should have checked that it was working in the first place. So it's our fault... -_-" In the end, we didn't manage to finish everything despite trying to sort out all the shit the whole evening. The cables were just too tangled and not functional. Army seriously needs to find better ways to do things.


On Friday was IPPT retest, as we clearly couldn't clear it the first time after such a long time of not exercising. It was out-pro/book-out day, and morale was high. However it was not to last. After lunch, we had to go back and sort out the shit cables again. In the end still can't finish. We had to call all the high ranking officers to talk to the warrant officer to talk to the idiotic storeman-sergeant. The only compromise they came up with was not really a compromise. Basically, they set it aside with a label, and we have to come back and do it again in July.


Finally, there was the CO talk before book-out. And we were the last company to book out (by IPPT results). That's another thing I hate about army. It's all about your fitness level. There is no avenue for people with intelligence to shine, it's all about the muscle. Not that it matters. Army is so huge that an individual persons efforts are so insignificant. Dumb muscle.

I also don't really like the CO. While you could say that I'm a somewhat racist person, it's usually all in good fun. Not in this case however. Commanders of ummmm... THAT particular race, are the hardest to work with. I think their types are not use to wielding power, since most of them never succeed in anything. So when they get the chance, they are quite show-offy about it. At the same time, I think they are also afraid to lose the power, so they everything law-by-law and treat their subordinates harshly. He is also not very good at raising the soldeirs' morale. He clearly states his expectations and expects them to be met, rather than encourage people.

Haiz, the future is bleak. According to CO, we will be a conventional "chiong-suah" unit. That means more out-field and tough days ahead. He even had to tell us off and say we shouldn't have believed that we were a POI (protection-of-installations) unit. The only consolation, is that I have a good bunch of friends there. There are no assholes in the platoon, we are all highly educated civilized folks. I can't say the same for the rest of the battalion. Bad news is quite a number of people in the platoon are differing the next ICT for internship, so I got no one to share the pain with, and there is a risk that they might be posted out and never come back again. :(


I guess it wasn't really a "quick" review. I tried to squeeze a whole week into one post. Hopefully it was at lest somewhat insightful, to let you see what I went through in Army. Now, time to enjoy some songs!



Rina has a cute smile





"In Augest 10 years from now, I'll meet you again."