i am back from brunei. the training over there were tough. this was kind of an experience to train in close terrain. especially the 9 days out field jungle confident course. in nine days 4 exercises were to be carry out. well can we just stand in the jungle for awhile then say i am confident already, and that it. okay jokes aside. hmm… seriously speaking, i really suffer alot during this course. i need to navigate and climb mountain with super heavy load, try to survive in the jungle with 48 hrs combat ration for 9 days. i think this really can be done. during navigation, we can really forget what was eating. we just keep on walking and searching for the check points and rushing for H hour and D day. the most painful thing in navigation was when you know where you are, but you could not find anyway towards the point we are heading. at the end we had to result in bashing, which was the worst matter of all in navigation. bashing will cause tiredness, cuts, falling down and etc.
exe one, exe NOMAD. the normal navigation exercise. well my this team really have the super team dynamic. we had two navigator, two pacer, two plotter and one precise plotter. well i play the role of that precise plotter. my job was to plot as accurate as GPS reading, by taking down mils at every 50m, then when come to a break, plot out the route. well at times i don’t really trust myself on the plot. i tried to confirm with the other two plotter, we just seem different in the plot. but when we reached the check point my plot was on the dot and their was about 100m to 200m away. well seem like this GPS plot was a successful method as this was our first time doing it. usually the normal plot just plot according to the general direction. this exercise we make a choice of returning to end point early. at the end we are 2hr early. there was still time to look for another check point. well what was done cannot be undone. just be it, it was still better than late then got only one point despite of how many we find.
exe two, exe EXPLORE. there were reshuffling of team members. as soon it was done we were deploy to our team start point. well this exercise, we really under estimate it. we all thought that it would be as easy as before. but we are very wrong. straight aways we went in to another part of jungle. it was so vegetated, we could not really see where are we heading, rich line were also unclear. well from the start we basically lost for awhile. till we orientate ourself back it was already dark fall. the next day we started, this was where we felt so clueless. we know where we are on the map but we just could not find a way towards our objective. as what you guess, yes we bashed. it was painful, but we got not much of a choice. just imagine for just 1km, we need to take like 4-5 hrs to finish it. how tough can it be. till a point, we through we were the last team already. we found light and got the path all the way the release point for river crossing. when we reached there, we heard alot of noise, it’s from the rest of the team looking for the release point. when we saw the instructors there we asked him: ” why are they the other side?? is the crossing point there??” he answered: ” what are u all toking about, i had been hearing all this noise ever since last nite. you all are the first to reached.” at that moment, we were all shock. so speechless don’t know what to say. from the last team becoming to the first leading team. we really push quite hard.we then asked the other teams, what had happen to them. then we discover that all the other teams went into the big stream/ small river floating down towards the release point. this was where they make a mistake. by the river they need to get wet and takes around 5hrs whereas for us we took the right path and that only took us about 40min. see the different. at this point most of the team already know that we all going to fail the course as 5 of the team did not meet H hour for the first and gotten only 1 point for that. if this exercise cannot make it, then confirm fail. even knowing we cannot make it to the H hour, my team still push on, all i can say is that the fighting spirits is there one. once we done river crossing, we tired to head up a mountain call biang. it is about 1000 feet/ appor 300m tall. at the start we missed the entrance to go up the mountain. having being walking for long time under hot sun, we decided to settle down to rest and started thinking of all the negative thoughts, thinking that we might not be able to get up, even if we get up we sure miss H hour. after a long rest we told ourself that even if we cannot make it, we also have to finish it with pride. finally we found our way and also led the rest of the other team up the biang. coming down biang on the other side, it was like never ending. the mountain was long too. finally we reached the foot on the other side. we all had missed both the H hour and D day. the face of our wing commander was sad. as from this point onwards only few people could pass the course.
next exe, exe FOREGER. after a combat swim, we were inserted to our survival site. we had to build A frame, fire place, traps, find food, make weapon, fork and spoon and many more. this part of the course was a individual task basic. well most of us did okay, given that they know they had failed but they still do it. we killed small bird and skin it. it was part of the assessment. the bird was so innocent and kawaii. i felt so bad to kill it. well people always say that this phase of the course people will move very slowly. i don’t believe it till then i relies that my movement was slow, seem like the was lack of energy to move. at times, there was period that i simply refuse to move, just sit still and stare blank. is that the act of energy saving ?? well i don’t know, it might be.
last exe, exe TRACKKER. basically this exercise was the test of endurance to navigate and move to camp. well all of us were very determine as it marks the end of everything. team reshuffle again. in my team there were people who can pass but not me. even if i got full mark for this exercise i will still be short of 1.5 marks to pass. but i don’t care anymore. i want thoses who can pass pass. we push each other for H hour. help to share the load of the bags by changing bag. seeing jim suffering taking his bag, i decided to take his bag for him till the end. at the end the almost the whole wing got full marks for this expect for one, as they drifted off.
from this oversea training, i know what kind of company i am mixing with. i am glad to say that almost none of them are selfish. all of us help each other through tough time. thats the spirits we have. but still it was a sad things that only 7 of them out of 59 got the badge. i miss by 1.5marks. errrrgg… if on the first exercise we went for one more check.. hais..
unforgettable memories and experience.
after that we break up, i headed to my uncle’s house as he got problem with his computer again. later on went to pasir ris to meet kennedy, ken suppose to come down. but he gave the excuse that he was tired. wah he really cannot lei !!! spent about an hour there at the coffee shop, and then went home.
