Operational Ready
Don’t Judge a book by the cover
You hear that phrase repeated every time and everywhere. Do you really believe that is true? I was 19 at this time leading a squad of boys the same age out in the field doing the tasks we were assigned. Though we were a “motorized” squad, most of the exercises were dismounted. This allowed us to have unintended interaction with the local civilians living in the area. One of my squad favorites activities whenever our path led us through fruits trees was to make sure we do not leave empty handed. Majority of the time the owners had no objections, some even offered fruits to us. Some squad leaders in my platoon were a little uptight, but in my case, there was nothing wrong with having a little “illegal” activities to keep up the morale. Of course “boys” being boys, loved to brag about their about their “illegal” activities to others. In the SAR, there is this saying “You can do anything as long as you don’t get caught”. I didn’t think much about all these, but apparently words must have spread to my newly minted platoon commander about things we did out in the field. It was months later after we were certified operational that I found out what he thought about me.
One day during our down time back in camp, one of the squad leaders in our platoon came and told me that the platoon commander had banned me from leaving camp on any non training related outings because I was “Too wild” in his words! Of course in an organization that pride itself on discipline and compliance, the consequence of having that label probably doesn’t stop there. It doesn’t help that the introverted me did not spend much time hanging around the company office area, bonding with the officers and CSM, unless I had a business need to be there. To me, staying under the radar was the best approach to staying out of the watchful eye of the company sergeant major who was always on the looked out for metering out punishment. He needed to fill his company’s guard duty squad quota. As luck would have it, my time under this platoon commander lasted a few month before a new platoon commander took over. The new PC was pretty cool and while the other PC was aloof and worried about himself, the new PC was down to earth type of guy. But I am sure, my “Wild Guy” label was probably part of my army record.
Yeah, so judging a person based on hearsay without knowing that person is a flaw ingrain into everyone, it is more pronounced in some people. It is not what you did to deserve it, but what others perceived you as,
based on a some bit of information without fully understanding the
whole picture. To be honest, I get that from my family too. I am forever branded as guilty just because I did something “bad” (it was always their way or the highway mentality) in their eyes. So that would be the reason they used to always judged me by. In the early years, I tried explaining, but after several attempts and seeing that their are not changing their minds, I decided to live for myself as long as I believe in myself and what I am doing.
Me being branded “Wild Guy” was also a reflection on the personality or character of my first PC. He came across as someone who was more concerned about himself than being a leader as he should be. I wasn’t given as chance to defend myself, it also didn’t help that those NCOs from our platoon that showed up there were regularly were more concerned with being on the good side of the CSM and our PC. Having a “Wild Guy” as enemy #1 helped them achieved that. There were two termed widely used in the army. “Sabo” and “Arrow”. Sabo, short or sabotage, is used to mean someone did something intentionally to cause negative result or consequences for the targeted person or group or by their self-preservation actions, brought negative consequences to others on his team. Arrow is usually used to direct attention to someone or group. This is usually used to mean drawing attention to that person or group in order to escape attention to yourself. So, by my absent from the platoon office, I was usually arrowed by these NCOs and ended up being assigned tasks no one want to do. Of course towards the end of our service, these NCOs were the one promoted. Not that I care since, I wasn’t making a career out of it.
My second PC, was the complete opposite. He told us to call him Winston when no senior officers are around. He would spend time among us, like one of the guys and always checked out his ego (if he had any) at the door. I actually blossomed under his leadership.
Life as an NCO in Operational Unit
While an NCO in a training battalion has more privilege and authority where the trainee look up to you. A NCO in an operational unit does not have that. You are like a punching bag between your men and the higher up. The men go to you for solving their problems and the higher ups gave you ridiculous tasks that you have to figure out how to achieve them. You get twice the punishment as your men would. Failure is not an option for the squad leader.
Since we “own” our jeeps and bikes, one of the NCO (CPL S) volunteered to be the VIC (Vehicle In-Charge) . His job was to coordinate all vehicle maintenance works required with the battalion vehicle maintenance company. In my opinion, the tough part of that job is to build a good relationship with the maintenance company commander and his staff. Outside of that, there’ was much tasks that is difficult at all, except for maybe having good acting skill! Why, I recalled through our time, I would constantly hear him talked loudly in the company office about what a tough day he had dealing our vehicles. I didn’t pay much attention to his antics those days, even though it did cross my mind a few times that he sure knows how to BS his way. Especially when the PC was around, he would talked about all the hoops he had to jumped through everyday managing our vehicles. One thing that bothered me about him, was that he would tried to weasel his way out of going out for any field training especially those trainings we deemed tough, boring, or requiring we spent nights out in the field. I am the opposite, I loved to go outside of camp. One particular trait that I saw about CPL S was he ability to squeezed so much words onto a 4×3 in piece of paper while taking notes.
There is another term in hokkien -” Kia Soo” meaning afraid to lose. This refer to someone who will do anything in order not to lose or more specifically not get in trouble, not in a competitive sort of way. Any soldier labeled that, were frown upon by the general population. They are viewed as someone who will by their self-preservation efforts will “sabo” others on their team. Those who constantly “sabo’ed” their team are called “Sabo King”. CPL S personality seems to lean the “Kia Soo” way. He spent his free time polishing his boots, ironing his uniform and doing things in front of officers that project his an image that he is “on the ball” aka “Kia Soo”. I don’t think CPL S was a true team player, just only when it benefited him. He did display a propensity to talk his way out of work assignment and get someone else to do the work.
The army is a place where people from all walks of life and background are trained to live and work together as a team. The same apply to our Scout platoon. There were 12 NCO in the platoon and we all came from different family, educational, and cultural and ethnic background. CPL G was the only person of Indian ethnicity. Most spoke Hokkien dialect beside English. A note on English spoken in the SAF and also in Singapore is what we called Singlish. It is English interspersed with other local languages (Malay, Tamil, Mandarin) and dialects (mostly Hokkien and Cantonese). A typical sentence will consist of English, Mandarin, Malay, Hokkien words. Since SAF uses Malay for their drill commands, Malay words were usually included.
Amazingly, the 12 of us meshed well together from the get go. In my opinion, CPL Lau was the glue and the team unofficial leader. He was a 2-3 years older than us and this age difference showed. CPL Lau is matured, calm under pressure and used sound reasoning to get his point across. Underneath that mature and serious face, was a guy with great sense of humor. CPL Hong was another guy who look to joke around, more vocal than CPL Lau. CPL Hong played the drum and you can also see him “drumming” with his fingers on any surfaced. You all heard about CPL Jonathan (aka African Woman), he and his quirky ways. On time I overheard him trying to discipline one of his men verbally, it was hilarious. I don’t think he was able to get his point across. Remember, we were around 19 years old and most of us were maybe a 1yr – 1.5yrs removed from the comfort and sheltered life we had for the past 18years. These were all new to us.
Yours truly was that introveted guy, didn’t talk much. But at the same time I was a prankster and had a dry sense of humor that offended some people. I didn’t know where the limit was and during our time together, one particular NCO took offense to my antics and resented me. But overall, we all got along fine and worked hard and played hard.
Life in the unit was not so bad in the sense that you are not constantly rushed through your day. Things are at a slower pace and we have more down time, as you can see in the above photos. The scout platoon was part of the battalion Support Company which consisted of the 106 Anti-Tank (we teased them as “Hit & Run” team) and the Demolition platoons. Our living quarters are located on the top floor of a 4 story building which house the Battalion Command offices, sandwiched between the Senior NCOs and Officers living quarters. So during our down time, I felt like we are walking on egg shells. Fortunately, the officers and Sr NCO did not try to harassed us or walked by our rooms. This was probably one of the main reason why I like being out in the field.
We had our filled of company and battalion parade days, where we had to put on firmly starched uniforms, polished marching boots, and belt webbings.
Besides those drill parade, we have our daily area cleanings tasks. There were also in base PT trainings conducted by PT (Physical Training) instructors. One of them happens to be my high school buddy. He was the one I mentioned earlier that we both wanted to go to the toughest unit. When I last saw him before joining the army, he was a scrawny bespectacled guy. Now he as a PTI, he showed some muscle. We also had Taekwondo trainings. I had always wanted to learn Taekwondo as a kid, but my parents were concerned that I would get into fight. So I was glad we have this in the army, it was just too bad, not much time was dedicated to this. The only thing I recalled from those trainings was that I constantly kicked my sparring partner accidentally.
Of course there were those cat and mouse games we played with the Company Sergeant Major. In one particular case, my squad designated driver and I were each driving a jeep from the company ground back to the garage and we did a rolling stop at a stop sign right in front of the Sr NCO club house without stopping. Of course our CSM was there with the Regiment Sergeant Major (RSM) – the top dog in the battalion. The Cat had caught his favorite mouse! We were called into the CSM office and given the options of either admitting to not stopping at a stop or go in front of the Company Commander and plead our case. My guy wanted to fight the charge, and the CSM was giving indirect hint that admitting to it he would go easy on us. I finally talked my guy out of fighting it and we were both given two weekend guard duties.
Though, I was the squad leader and de facto Vehicle Commander, I actually love to drive the jeep and would do so at every opportunity. There was one assignment that I was “arrowed” to do with another jeep driver was being assigned as jeep drivers for an Advanced Officer course field training. I believe it involved reconnaissance planning etc and needed a jeep for simulation. We reported to the field camp with our 2 jeeps and waited for instruction. There wasn’t much to do beside hanging around our jeeps. Later when the officers were done with their briefing, one of the LT came and spoke to me in “Hokkien” with instruction. Mind you, these officers are all educated and spoke fluent English. On this occasion, I am sure he thought, as a typical driver in the SAF, most did speak or under English due to our 6th grade level of education. I understood his instruction and played along. I drove him around the Marsiling training area going over hilly terrain where the jeep would be travelling at a 40 degree incline horizontally at some point. This was normal to me and I didn’t pay much attention. He was very quiet during this time and after the trip, he made a comment that surprised me. He told me that he thought the jeep would flipped over during the course of our drive!
A couple of months after we completed our SMI training, we were told that we will be attached to another battalion as an infantry platoon on their Exercise Buaya training in Brunei. Buaya is Malay for crocodile. It wasn’t something we look forward to. Who would want to spend 3 weeks in the rain forest of Brunei. So the preparation trainings were scheduled. Endurance training, Full Battle Order (FBO) force march, navigation exercises etc were on the plate. One of those involved NCO only training supervised by our Battalion commander (a major) and his S2 (Intelligence Officer). We were told only for through a forested path on a patrol. Since the Major and his S2 were following along, we were on high alert, making sure we don’t make any stupid mistake. The major brought his A game, even before we started down the path, he walked by the 8 of us and immediately raised his voice asking who is the one wearing a “Tiger Balm”! Right there we were given a lecture on why we should not have any scent on our body to avoid detection! He got my attention. I was assigned the point for this patrol and as we walk cautiously along the path lined densely with bushes and trees, i happened to look up in the distance and saw a pair of legs danging from high up on one of the tree branches in the distance. I immediately signal for the squad to take a covering position and indicated there is a possible “enemy”. The Major came up to me and asked what I needed to do next. Now there are no live or blank rounds in our rifles, still wet behind my ears, I didn’t have a response to him. So another lecture from him- I was suppose to signal back to the squad that I had spotted a sniper and to tell them to follow my tracers. As punishment, he made us all charged through the the 50 yards or so of thick bushes covered ground. Well lesson learned! We were supposed to take turn being the point, but after this everyone wanted me to run the point again.
As we proceeded again the path cautiously, not knowing what to expect, we came across an area with thick tree trunks. I heard a metal click and immediately signal everyone to drop to the ground. This time around we were much better, we threw an imaginary grenade around tree and made a charge towards the “ambush” area. I was point again for another and I believed caught on to another sound that prevented the squad from being ambushed. Overall, I think I spoiled the Major’s plan of seeing how we reacted during an ambush. My indecisions during this exercise may have been noted on my service record (maybe). If it was, I would not be surprised, cause as I grew older in life, I just tell myself, “It’s the story of my life! – you do the good deeds no one seems to notice, you messed up once and the whole world knows about it!”
We had a joint navigational exercises with teams from another battalion. It was a cross country navigation where we were drop drop at one end of Singapore and we have to find our way on foot through residential and back roads without being detected. For context, Singapore is an island republic that is about 30 miles at its longest and about 16-20 miles at it’s widest. This type of exercise always start at night and go on into the next morning without any sleep.
