More Trainings - School of Driver Training
What does driver training has to do with a Recce Scouts?
This was one training that I did not see coming, but was glad I had the opportunity to attend. The few weeks back at Camp Temasek playing “cat and mouse” games with the Regiment Sergeant Major and his Staff Sergeants, I had considered it a honeymoon phase. Why? Because, we actually had nothing to do, there was no room inspections, area cleanings assignments, and no guard duties. We just needed to avoid those “cats” from the other camp. We had nightly passes to get out of camp. Compared to that, School of Driver Training seemed like a 7 weeks long bachelor party.
A typical recce scout platoon at that consisted of 5 squads. One of which specializes in demolition. has 8 men consisting of 1 section commander, 1 2IC, 1 driver, 1 machine gunner, 4 bikers. It had 1 machine gun mounted jeep and 2 dirt bikes. As it turned out, even though one member of the scout section (squad) is the designated driver, as a section commander, we are also required to master the art of driving. The 2IC is required to know how to operate the dirt bike. The bikers are paired two to a bike. The demolition squad did not ride in a jeep and bike configuration. They utilized a Land Rover utility vehicle like those used by the British Army back in the 70’s. It’s been a long time and memory was a little fuzzy. But I think the Land Rover driver and bike training were separate from our jeep training.
Here’s my squad with a bike from another squad “photo bombing”. If you recalled my “buddy” Jonathan aka African woman from boot camp, he is the one riding in the back seat of the bike. This was taken during our SMI field exercises in the Marsiling training area. The Jeep is left hand drive, while vehicles in Singapore are right hand drive.
There were about 20 to 30 trainees from different army units attending. There was even a sergeant with a red beret attending!. For those not in the know, a red beret in Singapore Armed Forces signify that the wearer is a member of the elite Commando Unit. Not sure why he needed it. Everyone seems relax and no “pulling of rank” among us, even the driving instructors were chill as long as you don’t mess up big time during driving training.
The course covered street driving where we had to adhered to regulations all civilian drivers had to followed by. At the end of the course we will have to take a road test just like you would at your local DMV (if you are in the USA). More than half of our driving during my 2.5 year stints were on regular street. Singapore is a tiny island consisting of urban jungle. We had to drive through rush hour traffic just like the civilian population. Most of us at this stage do not even have a Singapore civilian driving license. I failed my first test during high school.
There is of course the off road driving, which took us to SAF regular training ground in the northern part of the island. If there was a country side in the urban jungle of Singapore, this place known as Marsiling is it. It consisted of 2-3 small hills interspersed with homes and red dirt roads. This is the place where most NS men during our time spend most of our time in. The hills are named 265, 210, etc by their height. It was fun driving through these terrains in 4X4 jeep. This was a 7 weeks course and in my opinion, felt like being on vacation. For 7 weeks, all we did was master the art of driving a jeep in all conditions. There were also night driving, where our convoy of jeeps would driving through the “country side” in the dark without headlights on. It was interesting experience, using whatever light from the night sky to navigate our way. This was before night vision technology.
There was one training where we had to drive up a man-made dirt 45 degree incline. This incline is about the wide of a one lane road, and its about 3 -4 story high at the top. Half way up the incline, we had to stop, pull up the hand brake and turn off the engine. Now we had to jump start the engine, by putting it in gear with foot on the clutch and letting the jeep roll down the slope and releasing the clutch at the right moment to get the engine started. It was nerve wrecking in a way, turning you head back looking down the slope and making sure the steering is straight and we don’t roll off the side of the incline.
Our standard daily routine. Get up by 7am, had breakfast, assembled by the vehicle pool, hop on our assigned jeep and head out. Late afternoon, car wash time, everybody participated in washing the jeeps and looked forward to another night out! We don’t even touched a rifles the whole 7 weeks. I remember there was a guy who came back with a new tattoo. Everyone would have fun at each other expenses. There was one guy who was about 5 feet tall or less and we would joke that he needed to seat on a phone book in order to see the road and his feet couldn’t reached the pedal. I recalled he had a hard time passing the course due to this. My platoon mate (the one below in red T-Shirt) had a weird driving posture. He would peer through the steering wheel when driving.
The takeaway from this training was I was able passed my civilian driving test and got my driving license! Note, driving test in Singapore during that time was not easy. We only had manual transmission and they test you on 3-point turn on narrow street. You are also required to stop on a slope, pull up the handbrake, shift to 1st gear and using clutch control, release the hand brake without the vehicle rolling down hill or stalling the engine. Glad I had lots of practices during my time in 2.5 years of NS life. This driver’s training course gave me so much confidence handling a vehicle in various conditions that when I entered civilian life,I was not fazed by most road conditions.
Well, I did had one mistake that not too long after driver school. I was driving the jeep on a narrow road that was barely wide enough for 1.5 car when a civilian vehicle was coming from opposite direction. We were stuck staring at each other for a moment as we tried to wiggle both vehicles past each other. I overlook the fact the my jeep had a metal bracket for Jerry can attached to each side of the jeep making it wider. Needless to say, with my inexpensive, that metal bracket scraped against that civilian vehicle. Long story short, we had to meet owner and his buddies later that evening to settle the issue with cash of course! Lesson learned well in my case.
