During our boot camp days, the NCOs wield almost absolute power in determining how miserable our days and trainings will be like.  There were definitely feelings among us recruits that we wished to be on that side of the coin. So as I headed out towards the next phase in my 2.5 years journey, I was glad to leave my boot camp memories behind and glad that I have moved up a notch on the totem pole. Well, we were no longer addressed as “Recruit So and So” and we are now “Private”! I know, I know. you are wondering why was I excited about attaining the lowest rank in the army! If you had gone through boot camp, where you are the lowest of the low, where for the first time in your life, you do not have control over your life, walking on egg shell 24/7 trying to avoid making a mistake that can land you in the brig and losing all your privileges at the discretion of the “Drill Sergeant/NCO”.

SISL was part of Singapore Armed Forces Training Institutes aka SAFTI.  I don’t believe it exists anymore in its current form as of this writing in 2023.  As we reached our destination, we disembarked from our 3-Tonner truck, I found myself in a parking area in the middle of what looks like 2 ten story HDB residential building.  Well this is definitely not the SAFTI I envisioned.  As it turned out, “Juliet” Company is located in one of these buildings with the other being the “married quarter” and they are located next to SAFTI base separated by a public road. Married quarter is the term used to refer to on base housing for married professional military personnel.  Actually there was another company (“Kilo”) sharing the same 10 story building with Juliet company.

Having the barrack located outside of the SAFTI has its pro and con likely anything in life.  I felt that the pro outweighs the con.  The main pro was that being outside the base, we are not in the limelight and under the radar from the base commands. It was a 10 to 15 minutes walk from the main gate to our unit. Who in their right mind would want to make the trek from wherever they were on base just to do a surprise inspection on us!  Well the downside for us is our daily trek to base for training added additional hour or so to our already long days.  Our days started around 4 to 4:30 AM  versus 5 to 5:30 during boot camp and we did not get back to our barracks till 7 to 7:30 pm. T

Any thought that I had of the “privilege” that came with the rank of Private was immediately crushed as we fall in formation.  The first thing on the welcome speech was, “All NCO were to be addressed as “Sir” and not by their ranks like the how we addressed our NCO during boot camp.  The reasoning was that SISL being part of SAFTI was a School/Institute and therefore they were our mentors/teachers and we were the trainees. As trainees, the performance expectations and demands were higher and stricter. Life in SISL were much more rigid than during boot camp.  The “NCO/Trainers” had the no nonsense attitude towards us whereas during boot camp, as our training progresses, the NCO started loosening the reins.

While trainings during boot camp focused on the military basics such as proper handling of weapons and explosives, tactics, physical training etc. It is still Army 101 so to speak. School of Infantry Section Leader, as the name implied is focused at the squad (section) level tactics and leadership at the squad level.  Over the course of 5 1/2 months, we were taught how to lead a squad and operated at this level. Of course being a training school, we were tested and graded, which will be used for occupational assignments upon completion of the course.  As with boot camp, passing the “Obstacle Course” test is a must, we have to complete the course in under 7 minutes, starting with a short run (not sure how far, maybe 100m-200m) and going through obstacles (walls, balancing beam, rope climbing, etc) in full battle gear.

Life during my SISL days was pretty “meh”, nothing much to write home about. There were more lectures, which I struggled to stay awake, and field trainings. I had several weekend passes revoked for reasons the Trainers cooked up at the time. Luckily, my punishments were has manning the company office during the weekend and not having to perform guard duties on base, which would mean patrolling the perimeter or manning a watch tower at the ammo dump closed by which rumor had it was haunted.  Yes, throughout my 2 1/2 years, I have heard my share of haunted barracks, restrooms, etc.  I remembered on one of my weekend assignment, one of the NCO was on duty with me and he decided to go through the CO desk and found the tobacco pipe that the CO used and had a field day with it. Guess NCO are just like us Private!  It was during one of these weekends that I stumbled into our platoon commander office and on one of the wall there was a chart with all our trainees photo on it.  Upon closer look, I saw there were markings and symbol on our photos.  Looked like the NCO/Trainer will making their personal notes and feelings on us trainee. They were not the flattering kinds to be sure. One of my buddy photos were marked “Blur King”  aka  lost case. Another was marked “Topo King” aka someone navigationally challenged. It also provide an insight into how they were going to grade us.

Speaking on grading, as we progressed through training, words started spreading that our goal was to be a “B” grader.  Apparently there was no such thing as a “A” grader. To be a “B” grader, you really has to stand out, which is not my case.  My goal was to not fail the course. To be a “B” grader, you should not have a medical clearance to skip any training day. There were two classification for medical clearance, 1)  Attend B, 2) Attend C.   Attend B classification were for those with injuries or medical conditions that would not require them to be hospitalized. That is what Attend C were for.  I had a Attend B clearance after hurting my lower back from jumping training. I made a jump from 2 story high structure and might have tweak my back (the effect lasted into my 40’s). Just so happened that this occurred about a week before the start of our field training. On the day of our departure, I presented my Attend B paper to my platoon Sergeant and he asked, “Can you walk and carry a rifle?”, I replied yes.  Big mistake, he said, “joined your platoon with your gear”.  During the field training, Attend Bs from other platoon were not required to dig trenches or participate in any strenuous activity, while I had to and slept in it.  In a way, I think it worked out for me as Attend B classification affected one’s grade negatively.

My SISL days were a blur as I looked back into it. Probably because, it was a boring stretch. There were a couple of things that stand out till this day. One of them was, we had a new NCO that joined our platoon as Trainer.  He had just graduated from SISL a batch earlier and was green behind his ears from the way the other Trainers acted towards him.  One of his pet thing is to randomly checked to make sure our pockets are buttoned up otherwise he would revoked our weekend pass or in our days, we called it “Take 1”. “Take #” means you are awarded a negative point or more (#=1, 2 …) which translate to doing guard duties or manning the company office off hours or weekends.  The new NCO always had that smirk grin whenever he goes through the random inspection. This tended to happen after we gather in formation after a lunch break. Oh well, this made me want to have whatever power he was wielding over us.

Graduation day couldn’t have come sooner. But it finally came as we gather in the auditorium and we were award our Chevrons.  We spent that night eagerly sawing on the Chevron to our uniform sleeves. For the next couple of days after graduation, our posting were released and said our farewell to friends we bonded as we packed and looked forward to what life would be like next.  At this point, after about 9 months, I was beginning to get the hang of military life. There was actually a “Blanket Party” incident in our section the last night at SISL.  It happened to the guy that had constantly brought trouble to the platoon in terms of slacking, not performing up to standard during inspections, etc that brought punishments to the entire platoon or our section. Fortunately for him, he was just wrapped in blanket and gotten a few slaps. We didn’t have the heart or wanted to hurt him as the hate and frustration that had built up over the five months had dissipated by graduation day.

I was posted to the 2nd SIR reconnaissance Platoon and I have no idea what awaited me. All I know was that as a newly minted NCO, I should be experiencing the same privileges that those NCO received.  For one thing, my monthly stipend went for $90 to $240.  It was also the first time that I get paid in my life!

As I boarded the transport that will take me to the 2SIR battalion camp, I was still feeling a little elated with my new rank and moving up a much bigger notch on the totem pole or so I thought!