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Sunday, March 21, 2004
[3 bloody mofos...]
Every able-bodied male citizen in Singapore is required to undergo National Service. Most of them go through their 2 to 2 and a half years of service without any major incident.
The operative word here is..."most".
I never thought in my wildest dreams that I'd be activated for an actual operation. When we talk about an actual operation, we're talking about live rounds, real enemies, and more importantly, they've got live rounds too.
So on Thursday, my day off, my sergeant sent me a message.
"Book in now. No duff."
Before that, I've already learnt that 3 armed robbers has fled from Malaysia and landed on Pulau Tekong (of all places). And that my unit's Charlie company, on 2NTM standby, has been activated to Pulau Tekong. My company's on 4NTM standby, and upon receiving the message, I went back to camp, not sure what to expect.
When I reached camp, I was told that we've been upgraded (gee...thanks!) to 2NTM, now that the original 2NTM force has been activated. And on Friday I was doing guard duty at the vehicle shed where rumour has it that we might be going down to take over from Charlie company. And on Friday evening, the rumour became a reality. The non-combat fit personnel took over our duties, and we went back to prepare to move out on Saturday morning, 8am. On a side note, one of the robbers was captured that evening as well.
No sooner said when the whole company was told to fall in at 10:30pm. There, we were told that the situation has changed. We will be leaving camp on Saturday morning, 2am, to take over Charlie on Pulau Tekong. No one saw that coming. I don't think anyone got much sleep from 11pm to 1:15am.
Going back to Tekong brought back waves of memories. I spent 16 weeks there as a recruit, and now I was going back. Except this time, it's with an M16 and live rounds will be issued. It felt surreal. The ferry terminal, the Infantry HQ, the route taken by the tonner to SISPEC. It all felt so familar.
To cut the long story short, my company was deployed along a road so that the robbers could not cross into another part of Tekong. We took over from Charlie at 7:30am Saturday morning, and it was a constant struggle to keep from falling asleep. It was just so freakin' boring! The one and only high point of the day was when a chopper fell down real close to us and all the dead leaves flew up.
By 7pm, the remaining 2 robbers were captured. By then, I was so tired (only had 2 hours of sleep the night before) that I can't remember much of anything. We took the tonner ride back to the ferry terminal, passing by my BMT company, parade square and lots of other landmarks forever lodged in my memory, and made our way back to mainland Singapore.
I won't lie. I've never liked NS. Who really does? 2 and a half years of the best years of your life, doing something you're not interested in. But how many people can say that during their time in service, that they've been activated for real ops?
^^^ by Locksley @ 1:04 AM.
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