Sunday, October 22, 2006
I booked out at 7.30am with Kenneth, finally finished my CDO duty and went home to rest up and change. It's going to be a long weekend! Whoot! Today is Deepavali, then the sat & sun weekend, plus Tuesday's public holiday, which is Hari Raya Puasa. 4-days of leave! The week had been relatively bearable, but undoubtedly in the army you are bound to face some crap when the shit hits the fan from time to time and OCS is no exception.
Still I am not really in the mood to talk about OCS life, basically it's not easy, and probably some people are breezing through it, whilst others find it tough. I am still surviving, sometimes it can be fun, and sometimes it's just a serious mental strain upon us.
The training is not particularly physically strenuous, because almost everyone is fit, at least a IPPT silver or above, in OCS physical fitness is the minimum criteria and because of that, they only maintain your physical fitness, with a 5-km run every other day, power-runs, sbo-runs, SOCs and all that. But the real challenge in OCS is not physical fitness, but rather mental fitness, everyday is an challenge on your mental capability.
But one thing remains the same throughout my NS life so far, everywhere there'll always be someone who is super-enthusiastic, or "garang" as it is more affectionately known in NS. There will also always be a joker, an asshole (someone who just pisses others off with a stuck-up attitude but never gets into trouble), an loser (always late, always screwing things up, always getting into trouble and doing stupid things that makes you cringe). That guy is also the guy who is probably the "sabo-king" who gets everyone else into trouble because of something stupid or dumb that he did or said to the instructors. Then there is also someone weird, (anti-social outcast by the rest), there is "Mr-popular", who seems to be friends with everyone, there is "Mr-fit", probably the guy who can run 2.4km in 8 minutes and pull 20 pull-ups. In summary, in NS, you just meet all kinds of people, both positive and negative. That's just life.
The week hasn't been easy, we had our first exam, I barely passed by the skin of my teeth, and probably had a brush with trouble for the first time causing me to get "one-extra" as punishment, I got it very lightly, had I been in Alpha, I'll probably have signed 7-extra. But I am really glad to escape all that nonsense now that I am in the Air-Force.
Let me illiterate the punishment jargon in OCS for those who are not in-terms with NS-speak.
Previously as a recruit or private, a basic punishment for minor offences are push-ups, but in OCS, that doesn't apply anymore, "Signing-extra" is the basic form of punishment, which is basically doing more duties than assigned, which could range from anything of a CDO-duty, Guard-duty, (these are 12-hour duties), confinement, or fatigue work (area-cleaning). Depending on the Warrant-Officer or Sergeant-Major, the duties could be staggered or at one shot. E.g I sign 7-extra. Means I have to do extra duties for 7 days consecutively, that usually means one weekend is burnt.
The next more serious will be "RCP" or (Restriction of Cadet's Privileges), usually comes in 7, 14 and 21 days and with an Observation-Report (OR). This happens when you mis-fire a round, 7-days for a blank and 14-days for a life-round. In RCP, you'll have to report for RP (Regimental Parade), basically when everyone is eating their meals or resting, you have to report to the guard room with FBO (Full Battle Order) and march up and down the parade square as punishment. That is really terrible.
2 ORs and you will get a Cadet Record Of Warning (CROW). 2 CROWs will send you out of OCS. That means if you get RCP twice, you'll be eligible to get OOC (Officially Out of Course). Which brings me to the last and most serious offence which can get you charged or CM-ed "Getting-Charged" or Court-Martial. These are usually insubordination, AWOL (Away without official Leave), taking drugs, malingering, theft and more commonly cheating, or misconduct of ethics etc.
It's really easy to get into trouble in OCS. So far I've signed one-extra for a really stupid reason, and hopefully I can avoid such instances again in the near future. When the shit hits the fan, everyone gets it. I am thankful that I have gotten into Air-Wing, where at least you don't get into trouble for the tiniest of "humanity". If I had still be in Alpha, I'd probably be de-humanized by now. Seriously, I mean I can take the tough training, I can take the lack of sleep, I can take the unlimited runs or the strength training and the exams and the studying. But what I really really hate is the Stand-bys or inspections, I cringe everytime there's a stand-by field-pack or stand-by area and that usually takes hours, and you usually get into trouble no matter how clean you have cleaned your bunk or how perfect you have packed your field-pack.
Later at night I went to Vivocity...
8:36 PM
