balance

(I am supposed to write and hand this in…how awesome)

Shell scrapes, leopard crawls and no bathing come straight to mind when field camp is mentioned. However, thanks to the over-the-top, expecting-the-unexpected imagination of mine, the actual experience turned out not to be as hellish as I thought it would be. It was great that way since the main aim of the field camp was not only to let us have a feel of what outfield was like, it was also to teach us the basic skills needed for a soldier to survive and fight out in the jungle and in urban areas.

My first day of field camp was one of the more draining days due to the long route march to our first camp site. I had no idea how but I think I barely made through the march with the much heavier field pack. Upon reaching, we had to build up our basha tents in neat alignment. I guess I haven’t really conditioned myself to the camo cream, ILBV, helmet and rifle being on me yet so I was suffering. The helmet gave me a splitting headache, the ILBV was trapping my body heat and the rifle was constantly getting in my way. We fired our first blanks during the urban ops trainings, much akin to the very familiar Counter-strike we have been playing! The unique experience was in the night when the darkness half-blinded us and our whole platoon, stripped to our underwear had our first powder bath open in the jungle. It was very…aboriginal-like I would say. Somehow, the powder bath made me feel clean.

Thankfully, as days passed the camo, helmet and ILBV weren’t much of a problem anymore. We had a turn-out at 3.30am on out second night, the night when I did my guard duty as a prowler. I was totally out of sorts after being awoken by loud firings and people shouting ‘Arty arty!!’ Bright lights were blasted in front of our faces and the whole camp area was filled with smoke. We had to tear down the basha and fall in with everything on within 10 minutes, I couldn’t remember. The worse part was when we had to do push ups and high kneel with our field packs on! That’s like almost an extra 20kg on me. After everything, we treaded in the dark, our first tactical night movement, to our next camp site.

We had one horrible day of digging our shell scrape. I never knew it would be that tiring and demoralizing just by digging a hole! The hardest part wasn’t the striking of the tool but the bending and the pulling of the soil. I seriously need to improve since I took around 6 hours to complete digging the hole to the correct shape and structure when the standard timing was 45mins. There were even moments, that with the extra push I would have given up. But then, I had to carry on knowing that my buddies were all going through the same thing as well. I guess I would be dead if I were in a real war. If an enemy were to approach I wouldn’t have the energy to fight back after the wasting my energy digging. That’s the first night we slept in our shell scrapes and the night we had our almost-first encounter with a wild boar. We, a bunch of modern, urbanized boys, just froze when we heard snorting and rummaging sounds constantly circling our area, some of us even cuddled together! We were night-blinded and could only see the faint silhouette moving around.  Luckily for us, the wild boar went away soon after.

On the second last day, our commanders simulated a mini mission for us. We were under enemy fire and had to cross the danger zone. I have done leopard crawling on grass before and it was pretty easy. But leopard crawling on a ground with hard small rocks followed by wet mud was an entirely different experience. Somehow due to the intense pain on the elbows, I got tired really quickly. Having reached the end point, we had to do casualty evacuations as well. Thankfully, everyone helped out just to make sure we could finish the mission quickly.

Throughout the 6 days, there were many sides shown from the platoon, some heartwarming yet some disappointing. Some people started to get selfish when only had their own personal well-being in mind while others made the extra effort to overcome their own body exhaustion, moving that extra step to help others in need or even to simply volunteer when assistance was required. I myself tried to make an effort whenever possible as there were a few inspiring ones which motivated and made me realize that even just by sacrificing a little, others could gain so much more.

Cuts, bruises, blisters and heat rashes were something everyone had to endure throughout the 6 days of outfield due to the many hours of walking, proning and high kneeling on different kinds of terrain, sometimes even on rocks! Exhaustion also crippled my body due to the lack of sleep from late night sentry duties and even early morning turnout, not to mention uncomfortable sleeping positions and needing to hug my rifle to sleep. I didn’t bathe for 6 days straight and slept in the same muddy clothes worn during trainings. But who said living in the jungle would be hygienic. Being dirty is part of being outfield and I have lived through one outfield, with many more to come.