Book Out!!!

Haha I didn't really have time to blog last week after booking out, so here goes a two week special... It's been two weeks since I entered SISPEC and so many things have happened to me since I became a private soldier...

SISPEC is the premier School of Infantry Specialists in the SAF. But in my reality (and many others' too), it also stands for Suffer In Silence Plus Extra and Confinement. Life is so much different than in BMT, you are very much on your own, other than your brothers in arms around you. In BMT, my commanders are very much caring, they really take care of you and make sure you make it through. But in SISPEC, my instructors are mostly regulars, and they don't really care that much, because they have to cover their own ass on the job. Push-ups, running around the compound are really passed off as very simple and easy punishments. What really gives you a kick in the groin are extra duties and the worse of all, confinement.

Its pretty simple, when you sign an extra, you will have to do guard duty on SUNDAY. You will still book out like the rest, on saturday afternoon BUT book back in the SAME NIGHT!!! So its like you book out for a few hours and book back in. Confinements will kill you if extra duties don't. You do not get to book out at all, so you will stay in camp for two weeks in a row. The next week, when you book out, you book out as a caveman. All these punishments will really make a cock-up personnel into a thinking soldier. I mean, nobody wants to be a permanent resident on Tekong right?

Just a couple of days ago, something really scary happened to me. My staff sergeant (we all address staff sergeants as "Staff") had problems looking for one more person to fill the sunday guard duty list. As he looks around, he picks a few guys, but they got excused because they had birthdays close by. Then suddenly as I was doing some packing up of my stuff in my bunk, this guy in my platoon suddenly comes up to me and told me I was chosen for the guard duty this sunday. Time paused for a moment... WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?! I immediately changed back to admin attire so that I could go down stairs to the platoon office, because I need to speak with my staff. After I knocked and asked permission to enter, I found out that there was nobody in there. So I asked one of my instructors, and he told me that he actually went home, as he took two days leave. Some people from my platoon actually told me that he was fed-up with trying to get somebody for the empty slot, and he wants to go home early... That was on thursday night. By the way, my birthday is on saturday, the 1st of October. I soon learned that staff had picked me because he saw that my photo was not on the platoon profile chart (fucking lame excuse). I forgot to bring it in that week. My morale dropped and broke like an egg falling from the top of westin stamford hotel. When you get near the end of the week, your morale becomes high as you look forward to book out day.

For the next day, I managed to get my staff's handphone number, but he just wouldn't pick up or reply to my messages... he really is on leave. I really needed to tell him that my birthday is on saturday so that he could replace me with another sucker. How could something like this happen to me? I was desperate for solutions... brain-storming with all the idle time when waiting for training to commence. In the SAF, we always rush to wait, and wait to rush. Its just plain fucking stupid. What retarded nonsense about the "sense of urgency"? Instructors always fuck us up for taking our own sweet time, but we are always waiting when we get there. The only sense of urgency I know is when shit is already gushing out of my ass and I can't find a toilet.

I was so desperate that I was thinking about paying somebody to replace me on the guard duty list. But then again, I think the full weekend out is just priceless, nobody would sacrifice it for money. Finally only today morning, I know that I can't depend on staff anymore, so I approached one of my platoon instructors for help. He is kind-of a hokkien peng, but he is really a nice guy. I think everybody likes him, we haven't really seen him get pissed off and punish us yet. I explained my situation to him, and he told me that he would settle it for me by book out time. I was so happy and relieved, I thought that he couldn't do anything about it but I was wrong. Under his section, one guy has signed an extra, and so he got him to replace me.

Now I know at least I know who to turn to, when I have troubles. I should have turned to my own section instructor, but he is kind of difficult to approach... Maybe I will get to know him better in the tough times to come. Two weeks gone, eight more to go before I pass out from SISPEC as a corporal. I am sure there will be much more things to write about in the weeks to come, hopefully not bad things...

For now, I live my life one book out at a time. Without a girlfriend, I'm going to make good use of my NSF pay and buy myself some nice things. Bye for now, tell you more next week.