No More SOC!!!

Hello, I have just booked out from Tekong again... I have one more book out before the weekend burns.

I'm really happy, because this week was quite a good week for me, although it has been a very tiring one. I cruised through my Basic Navigation tests with much ease, and I simply loved the practical tests. They took place on the highest hill in Tekong, just next to SISPEC. The weather that day was quite good. I had thought that it was going to be very hot on the hill, but we encountered windy conditions that afternoon, and there were plenty of trees to shelter us from the sun. The tests were about finding your own location on the map, finding other unknown locations using a variety of methods they had taught us. To me, playing around with a compass, map and protractor was child's play.

One very memorable experience for me was the night navigation in closed terrain exercise. We were given checkpoints and were asked to find our way in the dark, without torches. We were only allowed to black tape the red colour filter so that only a 1cm square will emit light from our L-Torch. This is because of tactical reasons, so that enemies will not be able to spot you easily when you use the torch to look at your compass and stuff. Navigation in closed terrain (dense forrest with canopy) at night is really very hard. Not only you can't really see what's in front of you, you don't have much idea which direction you are drifting to when you walk from checkpoint to chekcpoint. This lesson really teaches us to trust our compass and your own instincts. I do have some experience of navigating in a forrest when I was a scout during my secondary school days, but never in the dark. It will simply be too hazardous.

Another event of the week was the final SOC test. It was actually only this morning, and I can still feel abit of aching in my shoulders. Many people actually fear the SOC than IPPT, but to me, its the other way round. I find clearing the obstacles quite fun. After I clear an obstacle, I feel a small sense of satisfaction, I myself don't know why. This sense of satisfaction will keep me pushing through the course with much ease. The only tiring part is the 600m of running to the finish line after I clear all the 11 obstacles. I guess my stamina is really bad, and for that I actually fear the 2.4km run than the SOC. This morning, I pushed myself to my absolute limits, like a car engine pushing the redline. I cleared the SOC at 08:47, which I really think was a good timing for myself. I never thought I could break the 9 minute barrier.

I booked out with a satisfied smile, looking forward to all the good food I'm going to stuff myself with when I get back to mainland. That's all for now, hopefully my next week in SISPEC will be good and don't get into any trouble which will land myself in the sunday guard duty list. Damn! It feels good to be back to civilisation, away from the jungles.