Thru it All
listening to- winter sonata
it feels so long since i listened to any good piece of music. back after 2 weeks of confinement. we killed our first frog, endured 3 days of living off the land, a full scale exercise, pow treatment, n missions again.. a total of 8 days outfield. its been bittersweet finally passing out as a scout, n looking back, the past few days have been very meaningful. i leave with some memories i will always remember for the rest of my life.
killing a frog in my mind n actually doing it were 2 totally different things. it felt extremely cruel. i was totally grossed out! but still suck thumb n i forced my hand into dat bag of jumping frogs. to kill it, hold it by the groin n whack its forehead against the table. once u see the tongue stick out, its a dead man. after skinning it (it has very rubbery skin, by the way) remove the internal organs. while doing dat u can see the shit of the frog coming out from the anus, n occasionally the legs will start to spasm on their own. while doing dat i couldn’t bring myself to look at the head. breaking the spine n pulling the head off was abit of a struggle.... after dat we were told were supposed to wash the carcass n cook it over our own fires. it was to be our lunch. the soup n meat can be quite sweet actually, if u put out the thot of the once live frog out of ur mind. i added some carrots, so chicken pieces, n maggi curry seasoning to mask any frog smell in the food.
n i lost like 3kg during my combat survival training. its back to the stone age! u’ll haf to make ur own shelter from logs u chopped urself wif ur parang. wif banana leaves as ur roof. my team’s shelter was quite sturdy n kept us dry during the first night. u’ll also haf to start ur own fire wif twigs n dried leaves u’re supposed to collect. which r rare finds since it rained the day b4. its much more difficult than starting a bbq fire. among other amenities we haf to set up. the first night was the worst. we had mosquito n sand fly bites over all of us, we had no fire, we were hungry n tired. we were expected to survive for 3 days without food. compare it wif our last night, which was a real feast over a nice hot fire. never had i appreciated so much the value of independence.
pow training was one of the worst 12 hours in my army life to date. we were so shagged out n hungry after a further 3 days of back-to-back missions dat it was hard to stay awake. blindfolded, we were told to go into the various stress positions like high kneeling, n kneeling, half squatting, wif ur binded hands over ur head. one by one they called ur number n guards led u into the interrogation room. after awhile u lost track of time n u start wondering when will it all end. so many times, i wanted to give up. looking back, i wondered how i managed to endure. after it was all over, i told myself. if i was caught by enemies in a real war i’d rather shoot myself first.
after dat was another day, another mission before we finished the course.
these 8 days outfield have been one of those defining moments in my training. its onli in those veri jia lat moments dat u discover wad kind of person u realli r. n to b frank, i discovered for myself dat mentally, i’m not there at all. but then again, its all said n done. i’ve earned my jungle hat n here i am in the comfort of my home feeling clean, well-fed wif a roof over my head, truly relaxing without the fear dat in the next moment a new mission order will come in. maybe for now, i’ll go cycle over to the market for some nasi lemak. haf a good day guys, n a relaxing deepavali weekend.
alvin ong dozed and watched the sawdust trampled night @ 9:59 AM
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