FINAL WEEK IN TEKONG .

duty . honour . country . ninja

It's the final week in Tekong - feeling excited yet surreal. There is also a tinge of bittersweetness as we are going to be separated as we post out to different vocations and units for pre training. The past 4 weeks has been a long journey and everyday felt so long and tiring.

But I'm very very thankful for a great and amazing bunch of section mates who always help one another and I dare say we are the best section in the platoon when it comes to teamwork and being bonded. The people are nice and everyone is generally friendly and we really could hit off well with each other as though we were close friends from a long time ago.



What have I learnt for the past four weeks is too long to be summarised into a post but in general, I've learnt to become more independent, be more patient, more resilient, more responsible and more importantly more understanding to others.

Not all of us share rooms with other people at home but in our bunks we will need to live together with 13 others and to make our stay enjoyable together it's important to build the trust and understanding level first.

Misunderstandings will arise and it's always a learning experience and we move on from then on, taking a new perspective of viewing things. Sometimes we just want everyone to have a good intention but others might misinterpret it but it is all goodwill from the heart.

Apart from meeting new people and making new friends,  I I have also learnt many things during my time here in Tekong - things which we would usually never do when we were civilians. For Pes C, we have 3 main high key events - live firing, hand grenade and field camp.

Live firing was a long process as it took a whole day with day and night shoot but the feeling was good as we slowly got use to shooting; which the only terrible part was cleaning the rifle after that. Hand grenade was my favourite out of the three, like when else will you ever get a chance to throw a grenade and see it explode in front of your eyes. It was truly an once in a lifetime opportunity which passed by really quickly. Was somewhat nervous at first and worried that it would be hard to twist out the safety ring but thankfully for my sergeant which helped calm us down as he chitchat with us.

Field camp was the most tiring one, but it wouldn't be as tiring as those in combat fit companies. For us, we had 2 days of pre field camp and 2 days of field camp where we spent a night sleeping in the forest in the open. It was actually quite an experience but there were like yellow frogs croaking really loudly and hopping around which was kinda scary. On the first day of our field camp it also rained so our sleeping area was all muddy with puddles of water everywhere so it was terrible.

But nevertheless, glad that everything is over and I have learnt and experienced alot - the basics in becoming a soldier.

What's left is to hope and wait for a good vocation, good section mates for the remaining time spent in NS.