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About our BMT
After surrendering our pink IC and going through the long awaited and boring routine Oath-taking Ceremony, we were asked to attend a dinner reception at a 1 star restaurant called the “cookhouse" before saying our final goodbyes to our concerned parents. Since we were recruits, our heads were thus shaven to look like dried coconuts. This was a rather depressing experience and we felt like criminals.
Most of us would certainly treasure the
fond memories, the friendships
that we built &
hardships we faced going though our 7 weeks of BMT. We were all glad that it
was finally over.
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The
first few weeks into our BMT seemed to be an eternity
as we had to discipline ourselves in order to adapt to the regimental
lifestyle and community living which was part and parcel of military life.
Within the first two weeks into BMT, most of us were plagued by various illnesses
such as cough, flu and fever probably due to the extreme weather in the
island. This
contributed to the recruits not being at a 100% and often reporting sick at
the Tekong medical centre which was always like a fish market by 10am. Our
motivation to serve the country was also without doubt constantly at a low,
and we often felt like depressed prisoners in Alcatraz. Frustration by
recruits due to routine training and errant instructors were also the catalyst
behind many internal arguments and fights which broke out among the recruits
especially during training sessions. What kept us going through this period
was the promise of freedom every Saturday. 
Most
of us resented the various training sessions preparing us for field camp,
rifle range and route marches. This was due
to various poorly planned and routine safety procedures set by SAF when
conducting a simple training session. The poor recruits often had to wait
for hours with their full body equipment before a bloody simple training
would commence! This often caused us recruits to be very fatigue and
restless by then. It came to
the point when majority of us would rather take the back seat and
report sick or "sound out" our medical problems to avoid going through
certain tedious trainings which we felt were insignificant. Furthermore, the shocking incident of an NSF man who died due to 
After this period, the weeks
seemed to pass a little faster as we steadily progressed through the
different phases in our military training. We were fortunate that our
sergeants were generally nice people even though they were at times
extremely rigid and would occasionally go berserk, especially when the platoon showed
signs of being sloppy during marches and various training exercises. Being verbally abused with profanities and some extra
exercises were as much at we got. We were also required to do fatigue
work or "Sai Kang" as it’s more commonly known during the course of our
training. This often came during our free time and it was rather
frustrating. Keeping our living areas clean and being ready for the infamous "stand by area" was also a
normality during BMT. Everyone had a part to play in maintaining the
cleanliness of the bunks, toilets and common areas.
Before we knew it, we had
successfully sailed through our 7 weeks of basic military training and were
eager to leave the forsaken island for good. This was the only time our
spirits were truly lifted and we really felt "Sky high". Much of the
military stuff we learnt would be irrelevant. Come to think of it, we were
merely "going through the motion". Afterall, our modified BMT was
not meant to imbue in us any military knowledge or tactics. The main aim was
to build in us a sense of cohesion among our platoon and to improve our
overall discipline as suggested by our platoon commander in his final goodbye
speech to us. 