Bad Experience in Ex SpitFire

As describe in the previous blog where I describe it as the finale of my SOCC course as it summarise what we have to learn and had to endure the 72KM walk to the end. But it end off in a very bad note.

24 Apr Monday
Guard Duty till next morning. A bit worried as I am recovering from flu.

Tuesday
Preparation of Ex-SpitFire. Weight of fieldpack-20KG. Did not quite get enough sleep especially with last night guard duty.

Wednesday
1am: Turn out by instructors for Ex-SpitFire. Change to my full battle order and dash to fall in at the parade square ready for the exercise.
5.45am: Start of Ex-Spitfire at Yishun as the start point.
7am: Reached the first checkpoint. The right side of my shoulder keep geeting numb.
8.30am: Movement to Checkpoint 2 @ Lower Piere Reservior. Reached at 9.20am.
10am: Movement to Checkpoint 3 @ Nee Soon Camp. What a long and boring walk.
11.30am: Reached CP3. Had lunch and the officer forced us to carry on under the hot day at 12pm. Started to show sign of heat exhaustion as i didn't sweat much. I was very worried. For the whole strech from Nee Soon Camp to Mandai Road, my uniform was dry, not a single sweat at all. My body was feeling hot but i used water to cool down. Continue to walk till we reached CP4.
7pm: Waited for the whole afternoon to do our task and leave the training shed by 7pm. By then, i had reported my heat exhaustion to my instructors but i managed to carry on.
12.30am (nx day): Reached Stagmont Camp, CP4. While resting, i was breathing very hard and feeling hot again. Reported to instructors but i feel i can carry on. But i was asked not to carry on. Premature end to my Ex-SpitFire.

I was feeling very down not having to complete my Ex-SpitFire as well as the 72km. What make me even worse is that I might be having Ex-SpitFire 2 with the specialist. What a waste. I blame it on myself for having flu and not able to recover fast enough. Now very very demoralise and sad.

3 more weeks to end of SOCC...with Ex-SpitFire 2...haiz

P.S. To my darling: I miss u dearly this few weeks...but nevertheless I wish u all the best in ur exams...hope to meet u out soon...

Out

Last Techincal Exercise...Counting down to CPC

This week see off the last exercise of the SOCC course. Ex MARS focus on Trunk Comms System(TCS) to setup communication with Division, Bridgade and Mobile Forces. Each Trunk Node consists of RID(Radio Interface Detachment), TTD(Tri-Terminal Detachment), TSD(Tri Switch Detachment). The most interesting part of this exercise is where we can setup a exchange like the Public Singtel Telephone exchange. We just dial a number and we can talk to any person in the connection. This system can also link mobile forces(carrying radio sets) to the actual telephone line as well.

Being the last technical exercise, the day where we will have our certificate presentation ceremony gets nearer and to end off with all the lessons and practical exercise, we will have a finale exercise name Ex Spitfire where we need to walk 72km each carrying a load of 20kg for 3 days 2 nights and we have checkpoints that we are supposed to do based on the lessons we had learned.

1 more mth to pass out from SIgnal Course

Cheers

Boring, Boring, Boring week

As the finale approach closer and closer each day, everybody was in an upbeat mood. This week I had mostly trunk comms system lessons that uses UHF sets for communication. I learnt the technical aspects as well as how to operate the GRC 103, 406 sets, to say it look quite antique to me. For most of the days, we stayed in an air-con room fighting zzzz-monster.

On Wednesday, we got our exams papers back. As expected, results was quite bad as forecast. Combat Comms Exam 1 was still alright as it was an open book exam with the whole cohort passing. But the second paper fared worst than the first. I myself also failed the paper. Now I was just hopping to pass after moderation of results.

Hey today is fri, wish everybody GOOD FRIDAY and today is also TGIF.

P.S. Good luck to my darling on her exams.

HF Exercise

This week I had mainly High Frequency (HF) exercise on the radio set. It start off with the smaller version of Ex Livewire called Ex-AHF. It focus on setting up Near Vertical Incidence Skywave (NVIS) antenna and using the different layer of the atmosphere to transmit radio waves.

It was followed by a 3 days 2 nights exercise on HF (Ex Livewire). My detachment was sent to the Tanjong Gul Camp at the Tuas area to set up 4 types of antenna. The first task was to find the frequency to time ratio of the various frequencies. For HF frequencies, different frequency behave differently in the day and night due to the usage of the atmosphere. In Singapore, the results were not that accurate due to its small area. But it was said that we can use HF to communicate with people in Taiwan that was like 2000km away from Singapore.

On our third day, we were to establish link to the Brunei Camp. The mission was half successful as they were able to receive our signals clearly but was unable to communicate back to us. It was quite a disappointment but nevertheless I learnt quite a bit during the last 3 days of the exercise.

Out

Ex Virgo – “Endurance thru Mental Strength”

Sun: Book in at 1800. Day just got worse as we don’t even have the weekend to enjoy. Start on the planning and creating various charts for the presentation of warning orders.

Mon to Wed: After presentation of the requirements, we headed off to Lim Chu Kang Training area for our 4 days 3 night map planning exercise. For the first mission, we were planning for the offensive mission and I was appointed a lineman, responsible for laying lines around the HQ, but since it was an attack mission, there was no need to lay lines. While they were executing the plan, I was in HQ doing nothing.

Second mission was also an attack mission. Planning start at wee hours at 2am on Tuesday. There was no rest for us to recover. I was appointed Regiment Sergeant Major (RSM) responsible for “Dirty work” like maintaining of generator, topping up water etc. I was totally not involved in the planning stage. I think I missed quite a lot in the planning stage.

Third mission was a defensive mission. This time I was appointed the S2 signaler. Planning starts at 12am on wed. Three quarters of my platoon just went concussed and slept all the way, while some managed to endure the planning stage. I volunteered to draw the blown up of the map and by 4am, I joined the group and just knocked out immediately. As soon as the day lights up, we executed the plan and start establishing the communication lines. Somehow we were motivated by the fact that we were going back 1 day early than planned. By 6pm, we were off back to camp.

Fri: Guard duty till today morning.

Happy APRIL FOOL DAY

Zzzzzzzzz…Cheers.