Well, I'm back here again to continue recalling about my time in NS. I was really tempted to watch How I Met Your Mother before coming here, but I reminded myself that I shall not procrastinate this any further. So here I shall begin.

Remember I told you about the training system in SCS? After my 8 weeks of Foundation Term in SCS, my section mates and I got our postings for our next phase of training. Postings, I must say, is really one important part of any Singaporean Son's NS life, since it would ultimately determine what one would do for the rest of his NS life including reservist. Furthermore, it also determine what role one would play in doing his part for his country, whether one is a frontline soldier in terms of war or play a supporting role instead. That role is also termed as a vocation in the army. Every vocation has its unique job scope and expectations. Every vocation is a specialisation of its own and ultimately, the whole combination of various vocations would make an army.

Nearer to the end of Foundation Term, everyone were thinking about their postings and what vocation would we end up in eventually. We don't choose our postings, we are selected instead, similar to how the Sorting Hat in the Harry Potter Series chooses which House each student enrolled in Hogwarts goes to. Well, some vocation postings require special physical demands or cognitive abilities, thus interviews and tests were held. I got selected for an interview to become an Air Crew Specialist in the Air Force. The feeling of having an selection interview was awesome, because not everyone has a chance to do. Some people had 2-3 interviews, while the not so lucky ones had none. 

Honestly, I really didn't know what being an Air Crew Specialist meant. As the title speaks for itself, it probably meant that you belong the group that is in the airplane or helicopter but not controlling it. But what does it really mean? All that was answered when 2 Warrant Officers from the Air Force came down during the interview session. It's actually kind of a sacred job because one role of the Air Crew Specialist includes search and rescue mission during times of disaster. In a way, it was about saving lives which I felt was meaningful actually. I didn't want to be in vocation where I do work for the sake of doing it. I wanted a sense of purpose in it and I realised that being an Air Crew Specialist wasn't that bad though it would be tough. With that little hope in my eyes, it instantly dashed when I was informed that it required personnel to be able to swim well. I hadn't be able to swim properly since primary school (till this day I'm still struggling with it). So having not been able to swim meant that my chances of becoming an Air Crew Specialist was minimal. Plus, the selection was like 1 or 2 guys out of the 10 selected for the interview? After the interview back at company line, I didn't put much hope into that. I always desired to be able to be in the Air Force as a soldier but it looks like I don't have that luxury to be one.

Finally, the last day of Foundation Term came and our postings were announced. It was really an intense moment for all of us, feelings are likened to be release of National Exam Results. Well, I guess in everyone's heart, everyone hoped for any other posting except to be posted to Infantry. Being posted to Infantry meant that our lives would be a repeat of Foundation Term, and worse. Yes, Foundation Term was a very good learning experience but having to continue doing it for the rest of my NS life? Honestly no. I do agree that Infantry is a very good vocation to be in because of all the knowledge you have by being an infantier, but at that point of time I just so sick of it and I knew that I would continue to suffer more given the lack in depth of knowledge at that point of time. So the names came, one by one, for the first group of vocation. My name was not in the list during the first announcement. Finally, my Officer Commanding (OC) announced that the group was posted to infantry, meaning another 12 weeks of training in SCS. I wouldn't forget that moment when those who were not posted to infantry were rejoicing. It was a heavy load off my heart but after that it also meant another question: Which vocation would I be posted to?

At the end of the day, all vocation postings were read out. I wanted to go Artillery since it seemed cool to be in Artillery handling those enormous and complicated machinery. Termed as King of the Battlefield, Artillery seemed an interesting vocation when we went for exhibition by various vocations. Turns out, Artillery didn't had my name in the list so I had to relinquish that thought too. I was in the last group of which the vocation is yet to be announced. On top of my head at that point in time, I couldn't figure out what vocation is left and was really puzzled. Eventually, my OC announced "MP Command!" All of us were stunned and in the next moment we jumped in joy! I forgot that the vocation existed and didn't expect to be in the list since it was really rare to see MPs, especially MP Specialist around.

Having posted to MP Command meant a change of camp location. Rumours of MP was about regimentation and discipline, and it was when I first stepped into camp. The feeling of isolation, hostile and cold environment was intimidating, especially when the Specialist donned in No. 3 came to bring us to the auditorium. The perception of the place was filled with uncertainty given all this surrounding features. With that, my time in Military Police Training School (MPTS)starts.

My time in MPTS was a totally different experience from what I had so far. To sum up, I would say it was an eye-opener, comfortable and memorable experience. Again, I would explaining it as per the format in my last post to make everything more concise.

Eye-opener

Being in MPTS exposed me to a different side of the armed forces. Of all the training I've been through, much was about fighting tactics and fitness. It didn't occur to me that I would learn about the legislation structure that the armed forces have put in place, such as the legal constraints of soldiers, the authority they had, types of military offences and how punishments were carried out in the armed forces. Furthermore, the most interesting part was about the military offences that were related towards punishment of soldiers of lower ranks. What constituted to ill-treatment, what meant abuse of authority and it especially frustrating and yet interesting to know when we realised that our sergeants in BMT were actually only allowed to mete out punishments of 20 push-ups, instead of the 50 or 100 push-ups that we struggled to do back then. Because we were equipped with these knowledge, it also meant that training in MPTS was not as outrageous and unreasonable as it would be, given that everyone know the 'law'.

On top of that, training to be a MP also exposed to me towards more policing, such as search and arrest and close combat. It was a top-up of knowledge taught in BMT since those were done only in BMT and out of the training job scope during Foundation Term. Furthermore, after learning about the various job scope that a MP could do, I was really caught unexpected for that to exist.

I've also learnt about the real-time duties of MP in peacetime other than during war. That differentiated much from what I've been through so far (learning to fight in war) and I would say that characteristic of being a MP made me feel special and having that sense of purpose. Nevertheless, it also meant a level of risk involved when carrying out such duties.

Towards the end of the course, I was also exposed to the wartime operations of MP. Another deep learning point given my perspective of how a war is fought is widened, on a more marco-level rather than what I learnt during Foundation Term. Nevertheless, when my course mates and I were first exposed to that, it was just question marks on the screen and on everyone's face. We kinda of lost touch with much of wartime operations learnt during Foundation Term having not done any field training for like 10 weeks before learning it again. That meant that the learning during that period of time was a mad rush. Concepts taught in Foundation Term was totally different from what we've learnt during this period of time. It needed a lot of clarifications and clear understanding. Furthermore, we were section commanders-to-be. If we screw up big time during our summary exercise, it would be quite a huge blow to our course performance. I wouldn't forget the preparations that my course mates and I made on our own time during the weekends so that we wouldn't screw up much for our summary exercise.

Speaking about our summary exercise, it was really a peak of our Professional Term given that most of us held real appointments of Section Commander and Platoon Sergeants. All the planning were free-play according to what's taught, all done by us, instructions were given and we really had men under us to take charge of. As a form of training to be a Section Commander, I would say that it really helped a lot and I'm pretty glad for that!

Comfortable

Other than the technical run-through of the course, I would say the most interesting part of the course was the people I've met.

I was posted to Platoon 2 Section 1 during my course and my section was 14-men strong. I had 9 other section mates in my bunk and it was really an interesting time together with each of them and as a section with the rest in the other bunks.

A brief introduction in Bed order: Norman, See Ting, Joshua, Oliver(me), Saiful, Ami, Jun Jie (also known as JJ), Zhen Wei, Darren, Felix, Kiat Leong, Tony, Cedric and Yuanquan.

Having them as section mates were great because everyday something interesting or funny happens. I shall highlight a few of them here because there are just so many to list them out.

1. To start off, my section mate Ami liked the South Korean culture a lot and decided to call his bed or his territory as South Korea. Gradually, everyone else in the bunk decided to name himself after a country which is really stupid but I have no idea why we played along with it. We usually had like invasion which we termed as World War III, implying we would remove everything on the person's bed such as the boots, bedsheets and pillow cases or whatever that was available. It could be between 2 person in bunk or perhaps a group of us in the bunk. It was consistently a pile of mess. Boots was another highlight which I liked to next touch on whenever invasion took place.

2.As we were expected to have a high standard in our turnout and bearing, we spend a lot of time polishing our boots together in the morning after area cleaning. That meant our boots were really precious to us because had we got boots below par, it would look really bad on us during our standing parade, which the name speaks for itself to know about the details. We took pride in our boots really, which made me start to water-shine instead of brush-shine which I did since BMT till SCS. Polishing boots wasn't the main highlight but throwing each other's boots were. So during the invasion as stated in (1), I threw Ami's boots quite a few times, from the room all the way to the exit. I wouldn't forget ami's epic expression and scream whenever that happened. There was once I think JJ put powder into one of our boots making it a huge mess for the victim, but I just cannot remember who!

3. Singing random songs in bunk was what we did during the lunch break or nighttime. I remember once when Joshua brought his guitar in and we sang quite a few songs together. We even had a section song for our section commander, an accidental composition when Zhenwei, Darren, Saiful and I were in bunk. The consistent song supplies were from Norman's MP3 player connected to Joshua's X-Mini. That was quite a turning point for me to listen more English POP rather than Chinese POP. 

4. I also wouldn't forget the continual self-boosting remarks I have got from Norman, Saiful and Ami when they commented on my singing (yes I can't sing, badly), my made up lyrics when I didn't know the song lyrics and those moments when I made a fool out of myself.

5. Seeting's daily change-of-guards parade which I shall not elaborate. (Mature content)

6. Our attempt at Table-tennis which Ami calls it Mowbray Open. I sucked badly at table-tennis too and having more players meant that my ranking would go down further. I think I never won a match at all back then.

7. Monopoly Deal was quite a big hit back then during my course, which we then move on to childhood games like old maid and Norman's unique game called "Givenchy". (Confidential content here)

Honestly, the company I had during my course was so great, to the extent when some of us left for airforce and navy, we were quite low in spirits and needed to pick ourselves up and move on. I wouldn't forget the day when Joshua picked up his guitar and played Avril Lavigne's Keep Holding On. Those time in bunk when we just chit-chat and had nothing to do, plus the continuous nonsensical things we did during our free time, it was epic. Great times like that was really good and it made me didn't want to book out at times. Though my course had the least number of nights out throughout the history, staying in bunk with the company of my section was great and comfortable. It ain't the place, it's the people.

Memorable

All that summed up, I must say my 13 weeks in MPTS was really great, which made me feel a sense of belonging and pride to my vocation. There's quite a bit of the emphasis on discipline, which meant restrictions but it also taught me a lot about behaviour. Having known almost everyone, it was interesting to meet new characters along the way, be it in the good or bad way. I really felt special to be a MP when I went back to SCS for my combined arms term. We were a different breed of soldiers whose mindset and thinking were really different from people in other vocations. To uphold the law and do what's right, for many it isn't easy. Be it those boring moments, lazy moments, scolding sessions, mad rush and outfield, I must say that my time as a trainee during MPTS was really fun and memorable. Our course didn't turn out as bad as we seemed and I really felt that we were much better than what I know about previous courses and future courses. To conclude, I am really grateful for coming to MPTS as a trainee because it taught me so much and made me realise things which I won't find out for myself had I have been placed in another vocation instead.