Sunday, November 12, 2006 Y
I know it has been quite some time since my last post. But have no choice, due to the weekend confinement and all that. Anyway finally finished my field camp and only 3 weeks plus to POP! Field camp was really the worst part of BMT I can assure you. At the end of 7 days, I came out feeling like shit, completely mentally and physically exhausted, and with all kinds of bites all over my body. Day 1-3We basically march to our field camp site, which was 8 km away. After reaching the 6km mark, I was like dying due to the heavy weight of the field pack and SBO. I could swear that darn bag weight almost as heavy as us. Many times after the 6km point I felt like giving up. But I managed to hang on all the way till the end. But upon reaching the campsite we were given no rest at all. Immediately was asked to pitch our tents. I was already feeling physically shagged and was trying my best to put up the tent when got it almost done. Than OC was not happy and ask us to keep everything and make our tents again. My morale dropped all the way, but in the end everyone got their tent up. By than it was lunch time, and I was so famished I did not care what the combat ration was. Just tore of the top of the packet and ate everything inside the green pack. Much of the day pass with us having field lesson and practially our contact drills with the enemy. Sleeping in the first campsite was not enjoyable at all. The ground was completely littered with many tiny stones and sleeping on that kind of ground only makes you wake up with an aching back. I could not even toss and turn since every turn was too just too painful. Finally on the 3rd day we were tunnel lifted to our next camp site at the reclaimed land. There we practice more contack drills and had more field lessons. We slept there cowboy style, just laying our ground sheet on the ground and sleeping like that. Worst part of the field camp was basically rain and last light. When my uniform became soaked the feeling was really very uncomfortable. And guess what, our first night of sleeping cowboy style was met with heavy rainfall. At first I wanted to ignore the rain and continue sleeping since I was dead tired from not getting enough rest from the previous campsite. But the rain became heavier and in the end I took out my goretex jacket and sleep in it. At least the ground here is nice and soft and is many times better than the last camp site. And on the 5th day morning, we were met with Artillary fire. We were turned out and pack up all our stuff and move off to another site. Here we were told to take up defense and hold our ground. So we begain our shell scrape digging. Basically it is a hole in the ground whereby when you lie in it, no one will be able to see anything except of your helmet. After completing my shell scrape I was physically tired but we still had to complete a fire trench as a section. Which was a hole that will give you cover all the way to your chest level. I must admit I did not help out much since I was just too tired. And once it reach last light, I could not see anything in the darkness and I contributed even lesser due to low morale. So I would like to say sorry to my section to my low contribution. At night we were to sleep in our shell scrape. After laying out the ground sheet, it felt as though we were sleeping in the coffin. And my shell scrape location was right at the edge of our defence site. Behind me were all trees and the nearest person to me was someone 3m away. I kept hearing things as I lay there to sleep and jump at every sound I heard behind me. But somehow I managed to drift off to sleep. The next day we had to split into groups of 3 and move out to search and kill any enemy we contacted. The whole route was 1.6km long and we avoided enemy vehicles while elliminating enemies we encounter along the way. The worst part of thing was not knowing when we were going to be attack but it was quite fun as well. Finally on the 7th day morning, we move off from our defence site and into the heart of the enemy. Had our BIC. Leopard crawling through the sand avoiding barb wires while machine guns with live rounds being fire above our heads. And exposive going off besides us. It was rather run and felt so happy to have finally completed it. That was the grand finale of our field camp and those 7 days were seriously the worst I had in my entire life. I had many mosquito bites. Feeling completely dirty and my back hurt like hell from the heat rash due to not being able to bath outfield. Really glad that is over and done with. Next week will be going outfield for another 3 days and we wont be going out into any more forest for the rest of BMT. During these 7 days I really miss a lot of things like clean clothes, bathing, good food and most of all my friends back on the mainland. Anyway gotta report back to camp tonight so I got to go now. Hope anyone will take care and I will see you guys next weekend again =D
left his footprints
4:51 PM
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