Gratitude

Amazing Love
How can it be!
That You my King would die for me

Amazing Love
I know its true
And its my joy to honour You

In all I do
I honour You

My Army Triptych

1.Sarge

All the fuck yous and chee bais
In the world
Couldn’t save you, Sarge.
What luscious melodies your mouth strums.

What sentiments!
You have no need for those.
No, no more. You’re a god, mighty.
But you recall, don’t you.

When you came through the bush
Hunched low to avoid those thorns
Mottled green camo
Trying to be one with nature
Those leaves whispering at night
Here
There
Everywhere

Crunch crunch crunch
Bang bang bang
Like boys with toys
Play-acting at defence.

Y’know, Sarge
Rain in the bush
Doesn’t sound
So much different from
Rain on parade
180 drops per minute
Range of 2 kilometers
5mm caliber
All incoming
Staccato thunder

So Sarge
Lets play-act defence
Harassment and Interdiction
Harassing my sleep
Interdicting my leave

I turn off the lights
And pray for Saturday.

2.Injury

Right in the middle
Of FHM’s fleshy fruits
And hunched over skeletons
I remember

You came rolling in with
The company
Rolling rumbles of left-right-left
And crump-crump-crump

With the Burden of defending
The nation
Resting on your shoulders
(The Burden consists of a no. 4 uniform, an entrenching tool, and a pair of shoes, mess tins, toiletries, and extra underwear)

We are the bold, we
Traverse great continents
Fighting under the crescent and 5-stared banner,
The blue halo and scarlet lightning
Of the crimson thunderbolt throne.

Glory to the Golden Lion!

How the Malaysians feared us!
We the warriors
The dream-spirit of war
Blood-eyed, relentless, reckless

Carrying us into the canopy’s shadow
The foliage consumes us
As we consume it,
Route marching

Into the gleaming emerald palm,
Caught in the jungle’s thorned fist

Route marching.

And roll on
And on.

And so
They tell me I’ve
Beta-planetheritis

In this white room
With white people
And hunched-over skeletons
And FHM’s fleshy fruits,
In Tekong’s medical center.



3.Rush

In deep,
Spaced-out breaths
You register
Fire Control Order
Piecemeal.

In the jungle’s maw
Delicately engulfing you
Bit by bit
SECTION
Drawls the sect. Commander

You get behind cover
And aim your weapon ahead
Oiled, slick, seduction.
So fascinating
That hard black gun-metal.

You feel like stroking it
Awesome, lethal, life-taking power
Encased in such a smooth body
Like your billion horsepowered engine
In a sleek, obsidian-chromed Mercedes.

STRAIGHT AHEAD
Rasps the sect. Commander








You fire

There’s the flash, golden.
On, then

Off.

And it bucks
The jerk and
Follow-through
And you savour
The cordite
That cordite that slowly
Nibbles your face away

FIFTY
Rumbles the sect. Commander
You watch the cartridge
Spin lazily away into the dirt
Twirling twin trails of smoke.
Metal rim of the percussion cap
Winking, teasing, mocking
“Look! I’m free! I’m freeee….”

ENEMY
ENEMY BEHIND TREE
The sky grinds to a halt,
The trees watch, waiting
With bated breath,
As do you

RAPID-
FIRE!!

All that Glitters

she turned to me and said in a whisper:

"Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire her?"

"Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham."

She drew an arm round my neck, and drew my head close down to hers as she sat in the chair. "Love her, love her, love her! How does she use you?"

Before I could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a question at all), she repeated, "Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces- and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper- love her, love her, love her!"

Never had I seen such passionate eagerness as was joined to her utterance of these words. I could feel the muscles of the thin arm round my neck, swell with the vehemence that possessed her.

"Hear me, Pip! I adopted her to be loved. I bred her and educated her, to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. Love her!"

She said the word often enough, and there could be no doubt that she meant to say it; but if the often repeated word had been hate instead of love- despair- revenge- dire death- it could not have sounded more from her lips like a curse.

"I'll tell you," said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, "what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter- as I did!"

- from Great Expectations, Charles Dickens.

I think this is Dickens at his sublime best. Beautiful and exquisite. Nothing like love exposed for the lie that it is. And hey, I'm not being bitter or anything, thats what it really is all about! Dickens is brilliant.

In Transit

YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!! MANCHESTER UNITED BEAT CHELSEA!! NOW ARSENAL HAS A FIGHTING CHANCE!!!

I'd never thought I'd say this, but WELL DONE FERGIE AND MAN UTD...

Not to mention the fact that Arsenal's unbeaten record is still intact- defended by the very buggers who broke it at that very same place a year ago- the Theatre of Dreams. Beautiful irony! Sorry, Jose, but we at Highbury are the ONLY TRUE INVINCIBLES.

In any case, heres a compressed recollection of the end of course... and the subsequent transition to a combat unit...

On returning from Taiwan we didnt do much except a floatation exercise (something like amphibious operations wherein the vehicle chugged its way through a reservior and we spent the day being very soggy) and Urban Warfare training- and both were dead fun especially the latter.

What with Staff Steven leading the way with his super-drama demonstrations, the whole bunch of us had a great time doing Counterstrike in real life. Ok i AM exaggerating but you get the picture. Storming a mock-up HDB estate with covering fire from a GPMG mounted on the neighbouring block (CHHRRRAT CHRAARAT CHRRRATTT), throwing smoke grenades and thunderflashes in all directions (BAM BAM BAM!!!) and double tapping the trigger (POW-POW!!) past every door we busted through- that was pretty much enough to get the adrenalin going.

And then before we could even think about it, POP was upon us. First the Triple-Striped Chevrons, then the interminable rehearsals, and then that proud moment of glory where all the Might of Armour was on display for the public to watch in awe (or at least thats how we were made to think it looked like).

And so I became an Armour Specialist. Nothing to be proud of, actually, I graduated purely due to God's grace and not my own efforts.

Then came a week of leave- beautiful freedom. My catch-up with Nair was one of the many productive periods of time spent during that week.

Much to my disappointment though, I ended up in the 42nd Singapore Armoured Regiment instead of the much-coveted desk jobs in HQ Armour or SAB HQ.

First came the OETI course. OETI stands for Ordnance Engineering Training Institute (a fancy name for an advanced vehicle mechanics course), but many interpreted it to mean Only Eat Talk Idle. That was indeed the case- with compulsory canteen breaks and endless waiting time that was promptly put to good use sleeping or reading Forbes inside the vehicles or on the benches.

The course instructor, a kindly old uncle-type man named Mr Mong, also made life interesting with his very "unique(read morbid)" sense of humour. Famous Mongisms included "watch out for the sparks that may fly into your eyes and fry them- otherwise you won't get to enjoy your Xbox no matter how many games there are out there in the market!". My friend once asked if he was married; he said something like "it was the biggest mistake of my life... you young men should cut it off and save yourselves so much trouble in the future".
Mr Morbid Mong proved himself to really be that archetypical mad scientist sort of guy who's passionately obsessed with his work and loves fiddling endlessly with gadgets and coming up with creative ways to maim people. And he plays Doom and Quake too. I'm glad that we were under him; he made an otherwise dry course on engine oil filters and hydro-pneumatic suspension units quite interesting.

However, the assholes at 42 SAR made us stay in camp for the nights of the course and my CSM said that we couldnt clear our entitled leave this year because there wasnt enough time in between the upcoming Marksmanship Course and the December intake of the Recruits. Psychotic scheduling if you ask me. Leave is what every conscript lives for! Ah bullocks...

All this was offset somewhat by the discovery of a Specialists' Mess and a company recreation room- both nicely furnished with air-conditioning, televisions, carom boards and internet-equipped computers (ok, they only had the internet and no games at all, but there's no point in being greedy is there?). There was even a game console that enabled us to play Resident Evil and get ourselves slaughtered by zombies and zombie dogs over and over again. This made for a much valued time of relaxation in the evenings where everyone could unwind after a lengthy day's labour- not that the days in OETI were even remotely labourious to begin with, but you get the picture.

My first experience of PT in 42 SAR comprised of a 4 klick (not "click", as the non-military types are wont to spell) run followed by 120 pushups, 120 crunches, 80 squats and 80 butterfly kicks. Quite reminiscent of the torture back in School of Armour. Didnt really leave a good impression on me, frankly. Oh well.

So now its the eye of the storm, the calm before the calamity.

That of True Value

If I had a say in anything, I'd take the stand that time is about the most precious thing in existence.

Time that is one's own to spend, of course.

Imagine! If one had sufficient time on one's hand, one could do any conceiveable (or inconceiveable, for that matter) in the universe. One could achieve the impossible: earn a zillion bucks, conquer a trillion worlds, write a billion books, or be at a million parties, and still have the time for much more beside!

But for me, my week of free time was (sadly) insufficient for all these and had to be spent on more mundane activities.

Dont get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful for the time given to me to do such things. In fact, this week inspired me to appreciate the freedom that time-even a little time- gave me.

So this was mostly a week to my own- a week away from the harsh rigidity of military life. Started with cell dinner in town, then a movie called Domino (dumb show, that) and a stroll with Nair through CityLink, talking about the whole complexity of South East Asian civilisations, the way they assimilated Hinduism , Buddhism, Islam, and Imperialization in so short a span of time. The way history and art (re Asians writing in English like VS Naipul and the like) were unseperable, and how it all blended together to produce the melange of culture and politics and society that we have.

Come to think about it, South East Asian history is more dynamic than I thought. I suppose its history would be relatively inconsequential, especially when compared to the Earth-shaking epic events in the western world, from the Crusades to the Renaissance to the French Revolutions to the American War of Independence and KleinDeutschland, and the 20th century and its Triple Entente and World Wars and Cold War paroxysms. Now those were the real driving forces of history.

But I guess South East Asian history, whilst lacking in relative importance, is no less dynamic and full of surprises.

And for that matter of historical significance, I guess event that would change as the gravity of the world-politcally and economically- shifts east.

There will be a day when events like the Confrontation would have more weight upon the present world than the good old French Rev, because that present day's main happenings would be in Asia and not elsewhere. As the main gravity of current events shifts from region A to region B, so too would the importance of region A's history diminish in concordance and accordance with the rise in stature of region B's recorded past. That which changes the present inter-regional (ie global) situation also changes the different statuses accorded to each region's past.

Forgive the excessive academia, but this is the resulting backlash of an intellect brutally suppressed by that brutal system of conscription. And to this day I hold not the slightest loyalty to that state which I have sworn to defend. Because all those pledges of fealty and loyalty and obediance and patriotism to it have not once come from my free will, but under the foreign force and compulsion of the state, and its ruling familee. Patriotic feelings? The only emotions I have on National Day are uttermost contempt and simmering resentment. To balls with housing programmes and efficient ports and recycled water. What is humanity when it is not free of compulsion? Beasts of labour, thats what.

But enough. More rants will come in due time. In any case the situation for the Arsenal in the EPL is most deplorable. Most deplorable indeed! When Wenger sold Viera I think he sold his good sense as well. If anything, Henry is Highbury's messiah. And as to the Stamford Bridge Scum:

"When you give success to stupid people (ie Jose Mourinho and Roman Abramovich), it makes them more stupid sometimes and not more intelligent"

Now Wenger was spot on in saying that one!

I'd rather Arsenal have gone out of the Champs league at the group stage and be leading the EPL by 17 points, instead of the reverse situation that is reality. Nuts. They cant win the Champs league- all they beat in the group stage were rank amateurs! Ok maybe not Ajax, but my point stands.

Oh well- here's to Manchester Un-Tied this Sunday. I really hope they trash Chelsea.

POP LOH!!!!

Yes, thanks to God and all who prayed to Him on my behalf, I am now a Sergeant.

Quite a miracle actually.

And its not as if I deserved it, it was more of a delivery from 5 months of purgatory.

The best part is that my old non-conformist mindset remains intact, witness the creation of my own Army Specialists' Creed, as follows (I've asterisked the nation's name to create a measure of plausible deniability):

My Specialists' Creed

I

Am a Specialist of the S******** Army

With Pride I Lead

I excel in my specialist field

I ensure the discipline of my soldiers

and the readiness of their equipment

I overcome adversity
with my Fighting Spirit

I will defend S*******
WITH MY LIFE.....


YEAH RIGHT


MY BIG FAT ASS I WILL!!

In the presence of mine enemies

I look into your eyes but there's nothing to see
Nothing but my own mistakes staring back at me

But the real enemies are within me... Fear and hatred and black anger.
I sound too much like a schizo when I think about it. I don't recall memories, instead, they force themselves on me; and ever so often my mind's eye bends itself to replaying certain scenes through my skull, distorted and repetitive.

Recently I'm suffering of what borders on hallucination. Everywhere I turn in a crowd I seem to see that face appearing on some random person. That face which has haunted me for so long. This unconsious obsession is extremely disturbing. I cannot banish such images; somehow my will is sapped whenever I try to avert my thoughts and my gaze.

Haunted, I guess. Not driven insane.

Yet.

The ROC Exercise Starlight Trooper: Stranger in a Strange Land

Not exactly life changing nor defining, but definitely disturbing, on a subtle almost subconsious level.

3 weeks away with the Singa Armoured Legion in Taiwan has no real parallel in metaphors and analogies, except its a world gone mad with extreme situations.

The nearest thing I can think of is the situation Arsenal is in. When they win, they win extreme, not through goals by the regular strikers or wingers but with some central defender scoring eg Cygan against Fulham and Campbell against Everton (on his EPL season debut and stand-in captaincy too!- that guy is Mr Incredible). When they lose they lose like the biggest flops in EPL history. Who the F loses to Boro and Chelski twice in a row?

Anyway the bunks in Taiwan are something like those out of some Singapore history book. There were 50 of us cramped into one room like a bunch of opium and rat infested coolies living in a Geylang shophouse, having just survived a grueling journey from Fujian and on the verge of a term of despondency.

I'm prone to exaggeration most of the time, but this is quite simply what I've been through. We slept on sponge mattresses that were right next to each other, so the whole course (minus the instructors) was sleeping together on two giant double decker beds. The latrines weren't so bad except fot the fact that you couldnt throw used toilet paper into the toilet bowls cos they'd cause the pipes to jam up, resulting in shit soup in the porcelain bowl.
But there was hot water for the showers occasionally, which led to some form of morale recovery.

The weather was extreme. I'd thought that Singapore was hell on Earth, but Taiwan seems to be bent on claiming that metereological title. 34 degrees Celsius in the day and 20 by dusk. Amazing stuff.

The training was not bad, probably because we'd gotten used to being outfield. In fact it was fun in a bizzare macho sort of way, charging around and firing blanks. We got to see our Taiwanese counterparts doing their stuff too, including Armour recce manouevers in their V200s with an OH58 Koiwa Scout chopper and an AH-1 Cobra attack chopper. The latter was dead cool, espcially when it did its mock strafing run over our position.

Live firing was crazy shit. On the first days we fired in sandstorm conditions as the wind and dust combined to create extremely low visibility. Then the rain came and turned all that loose topsoil into mud, just in time for the dismounted live firing. The end result was a very muddy me- the muddiest ive been in my life- and a jammed up Section Automatic Weapon. The damn thing had so much mud jammed in it that the bolt couldnt cycle back and forth quickly enough to maintain constant firing, and so I had to manually chamber a round before each shot. It was frustrating having a fully automated machine gun turn into some Lee Enfield bolt action rifle.

And the worst part was the damn OC and Course Commander screaming at and treating us like dogs. The fuckers dont seem to realise what live firing is like for us grunts on the ground. Its one thing to be abused verbally, that's normal in any military in the world; but its quite another to have expletives hurled at one when one self is trying his darndest to remedy a weapon stoppage with live rounds in the chamber.

Then there was the screwy R and R, which was for the most part wasted time on guided tours to theme parks and museums and some dolphin amusement park where the animals behaved like humans and vice versa. We got confined for a full day because some typhoon was hitting the place, even though there wasnt anything except alot of wind. But well, I still managed to go out and buy 3 shirts, a pair of cargo pants, some local confectionaries, and postcards, so it wasnt all wasted.

God worked His miracles too, such as the finding of Albert's rifle muzzle way out in the field, sparing him 21 days of confinement. I'll have to reflect on that later, there seems no rational way that such a small thing could be found in so big a training area.

The flight back was uneventful other than my attempt to watch War of the Worlds and Fantastic Four and sleep at the same time.

And now I have to pass my SOC to avoid a recourse.

Departure's Eve

Before I leave for Taiwan it seems that I must get something down on the blog because this'll be dormant for the rest of the month.

Again, I must bitch about the massive difference in the trips that my friends and I arew undertaking. Whilst they will be having a fantastic time in the UK I will be driving round in an armoured fighting vehicle in some Taiwanese plateau in all the dust and mud. Bugger.

There's gonna be 3 straight days of live firing, and it wont be on the basic range. Instead we'll be firing all the heavy weapons while the vehicles are on the MOVE. Hows that for excitement and danger? I suppose that'll be the only bright spot other than R and R over there.

Speaking of R and R, my shopping list only has clothes and Taiwanese instant noodles on it. I'm open to anything people want to tompang on me, but gadgets are out of the question- they may be direct from JapLand, but they sure are too expensive for a coporal's pay. So no iPod5 or Samsung megasong whatever schizo wizo gadgets for me, thanks.

Damn, I'll miss my family and my bed.

And Arsenal lost to Boro of all people. Life sucks.

Fare Thee Wells

In any case here's a goodbye to those who've departed and are departing for the Western havens, especially my fellow Lit S chapette Shafa.

Ya'll had better enjoy yourselves wherever you go and dont do drugs. May you have many friends and learn more about life- real life, not the canned life that is all Singapore has. May you have time to appreciate what you've got and the opportunities- the vast infinite opportunities- that await. Remember: studies are your second priority. Living is your first.

And Shafa- dont brood over that issue. Friends are not just friends, they can be more. There is more to friendship than either normal casualness or red hot attraction. It's called siblinghood. And its best that way if you get what I mean. Good luck and dont be overwhelmed by it all.

Enter the Autumn

People have complained that all my entries past and present are all depressingly depressing, all about doom and despair.

The fact is, I'd like very much to embrace the zest of life and live to the max. Problem is my circumstances are not predisposed to my favour in this. In summary, I'm in the pits because:

1. The bulk of my friends are moving overseas for illustrious and exciting places like the UK for further studies, and those who are not are progressing in their local uni life at breathtaking speed. And I'm not with them.

2. Those chaps in the Singapore Armed Fking Forces who I know are either in their ORD stage, or have completed their training phase and are posted to slack units, or have simply gotten themselves a slack vocation from the start. And, I'm not with them.

3. What I'm with is a horrible course in Armour where the instructors are bloodthirsty Orcs and the camp grounds are deep in the festering jungles and chicken farms of Lim Chu Kang and the training schedule is of ridiculous proportions.

4. And to top it all off, I'm still struggling with some very deep rooted problems that have plagued me since last last year and somehow they remain entrenched in my consiousness. Much of it involves my sense of purpose within a Christian context and the whole issue of my direction in life and what has God to do with me.

So, now, enter the Autumn in the springtime of my life, because I am under siege and without reprieve, and my position is fading into yesteryear whilst the rest of the world advances at speeds unimaginable. I am hard pressed to maintain my faith and my hopes are blurring into indistinction.

I seem to be heading into a cold dark winter. What little joy I have is on the weekends when I can see the faces of my loved ones both family and friends, and even that is being eroded.

My situation is not yet untenable, but it sure is uneviable.

Chain of Command:Chains of Command: Chained by Command

I must thank God for the grace He has shown me all this while in my conscription.

For instance delivering me from punishment that was due me when I slept on guard duty.

That bastard of an OC wanted to charge me, but I guess God's bigger than the biggest dude on earth.

Oh well. I cant take God for granted.

But I am disturbed, very disturbed.

My classmates are all accelerating down the fast track, even those in the Singapore Armed Fugking Forces.

Check out my classmate's blog:

"Time reallie flies when I am in this camp. By the rate it goes I think very quickly I will ORD alr haha... Now i am just planning for my first real vacation trip since my As ended haha.. Thinking of goin Thailand either Koh Samui or Phuket to learn scuba..haha.. Any suggestions or anyone interested to join me? haha..."

Gee Whiz. Way to go, old chap.

Im stuck in the iron hells of Armour and there is no reprieve at all. None absolutely.

Am I actually bitching here?

Im I complaining over small little petty inconsequential trifles?

The fact is , NO.

I AM STUCK.

AND I WANT OUT.

NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW.

I am going stark raving mad and I need ORD desperately.

I cant really elaborate about training.

Not that its classified or anything, but the fact is I am too tired to recall what I've been through, and when I do I am too exhausted to put it into words, and if I do, it'll come out in monosyllabic phrases like:

monday i did SOC.
tuesday I did section battle course.
wednesday we did vehicle maintenence.
thursday had IPPT test
and so on
and so forth
ad infinitum
ad nauseum

Like now!

Im all for militaries and security. But I am not cut out to be a soldier.

Reforger

I intend through all this bitterness gain some measure of strength.

Yes, I badly desire that steel that was once in me before the Crisis Days.

It is sickening to see me now as I am, languishing in despair and purposeless desire.

I intend to be independent of my emotions, of my sentiments, of my shallow and petty desires which everyone labels as being "normally human".

I will have strength and it will come by no other way save the death of sentiment and delusional hope.

Indeed, there are many things that must be put to the sword and to the torch.

Online

This is my attempt to seek new publishing grounds.

Await further posts.