Notes by p3k: During the night where boon, delon, edmund & I were at Changi Airport to celebrate my birthday, I was talking to Edmund when he took out some scrap papers. I found out that these were his thoughts which he penned during his Field Camp which stretched for a week. After a quick browse... I thought - Damn this was good reading. He HAD to publish them and share these experiences with the rest of the #lovers^parkers. So I asked him to type it out and I help post it up for him, as he hasn't got a Blogger account yet. So here you have it. Enjoy >:]
POSTED BY: Edmund (Slight amendments made by p3k)
9th may 04
5:04pm
im now outside my tent, in this rubber plantation called … haha dunno … anyway, im having my field camp now, today’s the 2nd day, got 5 more days to go … sigh …oops… GTG for now!
OK back… just got screwed by my sergeant for not taking care of our weapons.. as in everyone la not just me.
Hmm back to what I was saying, it’s a 7-day field camp, no civilised facilities at all, no bathing, bla bla… oh ya no toilet… heh oh ya, wanted to write yesterday, but really no time, had to pack things and couldn’t stay up late cuz of the lights out timing. Anyway hope I can write this everyday.. okie, gg for dinner first, will write later if time permits.
10th may 04
2-3am
Hi again =) must be wondering what am I doing up so late right.. sigh. Doing guard duty @ my camp area ® 2 to 4 shift. Its very very tiring. I really dun get much sleep and the daytime training takes up a lot of energy… haha. Oh ya btw its pitch dark now, there’s only e moonlight & some light sticks hanging around. Damn stupid lor – im holding a torchlight while writing – báichi. I’m now just sitting down doing sentry, later hafta go walk around to prowl already.
Just tell ya more abit bout this whole camp… there are roughly about 100 tents set up next to each other, side by side, 2 to a tent, so there’s a whole company of 200 pple… around there la… and this idiotic tent is only at knee level, so imagine how I can hardly sit up when I’m in it. Heh its fun in a way la, we get to sleep in e middle of nowhere relying just on 2 groundsheets – 1 to sleep on, the other for shelter.
But now its like a totally new environment… and everyone’s really not too used to it, yea iz bad lor, cuz u can see everyone really feeling down, morale level really dropped low over e past few days… hope it improves, otherwise time will past even slower… eh ok I gtg…
10th may 04
10:30pm
woohoo ~~ 2day’s one of e best days … cuz since Sat we’ve only taken combat rations, cold food basically, all sealed up in plastic bags and ya gotta suck e food from it… hah quite sick right? Anw … coming back to e reason why 2day’s so good was cuz we got fresh rations, food that comes in packets which are hot and so much more appetizing. Haha shiok. Not only tt lor, we were actually allowed to go back to our company toilets to take a bath… hah… what a joke right. Which field camp allows you to go bathe right? Anyway it was a surprise la, everyone was so shocked but damn happy @ e same time… at first everyone was so tired after e training den suddenly u see faces lighting up … haha very encouraging… ok la tts bout it, I better go zzz
13th may 04
12:28pm
wah… tmr last day liao… quite shiok eh. Haha. 2 days nv write cuz really no time .. at nite got lotsa stuff to do, oh ya… den I was platoon i/c for e past 2 days also, so v tired too. the past 2 days I was at this oil palm plantation which was so many times better than e prev camp site, cuz iz like more shady and e ground not so steep. Anyway 2day I’ve just reached a new camp site… which is on reclaimed land, and we’re supposed to spend e whole day digging trenches, hah … damn freakin tiring… e worst physical activity xia. Now having my lunch break lor. B4 tt was digging for about an hour and im almost dead liao. Imagine I still gotta do this for a day. Argh… k la.. just one more day.. must endure! Going back to dig liao.
13th may 04
8:23pm
ah… am now lying down on just a ground sheet in a super open area, the same reclaimed land, hah.. very big one. The sky’s full of stars… very beautiful, hah unfortunately u can’t see what iz like, cuz there are no blockages, everything’s damn clear. Oh ya.. my fren saw shooting star! Btw, I spent like almost the whole day digging one toopid trench… nx time show you. Haha my sergeant took pics for us. Just 1 more night… and tmr I’ll be back to mainland! Haha damn suaku… v long nv see buildings, cars, etc. lol.
-Thomas
