05
Dec
Safety compromise?
I probably would have been fired by now if I were in the writing business.
Where the hell is Pkchukiss?
Well, I’ve been really busy recently. My battalion is turning operational (that means we start doing the real stuff of protecting the country. If there is a threat, we’ll be the ones to go out and neutralise it), and there are tons of stuff to do.
Among the mudane (and I feel it is silly) tasks we had to do was to standardise the items inside our fieldpacks. We had to place the items inside zip-lock bags which had to be modified (taped up) into tight fitting pockets for all the individual items. Personally, I have no idea what somebody in the middle of an operation would do with slippers, soap, towels, and admin shirt. But since it is for show, we had to do it anyway. Just the inspections took up much of our rest time.
To further compound matters, we had to complete our range (marksman training) simultaneously. A four day affair during which we had to spend the entire day and night at the range, we ended up sleeping at 2 am and waking up at 5.30 to complete yet another day of shootings. I even found myself looking for the helmet that I had put on, so I guess it probably is a bad idea to let us handle live rounds at this time.
I finished my shootings on Saturday, while some unfortunate firers had to go back today to re-shoot, either because they failed the final test, or they were eligible for the marksman award. Since there were still stores to clean and prepare, I couldn’t go home until this afternoon. In fact, I am still very much deprived of sleep (Ironically, I did a experiment similar to this experience), and now is my book-in timing, so I can’t type much right now. Hopefully, I can find some time to sort out this mess of a post (I think I’ve made so many grammatical and spelling mistakes, this post is completely incomprehensible…)
Here’s to another busy week for me! Once again, I am not dead!
on December 5th, 2004 at 10:51 pm
What a relief to know that Singapore is in safe hands.
They say you can get used to less sleep. It didn’t work for me, but maybe it will for you. At least I hope it does - we don’t want you causing an international incident by shooting the wrong person!
on December 11th, 2004 at 8:05 am
To Badaunt:
Neither do I, but you should be shocked at the scarce attention paid to the number of hours granted as rest time…
It is as if the Training Safety Regulation is thrown into the wind - until more blood is shed is then more attention given to the 7 hours of compulsory sleep (before any streneous activity).