Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Finale

Man it's great to be back to the hot and wet Singapore. I enjoyed the Thailand weather. It was cold at night but scorching hot from 12am to 3pm. I got a helmet tan line just working under the sun while cleaning the gun!To sum it up, the whole trip was like this.

Sleep sleep sleep.

Haha. That's obviously not true. It was entirely the opposite! We did not get much sleep and every night there was sentry duty to guard our equipment and frequent night displacements. Adding to not much sleep comes irregular sleep. Some could only sleep start sleeping at 2am, waking at 4am for an hour sentry and then sleep for another hour before the day starts. Displacing from one location to another can take an hour to go. The journey from our last deployment ground to camp took a whopping 3 hours! People like him enjoyed.


I got to execute my role in coordinating fire from the command post which was my choice of appointment since nearing the end of common phase. Felt nervous at first because when you say fire, they really fire! The key is to stay cool even when everyone is rushing you. Just do not let it bother you but of course, do not take your time. Working in the command post has its perks too. All the ration comes to you so there is always extras. Goody for me but bad for me tummy. Best is to spam the fruits or give all away to the gun sites.

The firepower coming from the 155mm Howitzer is awesome! You can feel the shockwave through your body everytime the round is shot. When we fired a higher charge, I couldn't stare at the barrel anymore! Imagine firing the highest charge, it might feel like a knockout punch who knows! After seeing such a magnificent sight, I don't want to be laughing or playing around when artillery fire comes. You don't want to mess with the King of the Battlefield!
Hot baby!

In the end, I believe everyone enjoyed themselves. We were all smiles. Many lessons learnt and more to come. It was a fantastic experience for me. Maybe I'll write little stories of what happened in between the trip when I have more time. :)

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