~JcZw

Battalion on alert
So pack it up and go
Oh, what a way to start the day ahead
Heya!

Well, as a matter of fact, Delta, Foxtrot, Sierra and Tango do form an augmented battalion heh... Am 20 minutes away from the penultimate book-in for service term. Though the official bookin time is like 12 pm, but the earlier the more time I have to re-pack all my stuff heh.... Hmmm not that living in Kembangan helps either...

This week SHOULD be pretty relaxed. Only two things in the timetable scare me mildly. Route march on friday and Platoon live fire on saturday (which is yet another saturday burnt). The rest of the week I know there's wing admin (which probably is an euphamism for area cleaning), OCCT (another hand-to-hand combat course), and heartsaver, which I kinda know like the back of my epee (I don't really recognize the back of my hand so well after the barbed wire last week).

Anyway as a random fact, Black Hawk Down should be a good case study in leadership for us also. Am reading the book (and I read the book before I watched the DVD two days ago) which provides a lot of the reasons not mentioned in the show why the thing was such a foul up... Now I know why the SAF keeps harping on contingency plans haha... But I can understand how things may slacken after so many missions and / or false alarms. After all, in Patrol Field Camp, by the fourth mission we wouldn't have needed an ops order to know what was going on...

Still, it also shows all the ugly side of war, like how one moment you talk to your friend and the next moment he gets reduced to his constituent atoms by an RPG. Sigh

Am STILL indecisive about whether to take the scholarship. 60% of me wants to, but 40% has very legitimate concerns.

For:

1. It's an exotic job ("what are you?" "I'm an army doctor")
2. It's an opportunity for overseas postings (Arizona, Thailand, Australia, who knows, anywhere where SAF is)
3. Wider range of skills learnt than in civilian life (One learns admin skills besides doctoring skills, since as a battalion / brigade / division MO one will have to do planning too
4. The scholarship is darn attractive haha...
5. Still get to do hospital work 2 days per week.

Against:

1. Its unknown. I dunno what people mean by "you have to like army life" cos all I've seen of the army is from a trainee POV. Do MOs also have to serve extras n etc? o_0
2. Progress slower than civilian doctor. Will retire from SAF a registra while my counterparts are probably consultants already
3. How will social life be affected? I hardly want to "sign my life away to the army", yet it seems possible cos the army doctors I know are happily married n all haha...

I don't know, I really don't know...

Heh anyway talking to Sihui bout the ulu-ness of NTU reminded me of how during M203 live fire the instructors were warning us that "If you manage to shoot [your HEDP round] over the hill and hit NTU, there'll be hell to pay"

But anyway I have to go book in now... Cheerio!