~JcZw

One Simple Picture: YET another SJ-related post

In the post-exam breeze, I was looking through Facebook when I came across this picture in one of my friend's albums.

The only picture of my whole squad as NCOs, definitely the only one taken after we were promoted to corporal. Long long ago in an era when the NCO's chevron was still attached to the right sleeve via studs rather than on the shoulderboards as it is today. The copy shrunk down to fit Facebook standards was of pretty poor quality, but I still remember the day this picture was taken.

It was on the very day we had our final promotion. And can anyone doubt the sense of achievement that everyone showed. We had been anticipating getting massacred by our seniors for the whole week ever since they told us to "leave us two hours to carry out an activity". And even though there was communication breakdown and quite a bit of disruption in the chain of command during the whole tekan session, in the end everything managed to fall into place.

The picture just brought back a whole rush of emotions deriving from those last few months in AHSJAB. Joy, accomplishment, relief, sadness.

So much for the emotions. Yet there was still the most important thing of all.

This is nothing to do with being an NCO, running out the NCO life, accomplishments or anything. It was just a feeling of being honoured.

Honoured to be part of the elite AHS division, the CCA with the best discipline, the best drill, the greatest esprit de corps. Only last year after coming into uni and having occasion to read "Band of Brothers" by Stephen Ambrose then I found what I wanted to say. It was like, we (me and Wei Lun at least), loved to complain about our SJ lives, but it was a proud kind of complaining. It was more like "We routinely go through hell and we're so good at taking hell that we can be casual about it AND find common ground with each other" more than anything. And what a common ground that was.

Honoured to be part of my squad. For me, as an individual, it was my squad as a member, as well as my squad as their Squad IC, for that was what was encompassed in my duties. Squad 4 '04 was really a melting pot of sorts. There were those whom you could rely on, those whom you wouldn't trust, those loud and enthusiastic, and those so quiet you would never believe they were part of a uniform group until you saw them lift the heavy PT logs or, in Squad 4, blow their top at an unfortunate cadet. You can't tell who in the picture matches which description can you =)

This picture shows the people who sustained me as a cadet. Just take the following as examples:

A. A little guy who prevented me from walking into a home nursing room in SJ HQ with hmmm a part of my clothing not adequately fastened.

B. Another whom I nearly strangled while trying to help him put on his bag at St. John HQ.

C. A third who marched with me in the National Day parade despite having a fever.

D. Yet another who patiently called me to give me messages every week for 3 years (Until the 4th and I called everyone)

The list goes on. These were the people who sneaked words of encouragement to you while you were in pumping position, blood rushing to your head, or shaking in ranger position, every sacral nerve seemingly compressed beyond repair. They are the ones who laughed and cried with you during squad discussions. The ones whose hands bled and blistered on the parade square and on the rubber grips of the stretcher with yours. They were the ones whom you watched from the windows of SJ HQ, when they had gone for competition and you couldn't, but you willed them on and you knew they could do it.

These also were the people who tied scalp bandages on your head so tightly you couldn't think, then realised they had done a dead knot instead of a reef knot.

As an NCO, I acknowledge the times which I felt like causing grevious harm to different squadmates were in fact, not infrequent, as NCO life turned out to be more convoluted than expected, but at the end of the day, I realised that the opportunity to use this group of people who knew each other intricately well was a rare opportunity and a responsibility not taken lightly. I leave my performance for others to vet. I know my squadron did the best they could do.

Heh one photo throws up so many emotions, but it was nice to relieve those memories for a short while.