Saturday, October 30, 2004
Finally, i am back, safe and sound from brunei. It was hell of a trip. Tiring, yet interesting at times.. It made me feel so guilty tat i took so many things for granted in Singapore. I muz say that, arriving and leaving Brunei gave me mixed feelings. Cos i wld never want to go back there again, but i wld miss it, as it has given me something to remember for the rest of my life..
Day 1
When i 1st touch down at the brunei airport, i felt uneasy as the whole airport looked like a ghost town to me. No one was there except the staffs and the soldiers. After we reached, we took some ferry to the camp where we gonna live in...Laquin camp.... The 1st day was rather easy and relax. We juz had to unpack our stuffs, arrange the bunk and go for some briefings. But the 1st time i saw the cookhouse, i was horrified. The plates are very dirty and we need to wash the plates after meals. And oso, the food sux.
Day 2
We left Laquin Camp for jungle village in a UH1H. However, we still didnt do much as there were only some admin stuff to do... But the living condition worsened. Now, we have no beds and need to drink river water. The 1st thought tat came to my mind was 'Ewwwwww' .... But still, in order to survive, we need to sacrifice. I felt sianz when i saw the water is so dirty and filled with 'X particles. *suck thumb*~ And guess wat? i lost my newly made specs... $$$ flyz~
Day 3
We went for some 4-man team live firing near jungle village. As i didnt have my specs with me, i had problemz seeing the targets. Dang! And during the firing of blanks session, i was scolded by S2 (a major) like fuck cos i cldnt see the target, and anyhow fire.. Prone at the wrong places, etc. Finally, comes the live rounds session. My buddy was beside me at one instance. As i believe the weapon was not zeroed properly, when i aimed and fired at the target, it hit the log infront of us and a wooden chip flew off nearly hitting my buddy. And obviously, i was scolded for tat. A rather fuck up day i wld say. And guess wat, the story of the chip nearly hitting my buddy was so twisted and exaggerated tat i was a bit amused. Why? Cos there are versionz saying i nearly killed him, the round went past his body, etc. Sometimes itz funny to see how one story was pass to another and the story gets more n more twisted. LOLZ!
Day 4
We did some component training today. Like all those contact drills which we have done over and over again. Apart from that, we did nothing. Juz lazing ard. Watching the Minister of State coming to visit us. Nite hear some morale tokz from our CO, etc.
Day 5
Today, we basically did nothing. Juz do some op's order for our upcoming exercise. 'Exercise Red Hat'. Nite, OC give us some morale toks again and we packed our stuffs, ready to leave jungle village.
Day 6
Finally, we packed our things, ready for our real outfield exercise. 'Exercise Nomad'. We packed our things, waited for the chopper to come, den send us to our designated location. Nomad started. Itz a topo exercise accompanied by our pc. We walked half a day, and couldnt find the checkpt. There was one instance, where we reached a Y-junction. We took the wrong route and hollanded. Finally, we harboured at some dense vegetation. And it was raining cats and dogs when we were harbouring. I tot to myself...'this is brunei....' The highlight of the day was tat my fren harboured at the area where the scorpion nest was. Haha. He killed a big scorpion, seeing a few small ones coming out. That freaks him out. And yupz, the cold and the difficulties tat day made some of us become 'blood brothers'. haha..
Day 7
2nd day of nomad.. We backtracked and found our checkpt. And subsequently, the 2nd.. However, after that, we had a hard time coming out of the forest. At 5 plus, we were still stuck inside. Everyone was abt to panicked. We coms back, and fired blanks... Safety rover horned us.. We followed the sound of the horn and try to come out. There's nothing much we can do but to walk and bash. Finally, at 6, we were out. There was a sign of relief in everyone's face.
Day 8
Did another op's order for 'Exercise Red Hat'. Spent the whole day doing tat. Went for canteen breaks and prepare ourself for next day's CWO (crossing of river obstacle).
Day 9
Went for river crossing and combat swim. Basically, it was nothing much. Juz cross a river, and swim across the river with field packs. But hell.. The swimming part wasnt easy. Cos the current is strong. It always drift u away. And it was said that the river had crocs inside which made us felt uneasy. We spent the rest of the day cleaning our rifles.
Day 10
In the morning, some big shots complained to OC abt our discipline. He turned us out in the morning b4 'red hat' commences. It was the 1st time in so many mth. He always tried to be a angel. Finally his true self came out. He knew we all hate him. Finally, exercise 'Red Hat' finally commences. Itz an uncontrolled topo and mission exercise. During the early stages, my section and the other section went off together. But we felt it was too slow. Therefore, we went on seperate ways after that. We walk across rivers, saw maize fields, and lotsa things. Finally, nightfalls, we found a harbour grd whom we saw another platoon's section there. We shared the place. During the nite, a gigantic stick insect crawled onto my friend's leg, we chopped it into 2, and it bled some green thing which reminded me of Alienz. And as the area which we harboured was dense, we had to chop trees down.. The area which one of my fren set his hammock was very amusing. Below his hammock was the shoots of the chopped tress with sharp edges. If his hammock falls, he wld be pierce to death i suppose. Haha.. Reminded me of final destination. LOLZ
Day 11
2nd day of 'Red Hat'. Probably the best day we had in Brunei. Cos this day, it was the day that we had most fun at Brunei. Morning, we woke up, and set off for our objective. We bashed our way in the virgin forest. Finally, when abt to reach noon, we bashed into a road. A tarmat road which wasnt in the map. We were surprised to see large trucks. One of my frenz went to ask for directions and also.........a lift! The driver sad okie. We were thrilled. Bcos if we get caught taking civilian vehicles, we would be severely punished. But we took anyway. Travelled ard 2 km. Reached Apoy river. We had our lunch there. Bathed there. Refill our water. Around 2pm, we set-off again. We walked along the river. Cos it will eventually lead us to our objective. At ard 3pm, we reached some cattle farm. Haha. There's some kind of fence with concertina wires blocking our paths. We threw our packs over it and crawled under it. Some kind of true operational soldiers aint us huh? Some realised the reception there was good. Had a short phone break. There we go in the cattle farm. Fwah. Saw a lot of cattles. Den the whole grazing area is very smelly. Full of shit. Den we continued our journey. Finally reach an area where we are only left with 2 choice. Bash into forest again. Or travel down the river. Obivously we chose the easier but more dangerous route. Take the river. We saw a river further down at the bank. 3 guys swam down to the boat. Went ard to ask for permission to use the boat. But no one ans. So we juz took the boat anway. They sat in the boat and paddled back to where we are. We threw our packs on the boat. Inflated our life jacket. Everyone held the side of the boat and dragged the boat down the river. Finally, we went up shore and found a very nice harbouring area. I wld conclude that this is a day full of exciting activity. But good times never last.
Day 12
Well, morning came. Time to set off again. We went back to the river. Thinking of using the river route again. Den my section commander decided to cross the river to see if there is any route on the other side of the river. We tied all our toggle rope together. 12 in total. 2 guys swam over. Anchor the ropes at the other bank. I stayed and tension the rope. Some guys crossed the river to check out the other side of the river. While they were doing their recce. I help to bandaged up any wounds that my fellow soldiers had. (Bo Bian. Medic). Suddenly, one of the sect com said he lost his map. WTF? He dropped his map in the river while he was crossing the river and swimming. And oso the rapids in the river was very strong. We panicked. We went ard searching for the map. We searched till noon. We couldnt find it. We coms back to inform the HQ tat we lost our map. Their ans, 'Make sure your find the map, or your will stay there.' We panicked even more. We went down the river to search for it. Me and 2 guys inflated our life jackets to go down the river to search for it. There's one pt, me and another guy got washed down into the center of the river and moving very fast. We were scared. Cos i dunno wat will happen to us if we hit one of the big rocks or big logs in the center of the river. We had problem swimming to the side of the river. Finally we swam to the side with a huge sigh of relief. We continued to look for the map unti we hit Piano bridge. (Our withdrawal pick up side, aka wps) We couldnt find it. Den we saw a military vehicle. It shouted at us. We went foward. We saw our CSM and 2IC sir. They ask us wat we were doing. We told them we lost a map. They went to the area where the rest of the guys are. They reprimanded us. Went to check our harbour area. Found tat it was a mess. The grd was littered with underwear(mine), socks(mine), wet tissue(mine), tuna can(mine) and haha a pile of shit.(mine) :-x Wahha. They say they will sort us out when we go back to Laquin. And CSM gave us a wrong MGR of where our objective is. Trying to confuse us and made us bashed into the vegetations again. And 2IC gave us an order. 'Reach Betty b4 nitefalls.(our objective.)' which is quite impossible. And one of our section flustered. Kept pushing us to go. We are all tired. But he doesnt care. Which made me very pissed off. Finally, nite falls. We didnt hit the objective. We wasted one day looking for the map. We harboured at an area with a huge tree and lotsa bats. And lotsa thorny trees which i name them, 'Thornsy'. LOLZ. This is day 3 of 'Red Hat'
Day 13
Well.. Today, itz my show. Haha. Okie. We woke up, pack our stuffs and prepare to go. We bashed through the vegetations until we found a trail. In the process, we keep getting poked by thornsy. Finally, we reach an area to rest and the commanders decide to go for commander's recce. Suddenly, i realised my 11B was missing. I panicked. I sat down, checked my SBO and fullpack. Cant find it. The prospect of getting 7 extras or not able to return to Singapore looms in my head. (cos we used our 11B as identification instead of our passport) I sat down and think where i might have dropped it. I can only think of our harbour grd. When the commanders came back, i told my sect coms tat i lost my 11B. Their face immediately sianz half. 2 sect coms, 1 guy and me went to find my 11B. One of the sect com is very pissed. Kept making sarcastic remarks. Makes me wanna punch him. As we remembered the big tree in our harbour grd, we tried searching for it. But only when we really paid attention, did we realised that there were those big trees everywhere. We failed and headed to our rest pt. The commanders decide to go fight our objective den come back and find. I tot to myself, 'If we go further, will we be able to find our way back?' Nonetheless, we moved on till our FRV. Me and 3 guys went back to find. We backtracked with map and compass until a spot where one of the guy, saw 2 big trees. One with a big clearing ard it. We tried our luck. Yes! We found it. It was at our harbour grd. Hugh sigh of relief. We moved on to our objective from there. It was 3+pm when i found my 11B. We carried on until we hit a a ridgeline where there was no way up our objective. It was a steep slope full of boulders. One guy took of everything. Tied all the toggle ropes together and climbed up the slope in rock-climbing style. WHen he reached the top, he threw the ropes down and we tied our pack, etc onto it and pull it up one by one. And finally, we climbed up the slope in rock-climbing style too. It was 6+ when we reached the top. Den came a disturbing msg from the signal set. 'mike 3 to 33charlie. Your better wake up ya fucking idea. 4 days and u havent hit one objective.' Den another came. 'mike 3 to all radio stations. All operations to be ceased at 1200hrs and every has to withdraw to WPS'. Problems arises again when we reached the top. There's no light. We cant harbour there cos itz a ridgeline with steep slopes. We have no water. As we knew we are very near our objective, 2 of our commanders went ard shouting for the enemies(our own coy ppl). Finally, the enemies replied. We asked water from them. They gave us some rations, 500ml of water to each person and led us to a good harbour area. We were saved......by the enemies. How ironic. Besides, 500ml of water is never enuff for soldiers who walked 5-6hrs non-stop without water. I opened my MOP, took out a packet of hartman. Tear it open and drank it. This is how desperate we were...
Day 14
Morning came. We fought our objective and headed for the WPS. Halfway, we hit a stream!!!! We refilled our bottles. Some were so desperate that they drank the water straight wihout purifying it. Cos purifying process takes 30minutes. We rest abit, cooked, eat.. and set off to WPS. When we reached there, we were told to layout everything. We were interogated as something big happened. We were clueless. But wat i noe was that our 2IC knew we took boat. He was angry. We were sent back to Laquin. We were told to go back to the vegetations outside the camp. Reason? For our ill-discipline. We cant sleep in hammock. We were told to setup a patrol base. We spent our afternoon cleaning rifles there. Nite came, we juz rested. Suddenly it began to rain. We asked our sect com's permission to build an A-frame. He said no. But others were already building it. He hesitated. It starts to pours. Den he said build A-frame. I was all wet. I ran to my fren's shelter. I was angry with my sect com's indecisiveness and timidness. We harboured outside camp for another nite.
Day 15
Well, we expected to go back to Laquin today. Cos we need to do battle procedure for 'Exercise Mt Bina'. But till noon, still no one came. Suddenly, OC stormed into our patrol base. For security purposes, my friend told him to halt. LOLZ. But juz stormed in anyway. He scolded us for our improper setup of the patrol base, etc. No one gives a damn abt him anyway.Wat an arsehole. He wanted us to stay at the patrol base. Den i saw CSM toking to him. CSM asks us to pack up and go back Laquin. Wat an angel. We went back camp. Ate some FOOD, had a good bath, and rests. Nite we packed our things for 'Exercise Mt Bina'.
Day 16
Finally... our last exercise b4 we go back singapore. As usual, we were heli-inserted.. We walked a while. Juz b4 we are going to climb Mt Biang, a guy fall our. He had a fever. We wasted some time trying to evacauate him. Finally, Biang time! We are going to climb 1600Ft in full battle order. Not to mention tat i am in a MG team carrying a SAW. The fucking saw is fucking long and it keeps hitting my leg when i climb up. Nothing interesting on our way up there. We walked a while longer, den we decide to harbour. At 1600Ft, i can see clouds going pass us. Black clouds somemore. I am scared if there's lightning, how? LOLZ. ANd god damn it. the mg team harboured at a slope. Very uncomfortable.
Day 17
As usual, set off in the morning. Going down Biang to Apoy river. I didnt understand y we need to go up Biang, den come down again. Why not juz skip biang. Even when i am back in Singapore, i still dun understand. Halfway going down, we were lost. OC suggested we go up Biang again. My eyes opened 3 times wider. Nobody wants to climb Biang twice. We all refused. In the end, we still managed to find a route to Apoy river without going up Biang again. But in the process, we witness wat seemed like Final Destination to me. A huge dead fall zoom pass me and hits my friend's ears. I wonder wat will happen if the dead fall moved 5cm to the left and hits his head. Anyway, i forgot to mention that after biang, there are still 7knors and many many hidden small knors in between. Halfway, the mg was passed to me. I carried for 2 knors, and i was KO-ed. We crossed Apoy river in the evening. While going up the river, we need to go up the bank. But it was filled with swamp like mud. My whole leg can go in till knee level. Den i saw my fren struggling when carrying his fullpack while walking the mud. Den he fell and was soiled with mud. LOLZ. I tot to myself, 'Heng ar... reaching soon liaoz, i still quite clean.' Next moment, i fell and was dirtied. -_-" We were resup with soft drinks and chocolate. Den we harboured.
Day 18
We continued to walk... And trying to reach the objective asap. Nothing interesting happened. We put our packs at the FRV. Took some pics. And formed up at the FUP. Den lets go lets go!!! I was quite pissed with my PS as he brings us ard, up and dwn the slope but fail to find our area. Felt like giving him a punch. Den Mission started. My team fired SAW and GPMG. to act as suppressive fire. The assualt team flanked and cleared the enemies. The block force team prevent the enemies from escaping. The demo team bombed the enemy's base. Mission completed. WooooHoooo~ No need to do again~~~~~ Some platoons need to do again again and again. wahahahahaha. END OF EXERCISE LANCER! Went back Laquin to have our dinner and rested.
Day 19
Nothing much. Juz cleaned our rifles, cleaned our bunks. And sleeped. Prepare to go hm le~ Do all the necessary CQ... Packed our bags and prepare to go for our R&R. And in the nite when i wanted to go bathe, my slippers were stolen. I was very very angry.
Day 20
We were brought to HQ Lancer. Singapore's main base in Brunei. We put our packs down. Went to canteen. And prepare to go for R&R. We went to some stupid museum. And got 1 museum is 'Malay Technology'. I was interested to see wat kind of technology Malays have so i went to take a look. -_-". All ancient technologies. No wonder itz called Malay technology. Den we were brought to the city for shopping. Basically, there were nothing to shop. Nothing much at all.. Juz tat bcos those muslims are fasting, so no matter which resturant we go, oso no ppl. But i am quite surprised to see chinese at the city area. Bruneian Chinese. LOLZ. Had our dinner at some stupid hotel. Finally came the High Pt. We went to the amusement park build by the Sultan. And god damn it. The whole area, there's only us! wahhaha.. How shoik? No queues. I sat the stupid roller-coaster twice and i wanted to vomit after that. Motion sickness. Bo Bian. Oso sat the thing that brings u very high and den goes down very fast one. Forgot wats that called. Nvm.Went back to Lancer to sleep and set off to Singapore!
Day 21
Boarded the SIA plane. Was drooling when saw the SIA galz. Cos too long nver see gals le. Wahahah. THey are pretty with good figure. After 2 hrs if flight, i saw Singapore!!!! Home Sweet HOME!!
Finally, i finished my Brunei Diary. Nx up, i am gonna write abt my 72km route march and the Red Beret. Stay tune. LOLZ
wrote at**``~
