Tough Cadet Training

Whenever OCS is brought up, the conversation invariably veer to how tough the training is.

It is a question that is not easy to answer. I believe any training is tough if you are not prepared for it - SAFINCOS, OCS, Ranger, Pathfinder, Commandos, Snipers, etc. - you name it.

My first instance of tough training was during BMT. It shouldn't have been but my mad dog of a PC got it in his mind to make us super fit so we would all qualify for OCS. What he did not foresee was scaring half the platoon into thinking OCS was worse than his BMT (which included leopard crawling in PT shorts across a field full of mimosa plants), and so withdrew from the selection process. The consolation for the few of us who did make it was that we were indeed super fit. So much  so that our first three months in OCS (Junior Term) was like a walk in the park. For the rest, the physical exertions were quite strenuous. The only thing we all had in common then was that we didn't get a whole lot of sleep.

OCS at the time was tough like that, and for a variety of reasons. We were being trained to lead, so as leaders-to-be, we were expected to be tougher than the men we would eventually lead. Physical fitness was paramount for an Infantry Soldier. You cannot be charging up a hill and collapsing from exhaustion before the first bullet is fired. Or be hyperventilating so much that you cannot give a proper command. For example: "I...I...We...We...flank...flank...damn it! Let me sit down for a bit!"

So, a lot of my OCS Junior Term time was spent building up on physical fitness. We did Runs, Road Marches, PT (physical training), IPPTs, Push Ups, SOC (std obstacle course), etc. The push-ups were quite a lot, no thanks to the zealousness of the often cruel Tactics Team Instructors. We dropped 20, 30, 50, 100, 200 "like nobody's business". In the Army, each generation of trainers would give back 20% more what cruel punishment they themselves had endured as trainees. It's like a father to son thing but in a perverse manner.

The other tough part of the training came from high expectations. If these were not met, we all got "turned out" at odd hours of the night to go running. Sometimes with fullpacks (not before falling in to pack and repack the darn thing). My platoon was quite fortunate in that we had a rather unusual PC. After some initial turnouts, he pretty much left us alone. His demand was simple: If we did not lose face for him, we could manage ourselves in whichever way we saw fit. And so we tried our darnest to do well for him to, 1) Avoid punishment; 2) Manage ourselves so as to have more free time.

If we lost face for him (like falling asleep while digging a trench) we would be swiftly punished. His punishment was simple: 'Take Extra', meaning there would be duties during the weekend. In other words, a weekend burnt spent in camp. No one liked his weekend burned, so we would do our darnest to avoid it. In the end, our Platoon 10 did well in all manner of tests, even outdoing the so-called Scholar Platoons in our Delta Company. Our PC's hands-off man-management method proved to be more effective than the old regimented Army Way.

Of course, even though our PC was hands-off, the instructors in OCS were not. They took us for lessons and training and so, we as cadets had to obey their every beck and call including all kinds of punishment dished out. Sometimes, even the Duty Officer was cocky and would turn out a platoon at will, if, let say, the Armskote was not done up properly for 'clearing' or some minor infringement.

So in OCS, we lived a life of temerity and worry, not sure when the next punishment or harassment might come. In between we fought to stay awake during lessons and try not to lose our way topo-ing (which would result in more extras being signed).

Planned physical exertions often came in the form of PT lessons. There was Log Training, exercises with the Medicine Balls, Rugby, Boxing, and Taekwondo. (I'd learnt Karate-Do but that did not excuse me from having to learn TKD)

Unplanned exertions were the overnight Topo Exercises, Missions, and Field Exercises. In the day we would practice our moves; at night we would go out for Missions. For tactical reasons, ambushes were often triggered near dawn. So by the time we finished, it would be eight in the morning. Often, we were allowed to sleep and than wake and attend lessons at around 10 A.M.; hardly enough time for 40 winks! (Back then in OCS, we had a saying: If a soldier can sleep anywhere, an officer cadet can sleep anywhere plus do it standing up with his eyes open!)

So an endless cycle of this and that left us cadets all stressed out and tired. When we got home, our mothers would make us ginseng and other herbal soups to keep us strong and healthy. There was Bird's Nest or Brand's Essence of Chicken too. Yes, we all drank quite a bit of that brown Essence of Chicken liquid, even smuggling some along for overseas training like Ex Lancer in Brunei. For Taiwan, I brought chocolates. Taiwan's weather is kinder and not so heaty!

In OCS during my time, some combat roles were extra tough. It involved carrying heavy weapons that were part of the Infantry Platoon's "estab" or organisation, that is. One such weapon was the 60mm Mortar. It took three men to form a team. One person to carry the base plate and tripod, two others to carry the ammo, sights and main tube. The ammo were usually simulated with sand in the canister tubes. Boy, was this weapon heavy to lug around. I think each man-pack weighed something like two and a half sacks of rice each. Ok for a short stretch, but after a while, it would start to weigh down terribly. Plus, the man-packs were made of tough aluminium with lousy padding. It dug into the flesh.

I recall that each time the platoon called for a halt, the Mortar folks would find a slope and rest against it. Trying to remove and put on the man-pack was just too heavy and cumbersome. And if you sat down on your bum, you would need someone to help and haul you up again. So heavy it was.

The 60mm Mortar was later replaced by the M203 Grenade Launcher.

Besides the 60mm Mortar, the Old Infantry Platoon had also the 84mm Recoiless Rifle as part of its firepower. It's unlike any rifle you have seen. It looks more like a rocket launcher because it is fired from the shoulder. But the 84mm RR loads and ejects like a rifle where a chamber has to be loaded and emptied. Maybe that's why it is called a "recoiless rifle" then. The 84mm RR was a two-men team: One to carry the rifle, the other to carry the ammo, which again was packed with sand for Training Purposes.

There was a  trying time with these weapons during Taiwan training. We were retreating from a Combat Situation and the poor chaps who were carrying the Mortar equipment had it the worst. They were lagging behind and straggling. In the end, all of us ran back and pitched in, taking turns to carry the equipment and pulling our guys back to the front of the retreating line. It did not help that we had big-sized pretend-casualties to carry as well.

It is tough training in an open and scenic location such as Taiwan. Brunei was all infested tropical jungle terrain mostly unpleasant. But still, the training in Taiwan was invaluable. It opened our small island minds to a bigger expanse of a country. Flanking a hill took on new dimensions in time and space.

During my time, OCS was still in SAFTI at Pasir Laba. It was right at the end of the road in. My company, Delta, was in the last building. Years later, this building would be demolished to make way for an intruding highway. By then, OCS had shifted to the new and modern SAFTI Military Institute.

Back then, the old SAFTI was surrounded by Army Training Areas. We often did evening runs to these places. One place has more significance: Pengkang Hill. It's a dreaded place in SAFTI Lore. In the past, cadets were brought up there to sprint up its steep, slippery gravel slopes and be punished if they didn't make it. Cadets would end up with bad cuts, bruised knees and sprained ankles. Some were even made to "leopard crawl" up.

However, during my time, any activity on Pengkang Hill was banned, and it is ironic that my BMT PC actually made us run up there rather than my OCS PC. Now you know why we named him Mad Dog Wee. (The link to that story is below.)

Although we skipped Pengkang Hill, one place close to it made OCS training tough: Trench Fighting Hill.

It's just a low hill with a maze of reinforced trenches built in it. There we learned essential Trench Fighting Drills like how to organise ourselves in such a maze to flush out an enemy, and what to do if someone lobbed a grenade in. We developed Code Words to tackle that kind of situation. "Apple" for hostile grenades, "Orange" was for our own. We learnt how to clear fortified positions and fight off tears if caught in a Trench Bunker full of smoke.

The tough part of Trench Training was all that and more. Mostly it had to do with moving about constantly in a trench all crouched up and bent. We moved this way to keep our heads low and out of target. Soldiers who didn't during war time usually got their heads blown off. When that happens, even a steel helmet is of little use.

After a short time Trench Training, we all developed "thunder thighs". Even Badminton Champion Liem Swee King didn't have thighs as impressive as ours! And it was no fun aching like that for weeks on, walking like cowboys in the mean time. That's physical toughness for you.

So, is OCS tough? Yes, but if you are fit and can do things quickly and efficiently, then there is no problem. Also, learn to command (forget the Hollywood stereotypes) and command well when asked. I've found it useful to read more war stories, especially those involving jungle warfare. The ones from the Vietnam War are all very practical and instructional. But I think the simple rule for Infantry Commanders is: "Adapt and trained your men well and bring everyone home alive."

Most of all, no matter how tough the training is, keep your dignity, integrity and sense of humour. In the end, no one likes a lousy mate... in OCS or after becoming an officer. Or even as an NCO for that matter.

Afternote: You can read my BMT story here: Mad Dog Wee.  Related story: Mr Sign Extra Next story: Army Guys and Porn 

Range Practice

One of the things about doing NS is that you can try out stuff that you don't normally do, like shooting a rifle. But unlike in an arcade where a token can buy you endless bullets and moving targets, Army rifle practice is often best remembered for a lot of preparation work and admin.

The trigger word here is Butt Party.

This term conjures up early morning wake-up calls, a mountain of stores, three-tonner rides before sunrise to some god-forsaken rifle range, often infested with mosquitoes out looking for early breakfast. There would also be mental images of starchy smells of pasty glue, of buckets of small squares of patch-up paper and of signal sets that have to be drawn from a Signal Store somewhere, "batteries fully charged and ready". Butt Party is not a party at all. And Range becomes a nightmare if you are one of those BOBO or WOWO shooters. Either way, it means that you are a soldier that cannot even hit an elephant five paces from you.

Going for Range for such shooters is usually a nerve-wracking trip. There would be consequences if you don't shoot well. And if you were in a Butt Party, you would have plenty of time to think about that.

In my day, the rifle ranges we went to were the ones at Upper Thomson Road, Safti (Pasir Laba) and Pulau Tekong. The Pulau Tekong one coincided with live grenade-throwing because the island too had a Live Firing Range.

The job of the Butt Party is simple: Set up and manipulate the targets whilst the rest shoots at it. When it became turn for the Butt Party soldiers to shoot, another detail of soldiers would take over. Most of the ranges were manual, i.e. you would need soldiers to move the targets up (to shoot at) and down (when their shot-time is up). Not all ranges were equipped with line comms then. Communication was typically via the old combat 77 Signal Set, a leftover from the Vietnam War.

The targets we shot at were printed paper pasted on plywood. They came in two designs: 1) A full-height charging soldier called Figure 11; and 2) a chest-up prone soldier called Figure 12. We often used the Fig 11s as Far 300m Targets and also as Near 20m Targets fired at with automatic burst from the hip. Fig 12s were mostly used for shooting at from 200m. For some reason I always did better with the 300m targets. But despite that, I still managed to get my Marksmanship Badge at the end of BMT.

Well, way before we went to the range, we had to learn how to handle our rifle. At the time, we were using the same Colt M16 semi-automatic rifle that US soldiers used in the Vietnam War. It was supposed to be a reliable weapon even in muddy conditions. The rounds it used, 5.56mm, was a common hunting round. And in recent years, it has been adopted by Nato as a standard round for its troops.

The M16 is not single-shot, meaning you do not have to reload a round after each shot. Gas mechanics will make sure your rifle's chamber is always loaded with a round to be fired off - why the M16 is known as a "semi-automatic". In full-automatic mode, you can basically expend all rounds by keeping your finger tight on the trigger. It takes less than 10 seconds to finish off a magazine of 30 rounds, why I think gung-ho folks like Rambo and Arno Shwarz are full of bull when they single-handedly defeat an army with just two belts of ammo strapped across their chests. You'll need a freaking truckload of ammo standing by!!!

Believe me (or any NS man) that it is simply not realistic to be trigger happy. In a battlefield situation a single bullet can mean the difference between you living or your enemy dying. However, that being said, automatic fire has its use in battle: it keeps your enemy pinned down in a pinch (no pun intended). It was something Vic Morrow did often in TV's Combat! In WWII, soldiers carried single-shot weapons whilst troop leaders like platoon sergeants (Morrow) carried Thompson sub-machine guns. There's also a dedicated gunner who carried a more powerful full-automatic weapon called the BAR (Brown Automatic Weapon) - their version of our GPMG or General Purpose Machine Gun that the SAF uses. However, what we used mostly mirrored what the Americans used in Vietnam. I don't why this is so; didn't the US lose the war?

I remember my first time firing an M16. It didn't sound too loud and had little recoil. I was quite disappointed actually. But there was no mistaking the power of the bullet that left the barrel; it could smash through most things hard, let alone soft flesh. And as I later learned in OCS, the M16 round (a Remington derivative) liked to yaw in flesh, i.e. tumble and fragment to cause nasty injuries. It was better to be shot at by an enemy wielding an AK-47 whose round, although heavier, behaved better. The worst you got was a large hole, not itsy-bitsy bits of bullet ricocheted and embedded in organ and flesh.

Recruit Range Practice was quite different from Reservist Range Practice. No doubt the procedures remained quite the same over the years but the motivations for doing well were entirely different.

During Recruit time, you aimed to do well not just for your platoon but for your company too (three platoons make a company). The Company Commander liked to see more of his recruits obtain the Marksmanship Badge; it is proof that his NCOs and commanders have been doing a good job instructing the botakheads (recruits) to excel. In Reservist, you shot well so as not to come back for Retraining. That would interfere with your civilian career or time spent with girlfriends.

We had range practices that led to range tests. These tests determined if you were to be awarded the Marksmanship Badge. I remember the morning of my test very well. I was feeling a bit out of sorts (I might have eaten something suspect at breakfast). Plus, I also didn't manage to zero my weapon during the previous range practice (I think we had either run out of time or ammunition). In shooting, zeroing is the process of finding your aiming point. If you can fire three bullets to land on the same spot, then you probably got your rifle's aiming point pretty well down pat. In shooting parlance, that's called a "grouping".

Mad Dog Wee was Conducting Officer that morning. He showed particular interest in me and two other guys who had the same problem. Our weapons were yet to be zeroed. Before the actual test begun, he gave us a single detail (shooting turn) to fine-tune and zero our weapons. I didn't like my rifle. It was pretty loose at the barrel guard. I had to twist it in order to hold it firm. That in turn affected my posture. To make sure that I didn't loose my grip, I tried pulling down on my rifle sling. It at least helped align the front barrel, keeping the foresight tip in horizontal line with the rearsight 'O'. It seemed to work OK.

The thing about last minute zeroing is that we still have to run to the butt to get our target papers back, which is tiring. We then hand the results over to a Zeroing NCO who would make an inference about how our shots went. He would then use that to make adjustments to our rifle aiming sights. To do this he would either click the foresight tip (with a sharp pair of tweezers to adjust its height) or adjust the dial that controlled the rearsight (laterally). Sometimes both. But that morning, Mad Dog Wee left nothing to chance and decided to zero our weapons himself. I still remember that scene around the Admin GS table.

My grouping that morning was neither here nor there, which did not give me much clue as to how my rifle was handling. I had hoped for a close grouping so I could relax and shoot a high score. With a not-here-not-there grouping, you tended to question your own technique even. Did I breathe right? Did I squeeze the trigger too fast? Was my sandbag firm? Where did the mistakes come from? Aka a host of insecurities!

The Marksmanship Test (that's what the generic shooting test for all soldiers was called) had four parts. 1) A 300m foxhole grouping; 2) A prone 300m grouping; 3) A run down to 200m prone grouping; and 4) A run down to 20m for burst fire. We each had a different magazine for each test.

I think the 300m tests were an "Own time, own target, fire!" whereas the 200m test was timed. The same with the 20m test.

For the timed tests, the instruction was always "Firers, watch your front!" The targets would then flip from side view (a thin line) to face you full frontal. When time was up, the target would revert back to its 'invisible' side profile.

In "own time own target", when a shot landed on a target (say, 300m away), the Butt Party soldier holding that target up would flip it about to indicate that it was hit. If you saw no action, then your shot had probably gone astray. How did the butt party soldier know? Well, he could feel your shot because he has been holding on to your target. The vibration from the shot landing would tell him.

Shooting at the wrong target was something that happened sometimes. But more so when we had to run towards the 200m line from our 300m foxhole position. Some soldiers would get disoriented and then end up aligning themselves to the wrong target, especially having to prone. Soldiers who wore spectacles were most susceptible. Their sweat-fogged lens made it doubly difficult for them to see when they ran.

I should know because I wore spectacles. But I later abandoned my glasses and preferred to use my good left eye instead. Till this day, it remained 20/20 whilst my right is slightly off.

During Reservist, when aggregate battalion shooting results mattered more than individual performances, we sometimes helped each other out. Those of us who were better would help the bobo or wowo shooters. If I had landed 2 of 3 shots on my target, I would then save the last one for a wowo's target, assuming he had missed one first. Finding four holes on a three-shot target was not ideal as it would lead to much questioning and possible investigation if neutral observers were around.

Then, there's Night Shooting.

Night shooting was fun because we would use tracer rounds with the normal rounds. Because a tracer round would leave a streak of red light, it illuminated a path to the target. I can't quite remember but I think it was one tracer for every three rounds of normal. It was particularly impressive during Night Live Firing when everyone fired at the same time. More so when the GPMG joined in.

The targets would also be illuminated with "illum sticks", or night sticks that glowed.

That day during my BMT Marksmanship Test, because my weapon was not so finally zeroed, all I could do was rely on instinct and trusted techniques. When results came back that I had indeed scored a Badge I was over the moon. Shooting was a fave sport of mine which started during my NPCC student days. Then we had shot with .22 pistols. Although I did ok, I never liked it because my teenage hands were never comfortable with the large pistol grips. With an M16, the story was different. In my platoon, only a handful of us were awarded the Badge. But that did not matter. The whole company finally managed to get an above-average score. Previously, the results were close to failing. If an infantry man cannot shoot, it's like a chef who cannot wield a knife. We might as well go join the Navy or Air Force. If we had failed, that indeed would have been very "malu-malu".

Next story: Road March Songs With Fatt