----Exercise Centipede----
Yeah, I finally started one of the highlights of service term in OCS: Exercise Centipede. It's a 7D6N outfield back in Tekong, where majority of the males started their NS journey.
I'm about to fill you guys up with the experience! Let's go! The experience was surely not a pleasant and easy one. You have to do lots of high kneeling up to a point where your skin just tears even with the knee guard provided. Also, we had to build our own Basha tent to sleep in it for the next 7 days. My buddy and I had totally no idea how to build one as we were not taught how to build in BMT. So we just, "Aiya, all we need is a shelter and off we go!" Okay la, I enjoyed the stay in my own basha. Hahaha
Just like part and parcel of every soldier's life, you will have to camo on 24h the moment you're in outfield, the only difficult part was that you had to do it for 7 days straight. Honestly, I wondered how I survived. LOL.
I remembered many moments whereby the stupid camo got into my eyes during section battle and I was blinded partially, and I had no absolute idea where I was advancing. HAHA. Aside from the inconvenience brought by camo on me, there was also tons of stores amounting to weight of 10+ kg to carry! "Section advance! Enemy Ahead! Enemy Overrun! Ice! Spider Ice!" were some of the frequently heard commands over the 7 days in Tekong.
What was the toughest part in exercise Centipede wasn't the section fire movement missions, instead it was the navigation once again! Walking up to 10+ km under the flaring sun with heavy stores was a killer. I suffered severe back pain from it. Luckily, it was only temporary and I recovered quickly.
TECHNICAL BREAK AT DAY 4! YES! You are not seeing it wrong! It's a break!! Okay, the best part of it was habouring inside a lecture room with AIR-CON watching the movie titled "Lone Survivor". Fresh rations! FRESH! I enjoyed totally! However, the break was shortlived! We were brought back to the harsh reality on the same day.
Gone was the navigation, now we were left with assessments to assess whether we were capable of being section commanders! My assessment didn't went smoothly and only managed to scrape through it. Oh well, I gave my best and I had no regrets.
I also found out I wasn't as good as compared to my other section mates in fire movement. I died a few times during my friends' assessment. Thereafter, I was nicknamed "Why I Die" because I always ask the instructor why was I declared dead. My friends would then laugh and just call me a burden. Hahaha. It was really a fun and thrilling 7 days outfield with my section mates!
We ended off the Exercise Centipede with a 8 km tactical route march back to our last habouring area before heading back to OCS.
To sum up, Exercise Centipede was an outfield to assess cadets whether were we capable of taking lead to become section commanders.
----Post Exercise Centipede----
I cleaned my SAW weapon for a good 7 hours to clear off the carbon accumulated over the 7 days. It was like a living hell for me as I had to clean like crazy after firing 200+ blanks.
We were all definitely shagged out from the exercise centipede ... but what's coming up next was truly a test to our resilience.
We had 6 km endurance run the day after we returned back in OCS. Okay I gave my best and completed with a timing of 30:29.
The day after our 6 km endurance run, we had our 6 km fast march in the early morning before heading for Exercise Coyote: Urban Operations (2D1N).
Exercise Coyote was damn fun la! Clearing staircases and rooms were super thrilling. Combat in urban areas were so much easier to me.
YOU KNOW WHAT'S NEXT? BOOK OUT LO!
- Not enough time to rest at all.
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