As of this post, I realise that I've been doing my time in 5SIR for nearly 7 months. 7 months since graduating from SCS on the 17th of December 2010. Wow, it sure does feel short. This span of 7 months can be broken down into 3 phases: UIP, PTP and BMT. Now I'm going through AIT, of which I'll summarise in the near future. Whew, what a load of acronyms just to represent 7 months of passage.
UIP stands for Unit Induction Programme. I must admit, ours was quite special compared to other units. Upon graduating from SCS and receiving the rank, we had no idea how we would be valued, treated and employed as junior commanders, or rather commanders at the lowest level who have the most interaction with the men. It was then made out to us that for all the work we have earned, it had placed us into a rut, were we placed into any other unit apart from 5SIR. Apparently, other unit's SOP for their UIP was to show the incoming specialists who was boss, what the unit expects from them and what they should do. They did it in ways like making the new specs knock it down in front of the men, throwing them into a field camp immediately upon reporting to the new unit and overall just treating them like shit. (Mostly hearsay from 1SIR and various comments from other people)
I felt that for our UIP, it was rather structured. The command team explained what their expectations and thing they would do to reach these expectations and how we would work with them to achieve these objectives. Then we had a month of lull time whereby we just woke up to do some PT and clear up the battalion. (The previous intake had left the entire camp in shambles for us, the new guys, to clear up. imagine a group of about 100 odd commanders, without any men under them to clean up the situation left behind and to start anew)
We had a field camp following this, that was supposed to last a week but only took about four or five odd days at Tekong (Went back there like twice already, wow! The first instance of course being this UIP) in which the command team used to evaluate our standards and to shape it into a standardised battalion model. We then had a section-level challenge to bond together, called the V-Trail (V being the numeral for 5, the number of our battalion) where we did numerous skills-at-arms challenges. If I remember it consisted of doing a 6km run within 36 minutes at the SanYongKong SITEST site. This was followed by changing from PT to FBO and making a 4km march to BMTC School 4, where we had 5 challenges: Combined SOC, Section-level PT Challenge (150 pullups, 500 situps, 500 pushups), a 50 MCQ paper based on the IBOS (Infantry Book of Standards), Weapons Technical Handling and a Claymore/Dipole setup station. Upon completion of the 5 stations we had to march back 4km back to the SITEST site where the fastest section wins. The field camp ended with a bang: McChickens and Canadian Pizza, prize presentation to the winners of the V-Trail (I think $200 dollars "BlackHawk!" branded backpacks from US each to the members of the winning section) and a formal presentation welcoming us to the 5SIR family, where we received the 5SIR belt and the 3rd Div formation patch. That was how they introduced the battalion's work ethic: Fast In and Fast Out (FIFO), work hard and play hard. This explains all the unexpected and lavish rewards like the food and prizes.
After which we had a mini block leave period and then we came back to receive our "Posting Order" to our companies. I think it was around the middle to end of January 2011. I found out that I was posted to Alpha Company, which kinda disappointed me (I wanted to be in Battalion HQ, out of this chiongsua business as my peers by this time of army life seemed to have mellowed out while for me no outlet was in sight...) What uplifted me was that I was given a temporary appointment of Marksmen 2IC in the company, of which I heard I would learn to use 2 sniper rifles which gladdened me by a bit. However on the same day which we received our posting, I was informed that I, along with 2 others from Alpha would be attached out immediately to Support Company. These 2 sudden changes made things quite surreal, and I was quite upset as I felt I was getting accustomed to being in Alpha, due to the nature of our UIP, where the people around me were mostly Alpha-bound and I felt slightly bonded to them. So I was ripped away, a vestige of Alpha, implanted into Delta (Support Company renamed). I did feel a sense of being unwanted from Alpha, because of my disposition (As usual I was a quiet observer who smiled and went along with things. Perhaps I was deemed to not have command potential. Which was good, since I was rather an unwilling commander and they seemed to have picked it up, I felt.)
And so, the first few weeks of February were spent cleaning up Delta Company. It was quite a shock, as I came to realise that all 4 companies in the battalion (A to D) were sorting out their own. It felt funny that previously when we were united in UIP, we were split up to perform different duties in our respective companies. From cleaning up and moving Alpha's accomodations, we were now moving Delta's (Felt used at this point). While doing all this we were reminded that our men would be coming in roughly a month's time. Time soon flew and before we knew it, it was 3 days to the arrival of our men. It was exciting to realise that we would have people under our command, yet trepidation lay ahead in what we were to do. We suddenly realised that, Hey, just how the heck do I control them? Would they be all gangsterly and disobedient? Our training in the institute totally did not prepare us in any way as how to deal with them.
Somehow we dealt with this and managed to normalise it into our daily routine. 2 months passed and PTP ended. We realised that the men were obedient, save a few bad eggs. They would be friendly and maybe talk a little, push the system and try to climb over our heads but that was it. A little punishment doled out (Sadly, not by me. I am considered quite slack hurhur) sorted things out. There were some people who were compulsive liars, some firestarters, crazy mental people and druggies even. By PTP's end we had weeded some and posted them out. Then we had BMT which by now we were used to. More or less the same as PTP except the training tempo was higher with more lessons. the 2 months for BMT passed moderately quick, and soon enough I was back in Alpha, experiencing a transitional culture shock from the shift in management in Delta to Alpha.
In hindsight, I felt my time in Delta was quite a good one. I enjoyed the management there. I didn't really gel with my men, as I didn't see the need to and I found them quite screwed up. Admittedly, I went through motions taking them men, just to gain progress. As long as the standards were met and my skin wasn't in hot soup, all was fine. I enjoyed the time in Delta due to the presence of my fellow peers. The community there was great and people there were cooperative. To summarise, we were all like-minded commanders somehow placed together to bring the men through PTP and BMT. I felt sad upon leaving and my time there is a definite indelible mark in my NS life.
This sorts of summarises the time period form January 2011 to June 2011. I'll continue on to AIT after I have completed it.