If my life in NS was a book, this would roughly be it. I say roughly because writing an actual book would take too long and fail to sell any copies, plus the fact that it would probably violate the Official Secrets Act several hundred times over and we all know how that would end.
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Prelude: pre-BMT – the post-IB euphoria and the mistakes made in my (lack of) preparations for NS life.
Part One: BMT – This would probably be primarily episodic though approximately chronological; confinement, fieldcamp, SIT test, range, IPPT, G2S1 (the recruits and the commanders), POP, and so forth.
Interlude: Block Leave – which went by too fast, as usual. Detailing of social events like soccer and meeting with various groups of people. Then a significant portion of it would be devoted to the events surrounding the e-Posting Order, the ignorance surrounding all of it, and how I tried to make sense of all the conflicting view aired online. 8-5? 1-on-1-off shift? RP Course tough or slack? Airbase? What to do with the free time?
Part Two: 2PDF – Clementi Camp and the daily commute back and forth, which was fruitfully spent reading on the train. The endless lectures, the anti-disturbance drill, search and arrest, PAC/VAC, the repeated visits to the e-mart, and the lunch breaks which were more often than not measured in terms of hours. I finished 10 books during those two weeks. The last chapter here would probably be the fateful first visit to PLAB and dreading what the next six weeks would be like.
Part Three: 20th FDC – the early weeks, the lessons, the punishments, the weapons, settling in and all that. EX. STEEL WALL and a section on surreal nights (see: 24km route march – the slow start, the 3 visits to Rocky Hill, the best 4 km ever, my commanders who were all sick yet fought through the pain to be with us all the way. But I digress.) And probably the customary section/chapter on the commanders and their quirks.
Part Four: OJT – lessons, checkpoint timings, shadowing on duty, learning ops, learning abbreviations, intro to frosties and cup noodles, getting nightsnacks again, and slowly coming to terms with the fact that I will be eating out of a box for the rest of my NS life. The various turnouts and how we conquered them; also section live firing which took 3 days and IPPT which was nice. And maybe most importantly, the reflections made during this period of time.
Part Five: Flight – what happens next?
