Kingdom Of Castle Peak

Was supposed to blog out an entry last week but had to book in to camp, so was a little rush and didn't managed to update!! Since I have another long weekend given to us this week to enjoy as I'm not involved in any Remedial Training(RT) on the weekends. So i shall backtrack to the field camp period about two weeks back?!

And so, I was at 'Sentosa Island' for 5 days which is considered a short number of days spent over there as it used to be 8 days straight! But now we will split to 3 days, den full 5 days so that both the instructors and the trainees are able to take a short break in between both events! Basically during this 5 days over there, i learn many things such as Jungle Survival, and also the new Urban Operations as well!!

But i guess ultimately the MOST TIRING event of it is that we had to complete our 16km route march at the end of the final phrase. Which lasted for about almost 18 hours straight, before heading back to Singapore. My detachment was supposed to head out and move from one place to another, but somehow the movement was screwed up due to the timing, and thus before we started walking the 16km march, we were fall behind many others while they all started their march already! Though all the instructor say everyone walked the same distance, but deep in my heart i know they were lying at that point cause we definitely walked the extra mile to complete everything mission!

And so, there were initially fears that our detachment couldn't complete the 16km in time due to time constraint, as if you didn't managed to complete it, you will be asked to carry on when you come back Singapore. But we pressed on and managed to reach earlier than the expected time, with still about one hour before departing from there!!

Fast forward to this week, and with the end of the field camp, basically there is nothing much left except IPPT and SOC. The IPPT is conducted every 2 days for failures to attempt and at least get a PASS, so those who have already gotten a PASS, SILVER or GOLD will become pacers for the 2.4km run. Truth to be told, most of them didn't really need pacers for 2.4km as they probably run faster than some of us, as they didn't make it due to the static stations like Standing Broad Jump & Chin up, the two biggest ALL-TIME killer station in IPPT, so people who haven't enlist yet, please go train up on this two static stations. As I already sealed a SILVER grade, so most of the morning's IPPT is just wait for the 2.4km run and become pacer for those taking the test within my platoon.

After IPPT, for those who achieve PASS and above will be required to take the SOC test. Just in case anyone is still wondering what is SOC, it's Standard Obstacle Course. While everyone in BMTC is doing the 950m SOC, we had to complete the 1.5km SOC test. And at our level of training, we were given 10m 29s to complete the entire course. The timing does seems like a very short time, but I managed to jog through every stage of the course without any injuries and completed with a timing of 9m 36s. Though i would like to say that the time taken by me is very good already, but the fastest timing clocked in by one fellow trainee is 6m 36s. 3 freaking minutes faster than me, but luckily it's probably just this handful of them clocking such insane timing though i know there is faster timing but it's just the beginning phrase of our army life, so I'm sure they will go on and break all the other records set by the senior batch! As for me, to complete to the required timing is more than enough for me already =D

And the week just passed us by, of course not forgetting Friday's IRON SOLDIER challenge!! The requirement to enter whether you want or not, is that you MUST clear your IPPT & SOC test, so in the end there was 93/228 people taking the challenge! We, in Commandos are proud to say that we are the ONLY ONE who does this challenge and so these are the segment of the challenge.

1. Run/Jog 100m to the KIM station, whereby there is a box of 10 items. You're to remember each item in order and location, given time to stay there is up till 1 min.

2. Run/Jog 600m to the SOC ground, and complete the entire course in clean fatigue.

3. Run/Jog 400m to the field, and head to any stations available and putting on Skeleton Battle Order(SBO), completing all 4 obstacles using the 4 types of crawl taught to you during Individual Field Craft(IFC) training, at the end of the final obstacle, do the grenade drill by successfully throwing it into the marked out space given. PS: You are to keep throwing until you hit the marked out space if you missed, you have unlimited throws for this station but do remember that the clock is ticking!!

4. Run/Jog 900m up to the MSVP building, and complete the Stripping/Assembling of weapon & the Immediate Action(IA) drills correctly!

5. Finally, Run/Jog 400m back to the starting point where you will be given a piece of paper for you to complete the KIM station, where you are required to marked out the exact location and items in order. PS: The time will only stop when you hand in the final KIM paper, so the faster you are able to complete, the better the timing. But not forgetting the penalty of each mistake you make, it will be 1 added minute to your overall score!!

I've listed out the program for the IRON SOLDIER challenge, so i shall leave it up to you to decide the difficulty of this challenge yourself! All in all, i completed the entire challenge with a timing of 23m 32s. And just when i thought i did okay only, after the result of the Champion and 1st Runner-Up, my Platoon Sergeant came over and talk to our whole Platoon saying that although we didn't managed to win anything but is proud that each and everyone of us managed to complete the entire course without any injuries, and to topped it off the 2nd Runner-Up timing was set by me. So when he said that, i believe in dis-believe that it is true, but when i went to check the scoreboard, my timing is indeed good enough to be the Company's 3rd OVERALL!! But, i guess everyone was just hit badly by the penalty given in the KIM station, as i managed to score a Perfect score without getting hit by the penalty! If only the penalty wasn't so great, i think the record timing set to complete the course wouldn't just be 21m 58s!

After that, we left camp and visited the Army Open House held in SAFTI, and booked out from there as well once we were done!

Alright, getting a little tired typing all this out, hopefully i didn't bore you readers too much with so much details, and so little pictures!! Soon there will pictures uploaded and posted up k!! Finally, with this long weekend, there is just 4 more days left in BMT, with the 24km route march and of course the Main Event of the week, which is the Passing Out Parade(POP). Marks the end of my lowly recruit(REC) life in army, and will be promoted to the rank of Private(PTE). While most people will start enjoy life in Private life onwards, I'm not too sure whether to say I'll be enjoy or another 3 more months of increased hell training as I'm no longer a Recruit, so the expectation will increase like crazy!! But whatever is it, there are many that been there, done that.. so why not me=)

Magnum.61