just got back today from 5 days on stinking tekong, doing enemy for the commando section leaders course ( more commonly known, for obvious reasons, as 'leaders' ).

i hate insects. they are the scum of the earth ( close fight with chinese teachers, though ). i thoroughly recommend that anyone with a big ego be sent to tekong. being reduced to nothing more than a giant feed-bag for insects ought to help. at the least he'll be covered in bites and scratching furiously for the next few days like i am, anyway.

going outfield does have its moments, though. like tossing blanks into gigantic...err, solid-fuel-fueled blazes.


on a related note, it'd be fun to hollow out a ciggie, empty a round or two's worth of gunpowder in it, then tamp down a little baccy on top for camouflage.

i guarantee it'd be much more effective than those "stop smoking" ads on tv.

bit hard to smoke without lips, after all.

and my method is far cheaper besides.


and taking revenge on insects with various instruments of torture that'd make the marquis de sade pat you on the head and send you to the top of the class. for example, dripping candles. or hot rocks. or flaming branches.

well, alright. so they're actually pretty primitive. but in our defence i would like to point out that electrical generators are hard to come by in the wilderness, insects don't have fingernails to shove bamboo splinters under, and have you ever tried giving an ant the ancient chinese water torture?

another fringe benny was that i got to practise my rambo impression yesterday. i was part of the ammo party ( a lot less happening than it sounds ) and we had a few hundred blanks extra at the end of the exercise. for reasons known only to saf accountants, any surplus ammo has to be expended - it can't be returned.


on a side note, my take on this is that the company making the ammo ( doubtless one of ST's offshoots ) is owned by the 'gahmen and each round sold is earning some men in white ( doctors, of course. or possibly church ministers. what were you thinking? )

a little extra towards the luxury yacht fund, 3 cents at a time.


but anyway, back to the rambo impression. so i snagged about 5 mags worth ( ~150 ) of ammo to blast away at full auto with. from the hip, of course. on a sidenote-only-nsguys-might-find-vaguely-interesting, i have a hell of a rifle. it never jams, even on auto with the barrel literally smoking.

then there's the odd smoke grenade and thunderflash to toss, too.


let me relate a rather amusing ( and rather disconcerting ) incident.

bushes: rustle rustle!
bushes: whisper whisper!
bushes: rustle rustle!
a leader crawls out.
leader: are you the enemy?
an enemy simulator: mmphgrlgys! ( hard to talk when you're laughing so hard )
leader: ok. i think we're supposed to attack you.
the leader crawls back into the undergrowth.



haresh, a leader, crawls toward the simulated enemy rebro site with binos in hand for recce. among other things, he needs to find out how many enemies are guarding it.
suresh, an enemy simulator, spots him in the darkness and raises his rifle to engage.
haresh: don't shoot! don't shoot! its me!
( haresh and suresh are good buddies. )
haresh: eh. how many of you enemies are there ah?