Hello,
I don’t know about most people, I always have a love hate relationship with ICT aka in-camp training. I remember during my NSF days, I am one of those who likes the regimental lifestyle and who might have a higher chance to sign-on as an army regular, but I always preferred to adopt a low-profile so I don’t get recognised as being too “garang”. Yes too garang is bad, last thing I want is kena ostracised, important thing is to follow the majority imo.
I wasn’t especially fit so I enlisted early and me being me I’m not very sociable, but life inside wasn’t too bad for me because all I have to do is just follow instructions of our instructors. As time pass I of course got to know my bunk mates, platoon mates, course mates and eventually everyone in my company in one wa or another. Lucky for me in my unit everyone stayed together for the 2 years unlike some other units where u might get posted anywhere individually after BMT.
Anyways now I just completed my 6th ICT and I only have 2 more to go, so I feel sibei emo.. more of that emo-ness next time.. As to why I didn’t sign on, the sole major reason is that… I.. I can’t swim… Whenever I say this everyone will face palm, they would all say “can’t you learn?” Or “you’re in this unit and you say you can’t swim???” Ok lah I know how to swim but I’m just scared…
Swimming is my nemesis.
My parents did send me to swimming classes when I was young, but I’m kind of a born ‘sinker’. No matter what I do I will sink. I didn’t know how to trap water as wso when the instructor put me in the deeper section of the pool I get very scared. I nearly drown myself like 3 or 4 times before I got too afraid to go back to class. From then on I got a mild phobia of swimming in deep areas. It got especially bad when I go to army and had to be saved by my instructors a few times. I remember the bespectacled PTI and the then 1SG Chandra saved my arse back then. After those events I dreaded swimming sessions. My best friend is my life vest that we were issued during our detachment ops training and I will chao geng when we need to do anything associated with swimming (without my life vest..)
I don’t know what kind of reputation I have, but I usually take most training seriously, everything except swimming. When anyone ask me to swim, I become ‘ah gua’. Whenever we go outfield if we need to swim across rivers etc I would be the first to ask: “Can we inflate our life vest? Please?” LOL. So every ICT there will always, always without fail, always have biathlon training in the schedule. ALWAYS. I mean, WHY CAN’T WE DO SOMETHING ELSE LIKE CLIMB MOUNTAIN??
I do enjoy swimming in a way yeah.. I still remember the time we were doing our zodiac boat capsize drill training. We were in the water at the jetty with our boat upside down. It was super fun, with our trusty life vest of course. Me swimming around floating effortlessly in the water. And the river crossing training in Brunei trying to swim across the river but kena swept downstream a little, it was fun too! With my life vest. Keywords: life vest……
I never got to overcome this even till this day, but nevermind!! I only have 2 more ICTs before I’m done! I will eventually learn to swim lah.. soon ok? Claire’s been bugging me to learn anyways, so if I don’t learn she will bug me to my grave sial. A scary thought.
I’m not proud to say that I never did the tower jump (always in the training schedule damn it) at all in my entire NSF and till my last NSmen cycle. I was lucky the coastal swim was scrapped during my time due to safety issue. I was lucky to escape the radar about not being able to swim (super weak swimmer). But yalah thats how it is lah when it comes to me and swimming, I rather chao geng then swim, ask me to do anything except swimming. I do anything except swimming. I can’t emphasise this point enough. Anything but swimming…
CFC Simon-no-swimming.
