Hallo ihr alle da draussen...finally it's Friday again...after 2 days have dragged slowly by in camp...such a short time, but so much has happened, so much...
Thursday morning. SOC training for the Trade Course. Because mel and i were both still feeling so wasted from FIREBALL, we decided to heck the Life Run (aha!) and go down to see their SOC training instead. Forest was the Safety that day, but what a fateful day it would be for us all...one of the trainees from my course collapsed from heat stroke. I hauled ass down to the medical centre to see the MO slapping his face, shouting at him to stay with the medical crew (i.e. stay conscious) while frantically directing instructions to inject so much cc of some drugs...
Scenes from ER? Think again.
My trainee was laid on a stretcher placed precariously on top of a metal trolley.He was stripped down to his underwear. Ice packs were placed below his armpits and groin. A drip pack and an I/V tube lay haphazardly between his legs. A respirator placed above his nose and mouth. Blood flowing from wounds caused by the natural tensioning of his muscles, which blocked injection needles...
Implied meaning? He's lost all voluntary muscular control...all is a simple action-reaction cycle...
Tourniquets tied around his calves. Hooked up to sensors measuring his heart rate and respiration. But what i will never forget is how scared he was. A hand, gripping that of the MO's tightly, never letting go. Words like 'adrenaline, hospitalisation, emergency, fuck...' did you know how that felt? I was at such a loss as i saw the ambulance race off.
Saw something like that happen to an OCS buddy of mine, guanqing during ST I in Tekong. Shivering body. Losing total control. Trying to say his fucking name but failing miserably. LTA K² shouting at him. Julius already in tears. One very angry Delta Platoon 3. How a close brush with death changes everything, shaking what you always believed in, making grown men despair. I told the trainees that he wasn't in a good shape, but he was being taken care of - only to have some warrant tell me that it wasn't the right thing to say. Bollocks. They deserve to know everything. They are JC men - men who are more than able to comprehend what i am telling them. I know it will affect their morale - but we can't tell them just that the SAF and Uncle Lee are taking care of your buddies. What's going to happen outfield when someone is shot stone cold dead? Talk about a morale booster. That's why i never believed in hiding information from my men once i know for sure what happened.
So, sorry, boss, sir, but...no can't do.
I think i will go to the hospital tomorrow to pay a visit. He still lies in the ICU...
The Trade Course also wants to pay him a visit - Course 1, TA/Radar, of course...and i am proud of those guys. For all the fight and spirit they've shown, even if he wasn't one of the fitter ones, he never gave up during FIREBALL or deployment drill. And the entire course grew closer over the deployment drills, tekaning, as well as FIREBALL. They came to take each other as people they could count on, people they simply had to count on. A trainee came up to me and told me that he didn't mind being punished as an entire course because that showed real brotherhood. Quite unlike the other course, where people who wanted to slack simply fell out from EAGLE. My course did have people who fell out, but they always wanted to join back. Most simply gritted their teeth and carried on.
Do my men respect me for all i've done? Sometimes i feel that i seem to be too polarised as a person - outside of training, i am relatively informal to them...i laugh, smile and joke. But during training, lessons, or briefings, i am dead serious. Ask them when they go outfield. The jokes stop when the deployment begins...although kuek and derek can see something funny always but well they're them, they're specs already...i'd rather they hate me but respect me and be a close united course than like me but climb over my head and be selfishly me-myself-and-fucking-i.
I don't know. Don't ask me - ask them.
posted by quatscherei @ 00:00
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