This week was fairly uneventful as it was our range week. The interesting thing is that you're not even taught how to shoot. Aim, hold breath and squeeze trigger. I guess its a testament to the SAR21 that most people passed on the first try. That or our gun savvy, First Person Shooter video game culture ingrained into most youths.
I'm typing this 10 minutes before book in, so pardon me if it seems rushed. The range was in the middle of tekong, far away from the lights of BMTC proper. The stars out there were magnificent. The forest blocked most of the light from the city, so there were an unimaginable amount of stars. It was almost like being in rural Thailand. The shooting was a two parter, the day shoot and night shoot. The day shoot went by quite fast, and you actually spend most of the time sitting around, waiting for the next detail to finish shooting. Thanks to my previous experience with the SAR21, I managed a perfect score in the day shoot and was one of the small number in the running for Company Best Shot. While waiting for the night shoot, we literally sat around for 3 hours, talking swapping stories and the like. Then the ninja van came. The ninja van is known as the ninja van to recruits and commanders alike, as it randomly shows up silently, bearing all kinds of forbidden unhealthy drinks and snacks to anyone with the coin to afford it. Luckily, our friendly sergeant advised us the day before and we spent an extremely happy hour gorging ourselves, totally ignoring our out-ration dinner :D
The night shoot was pretty good, and quite scary. It was dark. Not even a dark you can imagine in Singapore. Darkkkk dark. Darker than a wolf's mouth in winter. The range only had light sticks and dim red lights to guide us, and floating blue light sticks marked the commanders walking around. By the time the night was over, I missed two shots, taking me out of the running for Company Best Shot, but guaranteeing me a Marksman Award very handily. It was about 0000 Hours before the 5 tonners took us back to company line, and the admin and Routine Orders meant we slept around 0300 Hours. We woke up again at 0530 Hours on Saturday to get ready to book out. That night, you could tell who would die in the sleeplessness of field camp.
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