On nostalgia and Inspiration

To inspire: To stimulate to action; motivate

Sent a friend off to Tekong last Thursday for his two year NS stint (cuz of PTP la). As I walked through the Tekong ferry terminal, looking at my old company line and parade square, I could not help but remember all the good times in BMT (Yes I said good ;p)

I first enlisted on 18th February 2003 to BMTC school one Foxtrot Company. I remember the trepidation yet excitement to finally enter NS. (Weird I know, but all my friends were already enlisted by then so now I could finally join all of them heh.)

I remember the first PT session in Foxtrot involved our entire platoon in pumping position on the basketball court that had been heated by the noon sun. Our platoon sergeant and all the section commanders were there as well with us on the hot synthetic floor. I remember our PS leading us in doing 70 push ups and for every one that we recruits did, all the commanders would do five. When we finally recovered from pumping position, almost all of our palms were black from the heat of the floor. This pretty much set the tone of my first BMT.

For every training, whether it be a gym session or field camp, my platoon instructors were right by with us. When we put camo on, they would put camo on as well. (though with much more interesting patterns than our own three black stripes across the face heh.) During our simulated war games in field camp, our section commanders would be there beside us doing our fire-and-movement. When we went for BIC (or Battle inoculation Course for those who do not know), my section commander was with us crawling through the gravel and under barbed wire, often looking back and urging the stragglers to crawl faster. My PS issued to us a challenge at the start of BMT that if our entire platoon could do 3 times as many chin-ups as all the platoon commanders combined, they would do 100 push-ups for us. No easy feat considering that all of them could do 25 chin-ups on average and most of us were zero fighters (cannot do even 1 chin-up). Inspired by the challenge though, by the end of BMT, we had safely beaten the marker and got our 100 push-ups which they all did on the spot.

My OC in Foxtrot was a quite famous personality for those who went through BMT from end 2002 to about 2004 when he got posted to OCS as an instructor. I remember that before every route march he would come walking out of his office carrying this huge alice pack and a monkey ramp (which is used to hammer iron posts into the ground and weighs like another field pack). He would take his place at the head of the company and off we would go. Whenever we reached a rest point, the command to hold our rifles overhead would inevitably follow before we could halt. While the rest of us groaned, the OC would hold his monkey ramp ramrod straight above his head, exhorting us to push beyond our physical endurance.

At the end of the day, he made us feel like soldiers. Despite the simpleness and basic stuff that was taught, the OC never failed to impress upon us that ultimately, what we needed to break was our mindset. That even when our mind sometimes says "no more", if we did not push beyond the limits we thought we had, we would never realise our real potential. Often times we would be so "shack cannot think", but what I learned was that we often set limits that are much lower than what we can actually do.

What inspired me most was seeing our section commanders, platoon sergeant, platoon commander and OC there with us when we were training. They taught us and they taught with us. Crawling through the mud ahead of us, they led from the front, showing us how it was to be done.

Sometimes when I think about 12th Coy, I wonder then how to inspire the Boys to push beyond their limits. Sometimes I think, we trainers just need to lead from the front, teaching them as well as with them.