hey it’s over. i’ve finally emerged from the month long nightmare that is the guards conversion course.
would have like to have posted some dramatic picture of our graduation ceremony, but can’t get my hands on any of the pictures right now. they should be nice, i expect, since i’m standing front and centre of the contingent. but no worries there, should be able to get them soon and post them so you can all see me in all my pride and glory at the finish line.
it’s been a month long week. everyday stretched out to feel like a week in itself. we road on some cool insertion boat on monday and i can barely recall the event already. i look back and think of it as something that happened last week, or the week before. and it really amazes me to remember that it was this week, that it happened barely seven days ago. and i think that truly epitomizes just how long the past seven days have been for me.
i’ll go out on a limb and say that the start and the end of summex were to say the least, very anti-climatic. but let’s start at the beginning. i think all of us were nursing our own little version of the nightmare of how summex would actually begin. the version swimming around in my mind was something like this. on schedule, summex begins on tuesday. and so i think to myself that they’re not going to let us off that easily. i had that sneaking suspicion that something was afoot, that they were going to turn us out monday night and ship us off before we even wake up. but no, it didn’t pan out as i had imagine. in fact, it didn’t even begin on tuesday morning. so we were all rushing around, madly preparing equipment so we could go the moment the cadres began their yelling when i overheard one of them saying move out timing was in the evening. i was completely “HUH!? SO LATE?” and so it turned out we had an unexpected bonus of a late move out timing and the day was spent mostly resting up outside the armskote.
but of course, the nightmare was bound to begin sooner or later. i must say someone must’ve been watching out for us, because for the first time ever, the weather was on the side of the trainees. heavy rain saved us the trouble of an actual heli-insertion. anyway, by that time, i think inside i was pretty petrified. my stomach had tied itself in a couple of knots and my mind faded to a blank. most of my initial thoughts were pretty much along the lines of oh my god, i’m here. it’s starting.. or shit, i don’t know how i’m going to survive this. so yeah, i shaken up well and good. the moment that represented the start, for me at least, was when they stopped the tonner after we just loaded and told us to get out, you’re all walking there. and i know it’s begun. i feel the curtain of rain drench my face as i jumped off, the first splash of mud and water as i dropped to my knee, the weight of my gpmg as i rested it on my knee. i knew right there and then. this is the real shit now, ryan.
just because the start and end were anti-climatic doesn’t mean that the middle was going to be a stroll in a park either. i knew what i was in for. i knew they drew out a thousand thunderflashes to send us scattering a thousand times. this wasn’t no field camp where they’re gonna tell you alright its night time, take a rest and wake up by seven. it was non-stop hell, one mission to another and then another until you become numb to the thoughts of another mission. the only reprieves we got were the momentary breaks for logistics and planning that we treasured by dropping into sleep deeper than any other sleep you can imagine. i remember being sprawled eagle on the grass with my helmet as a cushion and i slept for ten minutes, but to me there and then it was the best ten minutes of my life.
the toughest part for me was always going to be the weight. i think my size and weight pretty much encapsulates everything there has to be said about how much i could tank on my back. but at least i know i’m not the one who smiles inside when others do his share of the work. most of the time, i’m pretty pissed at myself when my shoulders begin to strain and burn at the shoulders. i look at people who carry like ten kilos of weight more than the weight killing me, and they just march on without so much a grimace on their faces. there i am grunting and dying from exhaustion, and all i can feel is jealousy that i can’t do what they’re doing. by the way, i would like to take a moment to show my admiration for the recce specs and the strength they showed. i think the weights they shoulder were inhuman and unimaginable heavy and yet they did it without complaint. i have no idea how they did it but they did.
so i suffered through four days of pain and sleep deprivation, but where there’s a start, there is an end. before long, friday evening had come and time to march back to camp had come. it’s the moment i painted in my head where none of the pain would matter anymore, because everything was going to the end. it’s probably the only moment i made myself stop worrying about others, and focus almost entirely on myself. i passed whatever weight i knew i couldn’t handle to people who could. it was a horrible, guilty feeling but the truth is that it was going to kill me if i tried. so we marched back as a course, and there was nothing beautiful to see. it was none of the sort of romantic notions our minds regale us with when we think of graduation marches. we were just soldiers marching at times a deathly silent march, punctuated by brief moments of annoyance at one another, or attempts at humor. most songs attempted died before they began. then we reach east coast park and sit down in the trees as a respite from the brewing storm, when i turn to hari and declared, “oh my god, this is it. we’re here haha, we’re guardsmen.” and that’s truth, it hit me right there and then that i’d done it.
the rest was a blur. they tried to play with us but there’s only so much to do when we know we’re at the end. we were fucking ready for anything they wanted to throw our way. so much to the extent that when we first formed up in the parade, the murmurs warning everyone that the parade was a decoy seemed almost redundant. like we all knew that there was more in stall, but amazingly there wasn’t. jing hong just stood up and announced that the course was done and the parade was next. just like that it ended and i could hardly believe what was happening.
the parade itself was a challenge. well if you wanted to look good like guardsmen, then it was a challenge because we stood there in full battle order the whole time. as the cgo walked down the line and gave out our berets, you could here the grunts of exertion as the whole course were steeling their minds against the constant load on their backs. the presentation felt like an eternity of torture but with a final rousing guards creed to the applause of the small crowd, we became guardsmen. and immediately bent over to shift the weight off our shoulders.
well that’s my guards conversion story, another chapter in my life closed. i can only say that the relief that coursed through me that day was overwhelming because i knew that the suffering was officially over and i was a free soldier again.
