(Backdated post)

The first, and most probably last live hand grenade flew from my hand today and exploded.

We were given a tour of the grenade range when we arrived at the grounds, and proceeded to throw a practice grenade followed by a live one.

The pin on the practice grenade was a stubborn one. With all my strength, I couldn’t twist it out if my life depended on it, and had to hand it off the annoyed sergeant beside me who got it out on my behalf, and then passed it back to me. I’ve to admit that handing a grenade, even a practice one with barely any explosives to another person with the pin already out is rather scary business.

Fortunately, the pin came off without much of a struggle on my actual throw. I pulled the pin out, handed the pin to my platoon commander who was standing beside me, got that ‘okay’ tap on my shoulder, flung it and dived behind the protection of the grenade bay right away. I wasn’t scared, but once again, military equipment is always provided for by the lowest bidder, so it was a “boy, I’m glad to have got rid of that” feeling the moment it left my hand.

(Backdated post, excerpt from diary)

Guard duty came down on me and my buddy unexpectedly today.

I’m one of the rare ones that have bene looking forward to doing guard duty with enthusiasm rather than distaste as it would be a break from the routine life of doing physical training daily. Also, I wanted to be able to put a rest to the so-called “paranormal sightings” that have became urban legends around here.

If I recall right, a total of sixteen people from my company had guard duty on the same day. We had an early dinner and were taught the parade skills required for the flag lowering ceremony since it’s the guard duty personnel that graces it. I was nervous because I’ve always been poor at parading. Fortunately, our two guard commanders were rather nice fellows and basically told us to just follow the person standing in front, who in turn was following yet another. Mistakes were made, but thankfully, no verbal abuse was dished out.

We were then marched off to the guard house where roles were assigned. The pair of us took the prowler role, which involves patrolling around rather than the sentry role, which involves being rooted the same spot for the duration of the shift. Each shift lasted two hours, followed by four hours of rest, and three pairs of guards rotated shifts.

Since I had the third shift, the pair of us headed up to the guard house bunk for a rest first. My oh my, the bunk was in an abysmal state. The place was a congregation of dust and the wall lined with cobwebs. It also felt like a furnace in there which left me unable to sleep. To add insult to injury, there was a dead cockroach near my bed, with an army of ants busy devouring it. It was the modern version of a forlorn inn.

My first shift started at 1130h. The first round around the camp was entrilling. As a recruit, I’ve never had this much freedom before. To be walking around at night without supervision – this was new! Between the pair of us we were supposed to keep a distance of 1 meter to 3 meters. This was perfect for me as I get to enjoy a rather solitary walk, something that was much needed which I have not had in a very long time. The walk was peaceful. There were no interruptions from any source, be it living or dead.

The second round however, was a lot less exciting. My feet and neck were sore by then and I just wanted to get over it as soon as possible. The euphoria of doing something new had worn off.

Once the shift was over, the pair of us went back up into the guardroom bunk. This time, despite the poor condition of the room, sleep came quickly due to exhaustion, until four hours later when the second shift begun, and then it was breakfast, and I was back at my company’s barracks, where another round of sleep soon came. The bed at company line never felt this good.