ORD LOH!

[I typed this out on 230209.]

And yes, I have reached [and passed] my Operationally Ready Date; is officially a NSman now. Unlike my peers in various fighting battalions where ORD is celebrated with parades cheered by families and friends, my ORD was more like a chore for me to complete. Nearing my day of freedom I wrote my transcript and testimonial and submitted them, got various signatures for my clearance, got my dental and medical checkup done, and handed over everything to my understudies.

On the day itself I proceeded to S1 Branch to retrieve the pink IC which had eluded me for the past 1 year 10 months, and my Certificate of Service. Before taking home the remaining personal belongings, I recorded my final book-out in the book-in/book-out book, where the unspoken rule was that we would scribble anything we wanted on the book under the columns for our next book in date and time.

My consolation was that I walked out of the gate with three other friends, at least better than my bed buddy who ORDed alone a few days back. Haha. And as the day itself was a normal working day for everyone else, we were still able to see all our friends, though this time with a little 难分难舍。 Haha.

When people talked about National Service, most would talk about how they bashed through thick vegetation, leopard-crawled through mud, or climbed up steep slopes. For me, however, National Service had been about servers, computers, routers and LAN cables. Doesn't really fit into the picture of 'army' huh? Haha.

On the other hand I was still very much a soldier; defending the nation [or so they say] was the very reason why I was conscripted in the first place. I had my fair share of firing weapons, sitting in tracked vehicles [not every vehicle that has tracks is called a tank! Haha.], and close combat fighting.

The difference came in when I was out in the field. Instead of running from tree to tree taking down 'enemies', my peers and I set up systems within the shortest time possible.

Because of my vocation and appointment, I have learnt quite a fair bit about networking. The servers, routers and the expensive softwares used are luxuries that I have never touched before, coming from a junior college where A Level Computing means C++ programming haha.

My 1 year 10 month stint brought me out of my previous comfort zone of education; back in school the closest one could get to having bad experiences with people was during projects when some people seemed to do everything while some never did any work at all. Coming to army that was rather mild. I began to meet people whom made one wonder how they could have survived for so long.

[Out in the field where everyone slept on cold hard benches in the training shed there existed one who asked "WHERE IS MY PILLOW AND BLANKET!" while sitting on his safari bed.]

There are too many for me to recall now anyway; have already forgotten all the bad experiences. If I try to recall and write all that I can write a book.

To be fair I met many good friends in the army too [I don't think there's any other place where one could start hugging another after knowing each other just three days ago LOL]; last time in school friends usually meant those of the same age, those older were considered seniors, those younger, juniors. But in NS, rank, and not age, decided who my friends were. In the bunk I slept in, I was one of the youngest among all.

I met people with backgrounds that were very colourful. I met people who had went to jail, to boy's homes, to detention barracks, to exotic countries like Mexico and Turkey. I met people who had received public caning in school before, people who had stolen before, people who smoked like there was no tomorrow; met a swimmer who once held local youth records, and even a Taoist priest.

Coming from schools where everyone around me never did anything more than skipping lessons and cheating in tests, each of them had an interesting story to share.

[On a side-note, I think I have breathed in enough cigarette smoke to shorten my life by two years.]

And thanks to NS, I the mountain tortoise finally had the chance to fly in an aircraft for the first time in my life! I went to 2 countries for 3 separate events on a total of 8 flights; my 23+49=72 days in Australia and ~3 weeks in Taiwan will be major unforgettable highlights of my life; if my life had anything worth highlighting in the first place haha.

All in all, National Service had been a memorable experience. I am glad I'm finally out of there, having tolerated the lack of freedom, but kind of sad that I have to leave the friends I have literally lived with for the past year. After going through NS, my conclusion will be: Defend the country, definitely yes. Do National Service, definitely no.