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JUMPING IN WITH BOTH FEET
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had been briefly interrupted for a review of the programme. After changing to shorts and
canvas shoes, the applicants were then trucked to Pasir Laba Camp where SAFTI was being
built from the ground up. Already in place, were some items of the famous standard obstacle
course, notably the notorious six-foot wall, Jacob’s Ladder, the high balance, the swinging
bridge and the ramp. Officers and NCOs, including some in white T-shirts, white shorts,
white socks and white canvas shoes who would later be recognised as Physical Training
Instructors or PTI, were standing by. The applicants were paired for sit-ups, one holding
down the legs of the other. Fading memories suggest that different groups were subjected
to different obstacles. Ajit Singh recalls having to do the swing bridge, the ‘window’ and
the ramp; others, the high balance, Jacob’s Ladder, the Tarzan Swing and the 6-foot wall.
But, the last was unlikely because the six-foot wall would have required formal instructions
before a first attempt. Probably, every group was in fact made to take the same obstacles.
Finally, everyone was formed up at a start-line just beyond the obstacle course and flagged
off for the three-mile run to the boatshed at the end of Pasir Laba Road. Along the snake-
like route, some remember signs showing remaining distances. At a hairpin bend skirting
Spot Height 175, later christened Mast Hill, several, either through desperation or initiative,
tried to cut across the re-entrant only to find themselves, to their deep chagrin, stranded in
dense undergrowth. At the finish line, timings were recorded and a water-point was available.
The military personnel in charge of the tests gave nothing away, however. It was probably
a policy decision aimed at keeping options open and avoiding awkward questions later on,
given the large number of applicants and confidential selection criteria priorities. No one
was told how he had performed or even that the structures coming up at Pasir Laba would
be the training site, but the groups were trucked back to Beach Road Camp from where they
dispersed.
If there were medical casualties during the physical fitness tests involving the 2,500 odd
applicants, there is no record of such. There was certainly no evidence of ambulances and
medical orderlies or intermediate water points for the run which was conducted around
11.00 a.m. or 4.00 p.m., depending on the schedule for the batch. Those who could not keep
up merely stopped running and walked to the end-point. No one had been told in advance
of the three-mile run, so they could not have prepared for it. Oddly enough, many took it
in their stride, as it were and the temptation was to conclude that the basic level of physical
fitness among youths at that time in Singapore, when physical fitness was not the craze it
is today, was quite high. It may have been due to the fact that lifestyle was naturally less
sedentary. But for others, it was a challenge to beat, as Tony Seng remembers:
“I started at the obstacle course and ran towards the boatshed.
I remember there were distance signs along the way denoting
how far more to go. Well, it was sheer determination to struggle
to the end then… legs “lembek” (
meaning
weak) and whatever food taken
at the Jurong Town Primary School was all thrown out at the boatshed….”