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BARRACK LIFE DURING SECTION TRAINING
192
TEN
Wednesdays a sports and recreation day was broached. But, having links to NAAFI—the
(British) Navy, Army, Air Force Institute—it would have been easy to obtain the up-to-
date movies that were shown in British camps. Perhaps, at the time, there had been some
reservations about showing films which had not been cleared by the Singapore Film Censor
Board, though they were shown in 1 and 2 SIR and later in SAF units until some time in the
mid-1970s. On the other hand, it may have been assumed that if there was free time, the
trainees would rather leave camp at night than see a movie. Or, they could always visit the
canteen for TV.
IV. MINDING THE MINDERS
V. THE PARTING OF WAYS
Life in the platoons depended very much on the personalities of the instructors, and in
particular, the Platoon Commanders. The overall experience of trainees was that they were
under pressure primarily because of the training schedule. There were administrative chores
of one kind or another that were imposed by the Platoon Sergeants which further ate into their
time, but once everything was squared away, there were intervals of freedom. For the most
part, the officers of both companies remained in their appointments throughout the basic
and section leader phase. Though there was no serious incidence of unreasonable behaviour
on the part of the officers, some earned reputations for being more volatile and demanding
than others, while others earned reputations for being a soft touch and fraternising with the
trainees. This was so for NCOs as well, ‘B’ Company being in particular, the fiefdom of NCO
section instructors. Among the officers, a couple of junior subalterns (Lieutenants/Second
Lieutenants) in ‘A’ Company were regarded as temperamental and capable of ‘blowing up’
when things went wrong or, they were crossed or otherwise discomfited. OC ‘A’ Company,
MAJ John Morrice was seen as caring but having a short fuse, while his 2I/C, CPT Daljeet
Singh was believed to be fatherly, easy-going and friendly. In ‘B’ Company, both the OC,
MAJ T.E. Ricketts and his 2I/C CPT James Teo (later Lieutenant-Colonel, Director, SAFTI)
were seen as strict, tough and a little aloof, while Platoon Commander, Platoon 5, CPT
Edward Chan, who tragically died in a traffic accident in 1988 after leaving the SAF as a
Lieutenant-Colonel, was renowned as a martinet, who never smiled. His 2I/C, LTA Yussof
Talib was suave and self-confident and the initial instructor for demolitions. Platoon 5 was
always ‘on the ball.’ In spite of everything however, no trainee was subjected to any formal
disciplinary proceedings before a junior or senior disciplinary officer during section training.
As the 98 days of section training wore on, the impending end of section training began to
assert itself in the form of tentative rehearsals for the passing out parade. Still, however,
the trainees did not show any nervousness about their immediate future after the end of
section training. SAFTI had so far remained silent about the next phase of training and