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OFFICER CADET TRAINING
249
ELEVEN
IV. A REALLY HARD GRIND
For all its limitations, Red Beret achieved its prime objectives in the majority
of cases. For a start, nearly every cadet completed the gruelling slog from his
start point to Chua Chu Kang, a distance of nearly 30 kilometres, in about
19 hours. They seemed to have managed to evade detection—or maybe the
Controllers were being kind—although several had apparently ended up
forfeiting their boots for canvas shoes, having to clean their rifles after they
had been deliberately dirtied by Controllers and being dropped back at the last
checkpoint to redo the leg. They braved many hazards, some actually risked
being shot by installation security guards for scaling the chain-link fence and
dashing across the runway of Singapore’s International Airport at Paya Lebar;
some swam or used improvised floatation to cross arms of the reservoirs at
Mandai and Seletar to gain time; many were effectively lost but just kept moving
in the general direction of SAFTI until they got some inkling of where they
were or until they stumbled on a colleague or a checkpoint; the majority of each
platoon eventually rendezvoused at the objective and carried out an assault of
sorts on one of the highest hill features in Singapore. And, nearly all found out
why ‘drawers, muslin’ are issued to infantrymen as the preferred under-shorts.
By all accounts the most trying phase of the exercise was the tactical withdrawal
after the assault on the objective. The participants reorganised on the hill under
the command of the nominated platoon commander and moved out on foot
in the middle of the night over a distance of about eight kilometres to SAFTI.
Nearly every cadet had severe blisters on his upper thighs with the incessant
rubbing of sweat-soaked trouser seams and on both feet with socks that had
worn through long before reaching the objective. Each cadet finally staggered
into ‘A’ Company square around midnight individually or in twos and threes,
grudging every additional step he had to take, to collapse into his bunk after
a night snack and wake up well after the sun had risen the next day. For each
of the exercise platoons, what was left of the forenoon was spent cleaning
weapons, packs, and other personal kit, while several reported to the Medical
Perhaps, all is fair in love and war after all. But, in so far as ending up in groups
is concerned, it is hard to be judgmental, given the limitations on the ground:
it would have been superhuman for a cadet to deliberately detach himself and
take a long way round to avoid his fellow cadets, given the time limit placed on
reaching the objective and the relatively narrow routes of advance allowed them.
It was also impossible not to acknowledge that the value systems of later years
in the Officer Cadet School were not a major issue then. Certainly, they were
not inculcated in any formal sense, whereas not reaching the objective—Cow
Dung Hill—within the prescribed time, would have been to fail to accomplish
the mission, an option that was actively discouraged throughout the course.