ok another story.
Just prior to ROD we were again 'enemy' for another exercise.
During that year we were best company in 4SIR so we alus kanna
arrow for every fuch thing. At brigade level we were the most lao
chiao unit for 3SIB followed by 3SIR(which in those days was next
to 4SIR camp).
The exercise was a conditioning for 3SIR as they would depart for
brunei for their BTECH. 3 SIR was about 1.5 years old was second
most lao chiao unit.
For this exercise the 'enemy' contigent would be 2 SIR which had
just turned operational. Attached to 2 SIR was "BRAVO" coy from
4SIR(which was us).
Anyway the exercise was as follows.
Con area in tekong for 4 days. Scout elements from 3SIR would recce
suspect enemy areas for 2 days marking all the areas, then main
body from 3SIR would do a night 'forced march' on evening of third
day to enemy base. On 4th day, do a dawn attack to clear enemy
concentration areas then exercise cut. As an added measure, the
newly posted brigade commander would follow 3SIR because 4SIR
previous BTECH got recon3
So for this exercise 3SIR cannot be seen to cockup.
Anyway first 3 days in the con area nothing much it was to be our
last exercise so everybody was pretty "mood" leow so field
discipline be damn. Supposed to dig shell scrape just lay white
tape. Most of the time like all respectable infantry men, we would
climb coconut trees, look for rambutan or just play with fire. At
night everyone build campfire so bright that could be seen from
miles around.
But on the morning of 4th day kanna contacted so as usual put up a
show. Started firing, I was with 2 other guys & we decided
since last exercise we would expend every damn thing. As usual the
guys from 3SIR did the classic MTC drill but just as they were
doing the final charge the guy next to me shouted "retreat" and
started running backwards. I looked at the other guy bewildered
then we too started retreating. Next thing you know the whole
bladdy company started running away. Normally anybody from SIR unit
knows there is no retreat in such exercise, the guys from 3SIR
looked @ their OC, their OC looked at brigade commander and he just
said 'exercise continue' So 3SIR lan lan.
Why we retreated? I guess we feeling "mood" and just wanted to
tekan.
We retreated about 1 click away and waited. Again they came did the
MTC drill and just abt to charge again but this time everybody
retreated and laughing at the same time. This time we could hear
curses at us from behind.
Brigade commander says exercise continue but no more
retreats.
So again we settled abt almost 1 click away again. This time
MTC+charge, you could see their charge was more of a walk then run,
but finally all the 'enemy' cleared.
Later as we were walking along the road back to the tonners the
guys from 3SIR jeered at us calling us 'recruits' & taunted us
saying things like "ROD loh, 6 more months ROD loh"
They thought we were really from 2SIR. The whole company just
laughed.
