This week, the only thing worth mentioning was my section live firing. Basically, we attacked wooden targets with live rounds in the forest. At the end of it all, my target had no face left after i've used up all my ammo (hehehe). It was scary at first, because we were using live rounds in simulated combat, there is always a possibilty that a stray shot from one of my friends would head towards my direction. Thankfully, nothing of that sort happened. All we needed to do was point our rifles forward at our targets. When everything was done, we all came out with bruised knees and elbows because of all the proning and crawling on the rocks. But boy was it fun! On a side note, Dad sent this to me which i found quite interesting: Mars will be spectacular in August: We will never see this again in our lifetime We will never see this again in our lifetime ... nor will the people of the next 50-to-1,000 Life Times! Mars, the Red Planet, is about to be spectacular! This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again. The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification ... Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of August it will rise in the east at 10 pm and reach its azimuth at about 3 am. By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 am. That's pretty convenient to see something that no human being has seen in recorded history. So, mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month. Share this with your children and grandchildren!

 

But before this, it was an OCS tradition to turn out Officer Cadets before they are initiated. So in the morning at 4:30am, a loud voice yelled down the hallway, ordering us to change into our PT attire and fall in downstairs. As i ran down, imagine my surprise when i saw not instructors but senior Officer Cadets ordering us to do push-ups. Anyway, after getting our second strip, we had breakfast (finally!) and about one hour afterwards, Dad arrived.

It was good to see him again after seven months, and he looked a bit older than i last remembered, although he's still the same quiet person. That is why i reckoned one hour is more than enough. We sat down at the local canteen and talked, mostly about army life and how much the army has changed back in his days. I also found out that he was an OCS instructor when he was in NS, something which was new to me. My dad doesn't really talk much; he's the type of person that talks only when necessary. So it didn't surpise me at all when after 15 minutes of talking, we had nothing to talk about. Well, there's nothing much i can do about this, although i do hope that one day Dad and i can talk like best friends.

Anyways, the next few days were spent learning how to handle 4 different kinds of weapons (which i can't write about due to security reasons) although i can say that i learnt how to use the SAR21, a Singapore-made assault rifle. It's quite similar to the Aug (counterstrike gun => 4 4) and very accurate.

 

That's all the time we have for the moment folks, stay tune for more later.