Well what do you know? It's ANOTHER bi-annual (or so it seems to be
becoming) entry. Hahha. Kinda been putting off this entry simply
because of the enormous number of things to talk about
since...May?! And of course yesterday was my birthday so we need
something in here to mark it (aka gigantic post). Well shall we
get started then?  Entry #1 of many more
ROC a.k.a. Republic of China a.k.a. Taiwan
Our camp in Taiwan
Our platoon squashed into a room
Date: Sometime in April
Probably the most fun of the two overseas exercises that we embarked
on during OCS training. Essentially we go there to..."borrow
their mountains" simply because Singapore has none. Our
accomodation interestingly enough is one of the
few Singapore-run military camp from which overseas army
training takes place. The training there is basically split into
two main phases: navigation and missions.
Part 1 - Navigation
For navigation, oh joy of joys, we get to be the guinea pigs for the
all new navigation package that OCS is thinking about implementing for
future batches of cadets. Previously the navigation exercise was
named "Red Beret" and it consisted of basically a long but quite easily
manageable route through the mountains from start point to end
point. On this trail cadets could get through by sticking to
trails and sometimes roads (although you're not supposed to) for most
of the journey. Listening to senior cadets, it was supposed to be
quite fun because of the oh-so-famous NINJA VAN. They seem quite
a common site where you would see a van parked on the roadside with all
sorts of cooked snacks simmering on the grill. Basically all the
burners and cooking utensils are stored inside the van and wherever
they stop, they simply open up the doors and there you go. It so
happens that because the SAF has been sending troops over to Taiwan so
regularly, a couple of vans have gotten the knack for being able to
scout our training grounds and pop up out of the middle of nowhere
ready to sell their snacks to the troops.
The ninja van parks itself at one of the endpoints...and we aren't allowed to buy from it!! Argh...
So troops taking part on the old "Red Beret" exercise would have
many many opportunities for these illegal (but who really gives a shit
right?) snack stops on their way to their endpoint.
THEN, some people had the bright idea of telling OCS that Red Beret
wasn't navigationally challenging enough and lo and behold! In
comes the -new- Red Beret and along with it commander OCS Colonol Peng.
Basically this is how they do it. They find a nice mountainous
region on the map. They plot a start point. They plot a end
point. You fill in the rest. Ok maybe not so bad, they go through
the liberty of plotting out a route for you that you would have drawn
out yourself anyways. And what's in between those two points?
Mountain after VIRGIN mountain. "Nobody has been there before or
taken those routes before!" Obviously commander OCS' excitement is our nightmare.
Well let the nightmare begin, Enter "Green Beret"
Green Beret was put in place because this would be our and
OCS' first time attempting this kind of navigation exercise so
they decided to stick an instructor with each of the navigation
groups. Each group had about 6 people. The problem was,
this was the first time for many of our instructors too!
Yea...see a problem there? 
Anyways, so off we go after being dropped at our start point.
We are at the base of one of the mountains. Ok, we are here
*point to a dot on the map*, we need to get to the top of this mountain
to get to the next one and to the next one. The spur is this
direction. *Sets the compass*. Bashers to the front!
*Me and another guy go to the front of the group, armed with machete
and clippers*. Ok go this way! *shoots forth a imaginary line
with his arm*.
And so it goes. The vegetation at the beginning isn't that
thick, as in you can actually see more than 10 meters in front of
you. But take note that we -are- carrying our full battle order
(minus the rifle and helmet but add a sleeping bag). So rest
stops along the way up the first mountain is a must; not only for our
legs but more importantly for our shoulders which have a tendency to
cut off circulation to the arms under the weight.
Taking a break
Yep vegetation not that bad yet
Along the way we manage to bump into another group who
coincidentally happen to be heading to a checkpoint which will take
them along the same route as us for most of the way. We figure 2
instructors are better than one so we transform ourselves into a small
convoy of 13 some cadets trudging along the taiwan ridgelines.
Take note that along the whole way we almost NEVER used even a
path. It would basically be "ok the ridgeline and the top of the
mountain should be this way, lets go" and you'd be faced with these
huge thick bushes and vines that you'd have to cut your way
through. Yea, the back people have it easy.
Heh, for those that have seen Band of Brothers....
So the story continues, our position on the map moving ever so
slowly across the terrain (we'd jump for joy every time we would cross
a grid line, marking 1 km intervals...that would take anywhere up to 3
or 4 hours). Near the end of the day, we found ourselves in
a pretty tight situation. Darkness was setting in and we still
hadn't found a harbouring (sleeping) location. We planned to
reach the peak of the mountain that we were climbing and sleep there
but all hopes for that was instantly dashed when we found the
vegetation at the top was just as thick as the vegetation going up. So
sleeping there was out of the question. Nearest possible
harbouring location: a road some 300 meters downhill. From
point to point the road shoulders sometimes include a large
portion of grass so that was our plan.
Interestingly enough there's one of these planted on the peak of every major mountain in the area
By the time was started our descent almost all light was gone.
Without the typical singaporean city lights or the moon to light the
sky, we were thrown into pitch black. Usually you NEVER want to
bash through the vegetation at night simply because it was too easy to
become disorientated and movement became very difficult. But this
time we didn't really have a choice did we? But as we eventually
found out, what look like a relatively uniform descent on the map
turned into a series of spurs that we had to cut across on the way
down. So essentially we would be going up and down, up, down, up
down, while the GPS claimed that we were always hovering at 200 meters
from our end point. Throw in the wonderful frigid mountain rain
and the painstaking process of having to cut through literally walls of
vines (yes, by yours truly) simply to move forward for several meters
only to meet another wall, and you have a recipe that would demoralize
anyone. Oh yes, and throw in the time that we wasted looking for
one of our lost clippers and the time it took to rescue this guy the
slipped/slid/fell down a ravine that went down a good 5 or 6 meters.
From sunset we bashed for a good 4 and a half hours, to move 300
meters. Oh the joy to see black asphalt again! Needless to
say, we soon after collapsed on the side of the road and slept till the
morning.
Basically that was the highlight of Green Beret. The next day
we found out we had only a little way more to go to reach the endpoint
and finished the exercise around noon.
Ohhhhyeeeeaaah, the end point in all it's glory. (Note the insane terrain, the yellowish line is the route)
Red Beret, turns out to be almost the same as Green Beret, except
you are given different start and endpoints. Almost the same
Green Beret, except we got lost a lot more. Stumbled into entire
knolls that didn't make it onto the map, went off the route only to
have to turn around and go back the way we came lest we fall off the
mountain completely, yea all that good stuff that comes with
navigating without instructors. In the end, we made it out (and
even managed to run into the ninja van along the way through a
nice...uhh...detour along the road )
Chris Lee's team finally makes it back...one of the last teams
because apparently they reached the endpoint but nobody responded to
their radio call to pick them up, making them walk several kilometers
to this shed.
I think that should do for now, I haven't even begun to talk
about the second half of the training in Taiwan...hmm I'll save
that for tomorrow or something.
Resting before setting off on the last leg of our journey
You wouldn't imagine the number of thorny plants and vines...And this is WITH long sleeve uniforms... | 
).
By this time next year I'll finally be GONE! College at last...
