First Army Call Up

I woke up early. I was really the earliest to report there. Erm.. I was early enough to go in together with the administrative staff in-charged of the in-processing. I was there early enough to help-out¹ in the setting up of electronic equipments for the in-processing. Xiao on right? Haha.. If not how to get Best Service Man of the month in 1997²? :P

The road in to the briefing area is kind of long from the main gate. However, with the assistance of Google Earth, every twist and turn is so predictable. :P

I also realised the nominal roll was arranged by NRIC Number. In other words, we are more or less arranged by age. Duh! I was numbered 21, out of the 341 in the list. These 341 are all newly posted to the camp (some were transferred from other camps). I feel super lao jiao! The youngest among the list is only 21-year-old, born in the year 1985. Mm..

I met one super familiar face. His is K – an ex-*little pal³. What a small world??!! He graduated from the college in 2001. And now we are in the same camp as reservists. He told me this was the first time he was being called up. I told him this was also my first time. He was.. erm.. stunned for a while? :)

Looking at those who had turned up, I’m a little concerned. Quite a few didn’t turn up in full-uniform. There were so many guys with super long and/or coloured hair. One even appeared in long-4, but was wearing a pair of track shoe. A bit too off, right? Many people were still strolling in after half an hour of the stipulated time. Some were playing games with their handphones or chatting during the briefing. Oh well, are these standard behaviours of reservists? Mm..

Okay, the briefing was boring. It was just information dissemination which could be done through mails / emails, etc. Alright, I understand the need of our physical turn-out, so not complaining actually.

Ha…
Finally I have a codeword (to look out for during mobilization).
Finally I know which unit I belongs to.
Finally I would be occasionally wearing military uniform, eating military meals, walking military grounds, doing military tasks. :)

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¹ I only help out a little. I think the army is still very cautions of rank. The two guys keep saying,
“Sergeant, you come in and take a seat first…”,
“Never mind, you don’t need to help…”,
“Just take a seat here first…”, or something along that line, all said in very polite tones.
I later learnt these two guys are really very trustworthy assets of the unit.

² We were given a list of our own information to verify. That’s how I recall such insignificant event. I think I have already thrown away the plaque given.

³ I only taught him for a few months though.

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有一位作者这么说：

有一个欧巴桑在首饰店里...
看到二只一模一样的手环，
一个标价五百五十元，
另一个却只标价二百五十元。
她大为心喜，立刻买下二百五十元的手环，得意洋洋的走出店门。
临出去前，听到里面的店员悄悄对另一个店员说：
「你看吧，这一招屡试不爽。」

试探如饵，可以轻而易举的使许多人显露出贪婪的本性，然而那常常是吃亏受骗的开始。