myORD.
Friday, November 05, 2010
As promised, a new blogskin.before i left camp, i sent out a pretty long email to my boss/OC/S4, giving reflections on the various key events that i participated with. some people may think that such reflections are never useful, but i think it allows me to think about the lessons learnt in the past 1 year 10 months, and how they are truly applicable to the working world.
of course, due to the sensitive nature of the information involved, i will not be including that email here. let me instead start with a general timeline of events.
firstly, enlistment. i enlisted on 8 january 2009. after 9 weeks, it was POP. many things happened in this 9 weeks, including my ankle injury. i was then posted 46SAR, which became my unit for the rest of my NSF life, less than the month i was on MC and the 5 weeks i was on course at Signal Institute.
it was a long 20 months at the unit. first at SP Coy, then to HQ Coy. I got to know many people from the many key events that I was involved in. In chronological order, live range 1, ATEC Stage 1, LAB check 1, live range 2, Ex Bold Kurukshetra in India, ATEC Stage 2, live range 3, LAB check 2, ORD parade. And this doesn't include the many other minor tasks that came along the way.
it was great meeting and working with new people; it allows you to see how different people will react to the same type of scenario. Especially in ATEC Stage 2, i see the importance of good management skills, and how communication and proper planning is important, if not crucial, for the success of any event.
of course, there's always 2 sides to a coin. i'm not going to waste an entire paragraph complaining or whining about how certain commanders have disgusting work ethics, but i must highlight that the 'covering your own ass' attitude should not be condoned. i really hope i won't see anymore of such attitude, for it is this that destroys trust and causes things/events to fail.
in retrospect, it has been a good 22 months. new friends are made, special mention to my bmt section mates and the manpower branch from 46SAR. news things are learnt, and new experiences gained. i probably won't agree to another 22 months in the SAF, but i'm glad i had gone through this phase.
now, it's back to a civilian, and am definitely looking forward to my trips that are coming real soon.
cheers! =)