Christmas. While my battalion was celebrating christmas in the cookhouse with external performances and lucky draws, i was on guard duty in the camp.

No double pay.

I heard that i missed out on alot of fun. Christmas almost felt like just another day, if not for the spases. All 9 were present. What a historic moment!!! I thought it wouldn't work out initially. I almost got arrowed for guard duty on the 25th itself also. Fortunately some friends took a secret deal from my CSM. Ah, secrets.

Duties duties duties. Challenges. Pressure. Stress. Arrowing. Being a leader is so much more than being a trainee. And its interesting. Its supposed to be tougher, but i'd say that we're more concerned about other things that we don't realise it.

I really like my men. My friends all say i look much happier nowadays. Its an overwhelming satisfaction when i make my men happy. I tink maybe the camp is such a sad place that simple jokes and motivating words and army singing can really raise their morale.

Punishing them its really not my style. But there has to be ppl to do it to enforce discipline. Talk about my CSM(company sergeant major). Once, one of the men did an act of insubordination to one of my friends in another platoon. We had expected things like this to happen because most of the men are afterall, ang kong(tattoo) siao hokkien pengs.

The next moment, that recruit found himself in the office with the CSM. I was there doing admin work. It was only 10mins that rebellious recruit with tattoos of dragons over his arm started crying. That's how powerful my CSM is.

Thanks to him, the recruits are more polite and disciplined. But in the long run, i hope that they do not do so purely out of fear.