Basket.

I think I am now far away enough from that moment of horror to record down the events of last Thursday for posterity. Plus, I have regained the ability to type with two hands! And it's not like I have anything better to do anyway.

It was a Thursday morning like most others recently - overcast. It was drizzling when we got up, but that stopped fairly quickly. We went for breakfast and returned at close to 7; nothing unusual. At 7.15 we assembled outside our bunks to go for live run; by this time, the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared somewhat. Having recovered from the flu and returned to camp only the day before, I was excused and returned to bunk to sleep off the lingering after-effects of medicine and illness.

I slept a long while, until about 8.40am, when one of the vehicle mechanics we are well-acquainted with woke me and asked me to help hook up a system for NDP rehearsal. Again, nothing out of the ordinary - our procedures are this ad hoc. Anyone who happens to be free is pulled along to help, and hooking up is as mundane an event as they get in my unit. I got up and was changing into No4 when he told me to wear admin, as the discussion on racial harmony that was to take place soon after would be in that attire. I changed back and went down, on the way dropping my MC off at the office.

Before I left, I took a drink of water, and noticed the time on my bedside clock was about 8.52am.

I quickly got to the garage, and saw that the two new radar mechanics and my VM friend were already there. The ANT TPQ 36 Weapon Locating Radar Antenna Trailer Group has four support legs, which are put down when the system is deployed or stationary. In the garage, they are usually down. To hook up, we put up the legs and push the trailer towards the shelter, which is a 3-ton vehicle, then we connect the two vehicles. I quickly took one leg and began winding it up. Following standard procedure, I kicked off the pad once it was high enough, then supported the leg with my left hand while I pulled out the restraining pin, in order to push the leg all the way up to keep it. The restraining pin proved obdurate, however, and I shifted my position (I was squatting) to better pull it out. It was at this point that my left middle finger came fatally to rest on on the bottom of the leg. I did not think it a problem, because the leg usually comes down fairly slowly even after we pull the restraining pin, and I would have enough time to move my palm in to support and push the leg up - as I had done many more times than once before.

And so the pin finally came... but the leg came down with amazing speed. Before I could react, it had got my finger and crushed it on the pad. In a reflex action, I pulled my hand out of the whole mess, and this action probably lost me my fingertip. Strangely, there was not much pain; I only felt a very great pressure on my finger. But my body obviously sensed something wrong and made me wrench my hand out.

I held it up, and from what I saw, something was very wrong indeed. The tip of my finger was literally gone, and most of the rest of the topmost joint was mincemeat. A flap of skin remained, but most had been torn away. In my confused state, I thought the exposed finger bone was my fingernail.

Of course, the rest of those down had witnessed the whole thing, and were frantically rushing about and making calls even as I stared at my mangled finger. I think I had on an expression of absolute bewilderment. This is not happening. It's a dream, right? I'm just going to wake up any moment. No, seriously.

But it was all real, of course.

I remember feeling faint and dizzy, probably from shock, but recovered quickly. The wound wasn't hurting much, numbed by shock I believe. By this time some fellow locators had arrived, and I remember someone said "Fucking hell" when he saw the extent of my injury. One of the new RMs accompanied me as I walked to the medical centre. I remember musing to him on the way about how I was going to use the finger ever again.

Our battery duty officer caught up with us on the way, and was stunned when he saw how bad it was. He thought the bone was crushed - fortunately he proved to be wrong.

I walked into the medical centre and all it took was one look at the red mess that was my finger for them to go into action stations. I was probably the calmest person there. The MO, obviously, asked what happened, and I told him in my normal voice that the radar had crushed my finger. They washed the wound with saline solution, a goodly amount of it, then improvised a gauze dressing before packing me off to the Tan Tock Seng Hospital Accident and Emergency Department. I got there in the big, brand new army ambulances they just launched this year.

My adventures in the hospital are a whole other story. To be continued.

"I thought NS was supposed to make you healthier" - man, did that statement come back to haunt me or what?

I am getting used to life with just one usable hand (a temporary situation only, fortunately), and it is fiction that everything takes twice as long to do. Although most things inevitably take longer than they used to, such as typing this post. Fortunately, I'm already an expert one-handed typist from the days when I handled one matter cradling the phone in my left hand and another via MSN and my right.

My mother seems surprised that I can pretty much behave like my normal self. I don't know why she seems to prefer me moping around the house all day clutching my finger, or withdrawing into a shell of gothic morbidity and becoming obsessed with death and satanism. The thing is, there is no point crying over spilt milk or lost fingertips. Although I do admit to feeling a vague tinge of envy when I see people wielding intact left hands with ease sometimes.

A01C gathered again last night. With university school years opening soon and events like National Day and the various tactical evaluation programmes coming up in the following months, it will be quite a while before the lot of us can gather again. I'll be waiting, though.

Of course, the first two people who turned up had to be Sean and I. "How come they are all injured?", went the concerned enquiries from Shuang Ning's mother and sister. We must have made quite a pair. I had a good time though, as I usually do at such events, and I'll really be waiting for the next chance. Whenever it will be.

It's been a horrid, horrid week. I recover from the flu and return to camp on Wednesday night. Two more days to bookout, and I am looking forward to it. Instead, this morning I become the victim of a horrific accident that is going to leave me with an abridged left middle finger for life. I really never saw a TPQ 36 support leg move so fast. Soon, it was too late and half the topmost joint was gone. What I thought was the fingernail was actually the bone sticking out. The rest of the joint that was not ripped off was minced (that is the best way I can describe it). Not a pretty sight.

To top off a wonderful four days, my superiors proceeded to lose my camp pass at the hospital. Sigh. I guess those above were really out for my blood this week.

Cold, wet and miserable. The weather mirrored the way I was feeling perfectly as I rode home on a bus that had truculently resisted arriving for nearly 20 minutes, struck down by the flu bug and given a day to rest by the camp medical officer. That's the second time in seven months I have fallen ill. During my student days I took sick about once every two or three years. I thought military service was supposed to make you healthier.

Perhaps it was a combination of running in CAT 1 weather (anyone who tries to tell me it wasn't thunderstorming at East Coast Park last Friday afternoon is either an enormous liar or without conscience) and over-exertion yesterday when I was already feeling the symptoms. But never mind, I'm now at home with an extra day to rest and slowly recovering. The world already looks a better place. I just wish the lozenges didn't make my tongue feel so damned weird.

I really felt like an office drone this week, as opposed to feeling like a technician or a storeman, which is the normal situation. Clerical work is no less dreary an existence, and the army blanket is terribly inadequate for anything cooler than a ceiling fan.

4E 2002 came together again last night, and we had a good time although only about half could make it. Making a surprise appearance was our ex-form teacher. I hadn't seen her in about two years. We ate, then I allowed myself to be talked into "one game" of DOTA (thankfully it really was one game), the result of which was a bit of a rush to catch one of the last buses home.

I made it, though. I usually do.

Another dreary work week crawled to a close, expiring after a long day that only grudgingly gave in to our silent pleas to end. I went home to my first full weekend in three weeks - and the feeling is unbelievable.

I return with an observation on the human condition, and it is something that rather irks me.

Why do people usually, when you tell them of certain choices you have made, like to pass judgement on these choices? Of course, someone had asked what I was going to study in university; not the first to do so, and not the last who would, either. I replied, of course, "Arts and Social Sciences." And his expression just changed; his face just fell, and he gave me a long look of pity and infinite sadness. He proceeded then to inform me that I wasn't going to rake in the cash with such a choice. Really, sir? I wasn't aware! It's not like 2846735872 other people have already told me the same, not at all. Slyly, I then revealed that I was doing this all on scholarship, knowing perfectly that it would validate me in his eyes.

Which it did.

So, what can we learn from this little incident?

a) If you study anything that isn't going to earn you the big bucks when you step into society, you are either naive or a fool.
b) I, The Person Listening, definitely know more about the course you, the person making the choice, have elected to take, and thus have the right to give you lots of useless and most of the time outright erroneous advice.
c) Why follow your interest? All that matters is being practical and living the Singaporean Dream. All who believe otherwise are naive and inexperienced in the ways of the world, and someone wise, ie I The Person Listening, will instruct them.
d) I, The Person Listening, have infinitely more wisdom than you, the person making the choice, so you better shut up and listen.

I really am no naive simpleton. I wish people will just stop believing that.

I realise that, when I write, I always have trouble with beginnings and endings. Once I can find a good beginning, everything goes very smoothly... until I decide it is time to end the piece. Then I have to rack my brains to put together a decent ending. I do not think I've ever started a written piece properly, and I seldom write good endings. Everything else is not a problem.

Once a routine is established, time seems to go by really fast. I recognised that trend while still schooling, and nothing seems to have changed. This week was really quick, as the well-drilled "wake up-breakfast-garage-deploy system-sit around and play chinese chess-lunch-garage/office-sit around play chinese chess/sit around read newspaper/sit around and do office work-dinner-last parade-freedom!-bed" tableau played it itself out nearly everyday. Wednesday was parade rehearsal - again, nothing out of the ordinary. Today was the real thing, which went like a rehearsal. And that, basically, was my week and a typical week for a FATA Locator in the 24th Battalion, Singapore Artillery.

That might be what we are in name, but we also act as clerks and storemen. Maybe that's why we are actually "combat service support" as opposed to "combat". I've recognised that office work has plenty of pitfalls as well, and how an air-conditioned environment may not necessarily be less welcoming than mosquito-infested secondary rainforest.

Guard duty again, on Sunday. The barbarians.