First of all, I'm going to share all my experiences when I was still a National Service trainee back in March 2008. I'm sure all of you Malaysians have heard of it before but not everyone has the opportunity to join the program. Here is my story:
When I first arrived there, I only had one friend who was from the same school as me. We were then placed in different companies by the trainers during registration. For your information, all the trainees there were divided into 4 companies (big groups) which were Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta. I was placed in Delta. Then, slowly I met new friends there and we didn’t have any activity on the first week. The best thing was we could still keep our cell phones. After being in there for 2 days, I went back for a 5-day holiday. It was good to be home again.
Our camp officially started right after the opening ceremony. Before that, we were instructed to give all our cell phones to our trainers and could only have them back on Saturday night until Sunday night. First, we had to attend the Character Building class. It was great since my friend was placed in the same class as me. Our class began on 8:30am everyday. Oh yeah, before I forgot, we had to assemble every morning at 5:55am to do our morning physical training. I didn’t really like it to be honest. Then, we had to attend our physical training starting from 2pm until 4:30am. These continued everyday except for weekends. I have learnt lots of things during our Character Building class including how to be a better person. We even learnt how to juggle 3 balls at a time. In the end, only 2 trainees managed to juggle the balls while the others including me, failed at the last few steps. Haha. As for the physical training, I loved doing Flying Fox the most. Not everyone wanted to do this activity especially those who had aeroacrophobia but they still had to do it.
Other things that we learnt during our afternoon physical training were marching, hand to hand combat (similar to Taekwondo), obstacle courses, abseiling, canoeing, navigation, survival training and first-aid training. I had to admit that most of the classes were enough to put someone to sleep.
During our water training session, we had to jump into the pool (which looked more like a river to me) even though most of us couldn’t swim including some guys. It was a relieved seeing everything went well and no one was drowned. Around a week later, we had the Water Competition where all the 4 companies competed to get the “King of Water” title. Our company won in the end.
Then, we had to create flags for our companies. Also, we had to made some songs together with movements, motto, and our vows for every company. We used a Siberian Tiger as Delta company’s symbol and drew it on our flag. We had to bring it wherever we went or the trainers would take it. If that happened, then your company's marks will be cut down and you would be punished. Talking about marks, we actually competed to be the Royal Company by collecting marks through competitions, our attitudes etc.
Next, I would like to talk about our meals here. We had 6 meals in a day at 7am, 10:30am, 12pm, 4:30pm, 6pm and 10pm. Two slices of bread and an egg were necessary for our breakfast. Also, we had to eat either chicken, beef or fish everyday. Nearly all of the trainees there had gained some weight because of that. After being in there for a few weeks, I went back for another holiday. I brought my iPod along when I returned to the camp so that I could listen to my favorite songs when I felt bored. Some people even brought guitars and PSPs.
Also, we were assigned to be on duty every night starting from 10:45pm until midnight. All you had to do were patrol around every room and made sure that everything was fine, locked the main entrance and opened it again in the morning. Those who were on duty didn’t have to attend the morning physical training on the next day. I had been on duty for 6 times and yet, I didn’t have the chance to skip the training since whenever it reached my turn, I would be on duty on either weekends or public holidays. Huh..
Not long after that, our camp had its Open Day. My parents came for a visit and brought my digital camera for me. There were many events going on. We even sang our companies’ songs together with all the funny movements. I recorded everything by the way. Also, the trainers opened some food stalls and we had the Flying Fox and the canoeing demonstrations. It was a really great day.
After we were done with the Character Building Module, we attended the HIV/AIDS Module. Then, we also had our National Integration class where we learnt about all the cultures in Malaysia and our roles in the country. The best moment in class was when we demonstrated the wedding ceremonies which were available in Malaysia. Our group had to demonstrate the Indian’s wedding ceremony and it was the craziest one of all. The bridegroom had Chinese parents while himself was an Indian. Then, as for the bride, she only had a Malay mother since her father ran away. We even used the thing I used to hang my locker's keys as their wedding ring. Before our National Integration class came to an end, we did some performances together with other classes which included singing, dancing etc.
Not long after that, the government gave us a 6-day holiday and I went home again. When I returned to camp, we started our Colt M16 lesson. It was really fun that I could memorize all the weights and lengths of the weapon’s parts. On the next day, we went to the training field and played around with it. We were given 10 bullets for testing and 20 bullets for competitions. The full score was 100 but I only got 73 with 10 bullets hitting the center while the other 10 hit somewhere else. Only 2 trainees got 100 marks. How I wish I could do that again.
Then, we had to practise for our marching competition everyday. It was kind of boring and tiring but we wanted to win. In the end, we got the 2nd place in that competition and the 1st and the 3rd place in the obstacle courses competition. A day after that, we went to the jungle for camping. When we were cooking our lunch, it suddenly rained cats and dogs. Everyone was wet but we still continued our activity. During that night, we did our navigation activity where we had to get out of the jungle by ourselves just by depending on the given map and compasses. Plus, it was raining too. The good thing was our company was the first one to find our way out in a short time and we walked proudly to the hall. Haha.
A day after being in the jungle, we had an exam which was handled by the camp to choose the best 10 trainees. I sat for it even though I studied a day before the exam. So, that night I just wrote anything I knew. I was in a sleepy mood since it was raining. The exam ended at 11:35pm. Then we had another holiday after that. By the way, our badge was the one which had too much holidays. We went to the beach which was located next to the camp, shopping, slept, ate, listened to songs, played with cell phones and did the rehearsal for our camp’s closing ceremony.
On the night before the closing ceremony, the names of the best 10 trainees were announced and to my surprise, I got the 3rd rank. Coincidence? Also, we had some crazy awards going on that night and all of them were won by our company.
When the camp ended, we failed to become the Royal Company and it was a close competition. But still, we didn’t feel really sad because we already did our best and we enjoyed working together. The Malaysian National Service program is truly one of the best things I have ever experienced in my life.
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