Recently it had been announced by the Malaysian government that the National Service training program (PLKN) for the year 2015 was scrapped off as to save the government's national budget. This brought huge relief to some of the students that had just completed their SPM a couple of months ago as they were exempted from Malaysian version of juniors' military training. Being a former National Service trainee back then in the year 2007, it was quite nostalgic to think back of my past experience living in the jungle on the beach side of Kuala Rompin as part of my national service training.
Kem PLKN Summerset Resort 2007, Siri 4, Kumpulan 1
I wasn't really a socialite that could mingle easily with people back then, especially to new people that I had just met. I was someone who was very cautious in every single decision that I made and introvert as well (though some of my friends that are close to me tell the opposite!). It was quite a challenge for me to mingle around with people that came from different parts of cities in Malaysia. During the day of my arrival my head was shaved to an extent that the length of my hair was less than 0.5 cm. It was quite a traumatic experience for students like us who had just started our long break and we were so keen to keep our fancy hairstyles to ourselves. That partly explains why most of the time we were seen with our blue caps on.
Majlis Perlantikan Wira&wirawati, the day when the trainees were given their respective ranks & titles in the camp
Daily routine activities
I still remember the day when I chose to wake up as early as 5 a.m in the morning as I want to escape from queuing in the crowded toilet. Well it can be quite scary to be the first to wake up & went into the toilet alone (we were well briefed by our instructor to avoid from attending the toilet alone especially at night for some unspecified reason) especially when your toilet is located at the farthest side of the camp compound. We started off our daily routine at around 6.30 a.m where we were required to assemble in Padang Kawat. During the assembly you could see pretty well that some of the trainees were still half asleep while standing. Then there was a time when one of the trainee that leads us for "Rukun Negara" had his text gone wrong and all of us were punished immediately on the spot by doing a considerable amount of push-up. Nothing was way tiring than having a morning workout session right after you just woke up. One of the activity that was most energy-consuming was to wear the heavy army boots while running across the beach for an hour where the exhaustion brought us right down to our knees.
Embracing the sands & dusts!
Up, up and away! - nothing is worse than getting the wheel stucked halfway during Flying fox training
Throughout our training session we were also required to attend classes which were held early in the morning based on 3 separate modules: Kecermelangan diri (character building), Menampilkan yang terbaik dari diri orang lain (roughly translated as encouraging the positive attributes from the others) and Kenegaraan (patrotism spirit). These modules were believed to possess some magical power to change the attitude of a trainee and shaping them into a "better quality person". Some of the activities carried out in the class were indeed good (as most of the activities required a good team work coordinating skill), not to mention that some of the activities were hugely awkward as well (by requiring you to sit face to face with your partner, with your knees touching each others, making a direct eyes contact with each other while having a Q&A session for a period of time). In the end we all were having fun in the class. Thanks to the night shift & some intense morning exercises, I always found myself to fall asleep unconsciously at the back corner of the classroom.
Celebrating the birthday of the trainees in the class
Jaga malam
Literally translated as night duty. We were often divided into two distinct groups, where group A will have their shift started from 11 p.m right until 2 a.m where the following group (B) will take over from 2 a.m to 5 a.m in the morning. Our duty was to patrol around the camp compound & to make sure that everyone is asleep & everything goes accordingly. As a smart and cheeky trainee we would just patrol around the first few blocks areas of the buildings for around 30 minutes to an hour. After completely sure that all of the trainers & instructors were already dozed off to their dreamland, we quickly sneaked into a common room (which was used as a guest room) and had our sleeps there and woke up right before 5 a.m. I was often found myself to be doing the shift B work and It was very tiring to stay up awake in the middle of the night. I still remember the time when we were just started doing our first B shift when one of my friend approached me and told me that he saw a mysterious dark figure walking right beside the beach. Well that night his story was really successful in making all of us to stay on guard and completely awakened until the following morning.
Tempur Tanpa Senjata (TTS), a self-defense training that was said to be used by the military as well
The precious little cookies
Living in a place located quite remotely in the forest, cookies were equally important as much as paper money did. Real world paper money was important but it had only limited use, where usually it was used in trading with some chicken burgers or chips from a small hut in our camp site. Never in my life have I ever valued cookies as much as I did inside the camp. I discovered something funny where friendship could be bought with cookies as well! Cookies were our snacks and energy source whenever we finished some of the intense training in the camp, like marching practice, early morning workout etc.
In picture: anxiously waiting for our turn for "monkey bar" session
swing like nobody's business!
Wirajaya
On the last few weeks before our training officially ended, we were required to participate in an event which was to test our skills & knowledge on everything that we had learned from the training. It was much like an evaluation session for our performance where we were to compete against each other in a team (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta). Our mission was simple, we had to make our way to the designated destination shown in the map with the aid of a compass. We then appointed a leader who we believed that was good in map reading. Well to keep it short things didn't work well, we found ourselves constantly circling around the same place in the jungle over and over again. The pouring rain didn't help with our condition either. We covered ourselves from the rain by using the multi-purpose "Pocho" as raincoat (where it can be used as a tent as well). It was during this chaotic moment that we found out the other team was already catching up from behind. In the end we did still manage to get to our destination after getting lost inside the jungle for a period of time.
Luckily for us the rain was already stopped once we set up our tents beside the beach. We used all the provided materials (some military-grade candle look-alike incinerator, canned sardine, small packet of rice, small packet of cooking oil) to cook some simple dishes. I did still remember that funny moment when my friend's cooking apparatus was caught on fire after some nasty cooking skill. It was during this "cooking class" that made our bonding even stronger to each other. We were told to dig a hole of our own for nature's call which was an instruction that I was strongly against with. I simply couldn't imagine that funny moment if one of our member didn't notice of the "booby trap" and fall right underneath it. Luckily for us we were told to pack up and return to our main camp after spending few hours beside the beach.
The tired & restless looks after running through the jungle in Wirajaya
The end of the training
One of my friend was so annoyed with the fact that he had to spend his 3 precious months in the camp which he regarded as no difference than a detention center and he decided to hang a big calender on his wall so that he could count how many days was left before he could leave the place. Well he did put up a big cross sign for each passing day in the calender but only after a few weeks later he decided to give it up. To this day that moment never fail to crack me away from laughing. I personally felt the tense and pressure too when I was doing my training there. One of the moments that I could never forget was to have a wet sponge soaked with detergents pressed against my face by the instructor when I was asleep during a talk. Some of other funnier "punishment" was to drag your bed and place it right on the assembly field while others were watching (as a punishment for not keeping your bed tidy). Never could I forget the moment when I just had my bath and was suddenly instructed to quickly turn myself to the pedestrian walkway. With a half naked body me and my friends were told that we had disobeyed a rule where we were not being cooperative with one another and showed no team spirit. The result of that? We found ourselves rolling on the dirt filled with thrash and other nasty things later on.
After all the challenges and hurdles we did still manage to enjoy our time together. One of my friend once told me that the thing you will miss about PLKN wasn't of the training there, but the experience of mixing with a varieties of friends that came from different background from the different parts of the country and all the time that you had been spending doing all the things together. I guess what he said is true after all.
All the sweet people that came from different part of the country, pic taken during the last night in the camp
One of our last moment captured together (Bravo Company), I was the one sitting on the first row, far right
Fin.
PS: I had personally created a PLKN facebook group for the ex-trainees & trainers so that we could somehow be connected again with each other, please follow the link below if you're interested :)
