My Two Recruit Days Buddies
When we served our recruit days during NS stint, each of us was assigned a buddy. Both buddies had to work together and if one happened to have erred, both were punished as a result. It is called buddy system and I believe it should still be practised now. I was from the first mono-intake which means we did our recruit training and after passing out, continued on as guardsman vocation till we ROD in the same unit throughout our NS stint. My unit was called 3 Guards located in the rustic Kranji area then. The camp has since been re-located where the present Yew Tee HDB flats are. Upon enlisting, everyone was assigned to their buddy but I had two buddies, as we were the remaining last three after evenly sorting out the rest. Lang and Tong (not their real names) were my recruit days buddies. Both used to live in the same neighbourhood and prior to enlistment, they know each other in their growing up days but they were not close ...