18 years old once again...

I went to an army mate's wedding last night. Being the only guy from my anti tank platoon in what is essentially a scout platoon wedding, I didn't expect myself to fit in their conversation. However, it turn out to be quite an experience.

It has been a long while since I last saw this guys. Though we were from from different platoons, we have lived together for 2.5 years during NSF and served 10 years NS together. There were a boisterous and fun lot and now even at almost middle age, they still are.





The dinner began as other wedding dinner goes. Trading of talks about work and marital status. Not to mention the flashing of children's photos on our smart phones. Guys in shirts, long pants and dinner jackets. Stuffy things.

Then the talk on old missions and overseas exercises started. The shared experiences starting flowing. From the sands of Thailand, the rolling hills of Taiwan, the brutal jungles of Brunei to the wastelands of Lim Chu Kang. The stories kept going... Stories of incredible long walks, great escapes, amazing navigational skills and near misses kept coming. The horror of the Silkair MI185 disaster was also relived. Suddenly, I don't see the guys in their stuffy clothes. I see them in their camouflaged and fatigued faces, their jungle hats and their sweat soaked uniforms.

The wedding dinner went on and concluded but we remained seated and more stories flow on. When the last guest have left, one of the guys let lose a tirade of full military spec expletives. We laughed out loud. We were really back to those days.

Finally it was time to go. The whole lot of us went to the toilet and suddenly childish pranks broke out with water and wet palm prints on each others shirts. This culminated with a game of "catching" as guys began chasing each other around the ballrooms. This guys are middle-aged men and some of which are fathers of  children, mind you.

Someone muttered, we are 18 again. We laughed.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A friend lost...

Image
It was a lazy afternoon at a coffeeshop in Bt Gombak. A brief look at the iPhone as my friend Leonard read through the alleged blog of a beligerent friend. A shrug and a smile later. "I know why you are feeling so this way. You are all grieving for the loss of a friend." "We all did what we can to convince him. But it will come to a point where you just had to let go." "He made his choice, and for better or worse, he will face the consequences of his actions. He should know that by doing all this he will lose his old friends. Yet he did it. You can't control another person man. Let him be...We probably don't mean anything to him now. So why bother getting angry over it." I nodded and remembered his words. For a long while, I toyed with the idea of replying to Asingaporean's loaded and aggressive reply to me on the public web. It was full of accusations and with no sense of guilt on his end. He has allowed his friends to be slained online and ev
Read more

I fell in love today..... With a Suzuki Swift Sport...

Image
My Mrs has been making some noise about the budget and my car Marchie lately, and we are contemplating selling it. Obviously, I couldn't bear to sell my first wife, Marchie. Nevertheless, I being visiting some used car dealers and trying to run up some numbers,like how much Marchie can fetch. Also if possible to find a newer car and hopefully not to pay so much. I came across a blue gray Suzuki Swift Sport, a bit older for my contemplation. I have being looking for cars that are from 2008 or younger. The Sport is from December 2007 and cost SGD$46,800. The price is cheaper than most other cars I being considering. For the benefit of overseas readers, cars in Singapore are ridiculously expensive and still getting more ridiculous. A normal new Suzuki Swift now cost almost $100,000. A new Sport will cost about $120,000. While Mrs has been asking me to consider living without a car. I have being having sleepless nights about losing Marchie. Back to the Sport, after some haggling
Read more

Running as a form of transportation

Image
Its being busy days for me as a newly wed couple going through their first Chinese New Year together. Despite being on holidays for the past four days, my running schedule have fallen behind. Today, after ending my new year visits early. I sent wifey home to rest while I prepared to sneak off for a run. I was preparing for a coastal run as usual till her cousin CT called and asked if we wanted dinner. Wifey turned down the offer as she wasn't keen to travel out. I offered to make the trip down by foot. I was at Geylang East Central. Her aunt's place was at Chuan Place. Usually it would take a 20 minutes drive down to the place. Wifey told CT that I am running down. CT replied in disbelief, not expecting that I will actually do that. I changed into my running gear. Did my warm up and check Google Maps for the distance to destination. 6.1km. Should be an easy run. I started my GPS tracker,Endomondo and the heart rate monitor. One foot in front of the other, I commenced my run. Ru
Read more