I first enlisted into BMT at a weight of 90+kg, i think it was 94kg? and being at a height of 171cm then, (wohoo i've since grown taller! PTL!!) Enlisting with a mindset of either going all the way or being nothing. My aim was never to be a sergeant. Just my personal goal, all or nothing, but i really wanted to gain and learn as much as i could during national service. Afterall, i've heard of people who have really awesome army buddies and all, and it's true! it also does depend on the person, because if you go in with a negative mindset, your course is pretty much set. BMT for me was really enjoyable!
Basic Military Training is a great time for you to get physically fit, although it's two things to be physically fit and combat fit, combat fit meaning after all of the load bearings on you like the iLBV, rifle and field pack, how well can you still perform. Going through the BASICS means getting physically in shape first, after you're all fit, then we get to learn all the skills like shooting, rifle handling, infantry training, etc etc. And then when you proceed on to unit life, that is when you get trained in skills and not so much on fitness anymore :) that is also when the pes BP people tend to begin to put some weight back on, so watch it!

I thoroughly enjoyed myself with my section mates :) I was in pes BP, BP just means you're fat, means you're going for a 19 week BMT life. I kinda expected it? lol so i was like oh well! some others went OH SHIT having considered that their counterparts have a shortened 9 week bmt i believe? but come on you're obese, so enlist earlier and do all the regimental stuff, shed some of those weight! and trust me, it's all worth it. Go in with the attitude to lose weight and get fit!

Here is a photo of my before/after shot that i grabbed off my instagram.
No the girl beside me didnt magically get any younger, it's just that left side is mum when i was having the first meal in pulau tekong and right side is my friend.

My waist shrunk by a few inches around my waist. i believe i was a 38, dropped to 33. I got a whole lot fitter, but what's mroe important is that my LIFESTYLE's changed. :) instead of eating like mad, i'm more careful of my intake and exercising when time permits! I still remember during the first day, a lot of time stalling, just waiting around and making sure you have all the equipment. It's just one of those draggy processes that one has to go through...i was in Dragon company Platoon 1 Section 1. i tell ya being just on level 2, saves you a ton of effort and time when your whole company needs to "rush to bunk and grab something". Means all the more to fat people like us! :D  those times when i used to be really "garang" (enthusiastic) and push on, but ONE DAY, i fell while running and boomz that's it, i injured my knee! because i roller blade and run and ice skate on weekends, on top of the daily runs and exercises that we have for our weight loss regime in camp, on top, i did insanity workout too during our "admin time" which means free time in the night. So taking lots of blows to the knee because of falling down, especially during ice skating...it led to a deadly concoction of a weakened something something zzz according to the docs.

Everyday life
We were really mad on losing weight, and every morning during PT, you are greeted by boobs, just that they're men boobs. But everyone is there to do an enjoyable time of aerobics. Yes fat people doing aerobics.We had runs, which gradually increased to 5km, and we were split into different groups to cater to our needs better. (plus point!) I never knew we could run more than 2.4km continuously everyday, that i felt was personally, physically impossible before enlisting. Aerobics was freaking awesome. At first everyone looks like clumsy penguins, but soon everyone got into the action, keeping up with the fitness instructor. pools of sweat start to form at where we stand on the hard court, it's something really enjoyable and we joke around with one another, so its a really good way to lose weight together! You see your section mates losing weight, while you are joking with one another, exercising under the hot sun together. It really built a lot of buddiness and camaraderie with one another. Because you are enjoying yourself and the breaks are very well timed, you don't feel tired when exercising at least you don't really need to put in conscious effort to purposely exercise and slog it out. Just simple having fun and doing stupid dance moves at times, annoying songs do come on and guys will be like "AWWW CHANGE THE SONG DAMMIT". and we still lose weight :) After that, everyone would have a good bath and head to the cookhouse in our no.4 and fight to eat first! But that's not before chin up regime when we would do our maximum pull ups, and for some to try breaking the zero barrier. In the evenings we tend to have learning sessions and swimming? Aqua jogging they call it. if we do well, we get to swim like mad after that~ at times, after aerobics, we *gulp* jump into the pool so...it turns realy salty...that's when you jog like mad trying to avoid drinking any of those water.

An injury
Oh yes i injured my knee! Coming back to that. I got injured some time during field camp, those high kneels made it a whole lot worse. Being a scout in the past, i experienced similar stuff a time too many, so i simply dissed off the pain and carried on with SITtest also. I thought everything was fine until the pain was pretty frequent and my knee was badly inflammed. This is when i paid the medical officer a visit. The xray i did at pulau tekong, i saw my knee and even though i've never taken biology, it looked freaking bad. The knee had some serious misalignment issues and with the tissues inflamed, hoho ain't looking good! Although the doc said it will gradually heal, which i had my doubts, and that doubts turned to truths. Ever since then, my knee still feels like shit at times. Currently am unable to run without a knee guard, with one, i cant do long distances. sucks. In the end of my BMT life, i missed the 24km route march, i did not participate in the Passing Out Parade, i did not throw my jockey cap on the floating platform at marina bay, although i did throw it with a couple of injured friends in pulau tekong as we left earlier, leaving as the rest do their preparations for the last route march as a recruit. I got injured 2 weeks before POP, after having gone through so much, i failed to POP and enter the much coveted command school OCS. Doctor deemed me unfit for any training school. Dad got really mad and scolded me for a couple of weeks for reporting sick that day, because since then, it wrote there "Unfit for leadership school". BMT was also the first time i saw myself throwing my phone out of anger. Moral of the story, know your limits and dont push too hard. Everybody needs to rest, don't try and be a hero and have ample rest so that the next day, you can go further.

*edit* 5 years from then, i am currently still reeling in from my injury. My knee still hurts and i am currently still seeing the sports science doctor on getting my knee fixed. It is considerably much weaker than before but still, i try to exercise and do what i can. Knee exercises do help strengthen it and for those who have knee injuries, do consider getting a knee guard. It's like magic.

Field camp
For those who immediately think about field camp once others mention about BMT, um... relative to my friends' accounts, my company's field camp was slack. My buddy got really bad heat rash, so i helped him out a lot especially during digging of shell scrape. Yes i agree it's tough! but the timing can actually be met, i did meet the timing but that's because i was a scout and had ample training in digging using a shovel lmao. Digging my own grave lolol. Being a scout, roughing it out, getting muddy at times ever since primary school kinda got me really used to the elements exposed during field camp. Somehow at times, you would feel REALLY sleepy during the day lessons. I don't know why, but those day lessons just cause you to be really dreamy, and when i looked around, my fellow mates were dozing off too! and yes the knotting advantage that scouts have for SITtest is really REALLY big. almost every station requires you to tie knots and since you even have advanced knotting skills at the back of your mind, knowing which knots work best under what circumstances, its a WHOA advantage. They do teach you a few basic knots before SITtest i believe, however if you are/used to be a scout, you would have learnt way more knots than the average and as such, i found myself most of the time stepping up and leading or providing suggestions as to what knots to use for the given situation, etc. So... if you're a scout who is used to mud, then field camp would be a blast! SITtest was kinda nice as at the end of the days, we got to just sit there and watch pretty sunsets lolol. my outfield locations are extremely scenic (romantic) just that you spend it with guys so... yeap.

Ghostly sighting
I did experience the sighting of a ghost THREE times, im guessing its the same ghost, later on the sergeants asked one another and confirmed that it wasnt anyone playing tricks. (because one of them saw it too) my register was D1107, so its Dragon Coy, Platoon 1 number 7. i still have that tag on my field pack. so i had a corner bed, of which i found it VERY HOT, so one of my section mates offered to swap with me! though our cupboards did not change so during stand by bunk or stand by whatever, it was still the same. back to the first ghost experience, my section mate sleeping beneath me (double decker beds) complained that i should have woken him up and so, during the second occurrence, i woke him up, who was sleeping like a log and we slept in the same bed LOL. The next day, commanders excused us from training as we zombied around the company. The first incident was pretty mind boggling, i woke up at around 3:28am needing to pee SOOOO BADLY. when i woke up, saw a shodowy figure (now i understand what it means to see a shadow) looking into my section mate's cupboard across the room whenever i looked away and turned back, it would change locations. i somehow climbed down from my bed, went to toilet and peed. when i reached my bunk, it was standing near the door, separating me and my beloved bed. again, i walked past it just a metre away, climbed back up to bed with goosebumps all over and hid myself under that indestructible blanket of mine. It was all the more scary when we've been sharing ghost stories a couple of days back -_-"' that blanket never left my face until next day morning, and of course, i was the earliest one to be up lol. But i am glad that my section mate sleeping beneath me offered to help me out when i'm in need, and upon waking him up, he gladly helped me though he was really drowsy.

Being badly injured in the end that i couldnt pass out with my army buds, missing command school also because of that injury that up till now has yet to fully recover. Currently, i was temporary pes C since i cannot run, according to the doc, excused physical activities -.- But this doesn't mean that my BMT life sucks, in fact i think it went pretty well!! because of the extended time that i had with my section mates, us all exercising and doing stupid things together, we were all a happy bunch of mates together! All those stand by bunks that we had...all those physical trainings and punishments that we had, after hearing all the stories of my friends from other companies, mine has actually been VERY slack xD also, all those chin up regimes that we had to do before our meals, and marching super fast until our timings we all off just to beat other companies to the ferry terminal so we could leave first, waking up slightly earlier so as to "beat the crowd" in the toilet when everyone washes up, there are so many memorable parts of BMT! But i guess what's important is having the right mindset when enlisting, going in with the expectation of learning something new and experience what every singaporean guy or your dad has been been through. It is also through national service did i find it easier to communicate with dad, and he will always go "you know last time ah...blah blah blah" and that's when we start to compare and see how army has changed, not just the organisation, but also our own lives. At times, it may seem hard, but it becomes a whole lot easier when others are with you, like those nights when we sacrificed our admin time and did insanity workout together! i still remember we were sweating so much that one person slipped and fell because of his sweat on the basketball court!! and for the record, i did complete insanity workout in tekong, thanks to the bmt buddies of mine! ;)

I'll be covering unit life next, thank you for reading! :D