2006-01-12
10:33 p.m.
Exercise North Star Part 2
I figured I better start updating about that lest I get nagged at by certain parties.
Well, the exercise was a blast. Literally. Haha.. It was a multi-point simulated terrorist attack.
From last year (or the year before) they had already been talking about wanting to do a 4-site exercise (when we did Mandai, it was only 2 sites). So they did.
And this was also the first time they introduced Chemical Agents (or CA for short) together with bomb blasts. In the past it had always only been bomb blast or building collapse or something similar.
But back to our role in ExNS...
DiPaR (Disaster Preparedness and Response) Awareness talk was... alright I guess... abit lengthy but alright. Like Sahari said.. it was a marathon. And very tiring but informative for first timers. Reminded me of the time we had the Disaster Simulation Exercise in EDC. Before the exercise we had to spend a whole afternoon lecturing the cadets.. From sitting up straight in the beginning, we ended up having only 2 cadets left in that posture at the end of the lecture. haha..
Anyway I digress..
Team building at campsite was... =x shan't comment, but I think the team'll know how I felt about it. I'll only say this one thing. If you want to do it then do it properly. Else don't waste time - yours as well as mine.
Slept at about 1am that morning, then woke up at 4.20am to prepare and deploy to HQ to await activation.
Activated at about 7am. Travelled to Marina Bay MRT Station in the van with the team. Left the team to swim while the FO and I stood by and watched. Sometimes we found ourselves consciously reminding each other to let the team handle the situation themselves.
I want to put on record that FO and I are very proud of our youth team. That picture that came out in the Straits Times was the ONLY ONE of RC in the entire ST coverage. The 3 kids're famous. haha..
Anyway, the next time we have a mobilisation of sorts it'll probably be a silent mob.. meaning no pre-warning. We need to test our recall capabilities. Wish us luck.
Finally, I hope that the team had fun and learnt stuff during the weekend. Hopefully it would not be their last DP activity. It's a commitment that we would like to see continued.
Mike 4 - woosh!