Yes, I love Exercise Starlight. That is the only country that I can bring my wallet outfield and spend spend half of my money before R&R. When we are outfield, there will be minivans or bikes that will come along to sell you those Taiwanese snacks/food. I miss the 蛋饼。For those armour boys, the camp is at Hukou and the camp is smacked right in the middle of town. Which means that the moment you book out, it is town
Song lah, I still miss the daughter of that aunty who came into camp ground to sell her soft toy. Sibey cute.
Exercise Wallaby was terrible. I bought 1k AUD there and after 2 weeks in camp, I'm still left with $970 before R&R. During R&R, I still have to force myself to buy something so that I can use some of the money.
same thing in Ex Cresendo at Kanchanaburi, can bring money outfield but subject to unit SOP. i went there twice, first as Opfor so a bit "boh govt" as we only answer to our "lao jik" as officers "boh chap" but the training troopers of the 42SAR were order by their "talent" CO cannot buy anything while outfield. So the troopers look at us with anger and envy while they watch us eat coconut ice cream after the end of each engagements. haha... come to think of it, maybe it the outfield mentality, the home made coconut ice cream we ate there were much nicer than the one i had in bangkok after i ORDed. Then when it my unit turn to go thailand for Atec, we still buy drinks and foods outfield that we didnt touch the combat ration at all in the 4D3N that we gave all to the thai villagers at our final mission rest point. Both trip R&R were "controlled" but during the Opsfor R&R, one of the night dinner restaraunt was next to a fish tank, so quite a number of guys went drink "neh neh" instead eat dinner.
Not sure true or not, heard 42 guys got their R&R cancelled because they fail their Atec. Anyway from what i observe as a Opfor, it not the men fault but due to the poor planning by the 42 CO or S3.
anyway i heard something interesting about armour oversea training in the past,
Brigade level - Ex Starlight
Brigade level / Battlion level "flyer" CO - Ex Walleby
Battlion level "flyer" or "farmer" - Ex Cresendo
Battlion level kenna condemn - Jungle training in brunei.
actually i find it can be truth, as both during NSF and Reservist, the unit i was in was earmarked for Aussieland but both last minute cancel. NSF CO was a farmer, so not surprise aussieland turn to LOS. Reservist CO also a reservist, by third ICT, already make hint go aussieland, then only at Atec 1 then we heard change to local Atec for Atec 2 which i consider heng as i not keen to sleep in a tentage for 3 weeks.
The officers mostly were disappointed while majority of the pengkias were delighted.
