psalms 88 is the most comforting psalm.
once you move from empathy with the psalmist to disbelief in the superficial content, you know in your heart that your cries of pain and feelings of injustice

are unfounded.

because like the psalm, it feels like God has turned His face from you.
but good christian sir, it is only an euphoria

I know one day my decision will lead to this.
people will continue to come and say

"dude, cauz you look like someone who has a girlfriend!"
but there'll come a day when I'm no longer spurred by some statement, and I will rejoice for the world has finally seen my cross.

I now know it, it is singlehood until I learn

it'd have been okay if its just her not liking me.
but its worse.
That's what courtship is for, so that aside.

its been awhile my enemy.
its about going recklessly convinced that i know what i want
because i've never given it enough thought and honesty.

that's the killer.
stay! SIT! I demand that of myself.
stay right where you are.

how I almost laid to rest in Australia

actually, it was just a normal day.

There were 3 phases in the exercise. Company, LF and Brigade

I was acting as sentry for LF when this happened..

It was 6 in the morning and 7 was the time for road closure.

Setting up the antenna for our set, I attempted to communicate with the other sentry posts.

Pushing the PTT..

"hello sierra papa 3 this is sierra papa 8, comms check over..."

there was something wrong, usually you can hear yourself speaking, as if speaking over a phone.

Its called a backtone.. somehow it did not come.

"hello sierra papa3..."

I came to a sudden realization of what was going on. Its simple, we had a set that could not transmit.

It was literally a radio, as a layman would know a radio.

Finding myself a spot to sit, I considered the situation we were in.

Basically, we were in the middle of nowhere, without a method of communication.

We were charged with the task of holding vehicles at our position before authorization comes in to allow them to pass into the live-firing area.

That's all nice and good... until you realize that you're without a method to SEEK that authorization.

Then I was angry, I was mad at the frivolous fella in the morning...

"hey, wait up, we should test the sets first" I said, as I reached down to fix the handset on..

"don't need don't need, we're running late, besides, I tested them all last night"

I glanced at the dude with disbelief.

"Yes, they are all working, trust me, take and go"

....

I'd bet he merely fiddled with the in-built test system without physically attempting to communicate on the set.

Its a common, lazy-man's method... That was basically the issue.

And so I tried to formulate a scheme of actions to take to deal with this problem.

This was the exact situation..

1. There's another sentry post down the road 3km away (which turned out to be more than that) which served as the final checkpoint before the road becomes dangerous. Complication is, the people there may let the vehicles past without re-requesting authorization, believing that the earlier sentry post (my post) has cleared them.

2. It was 6, road closure happens at 7, Live-firing commences at 8 (from previous experience, it may happen before or after 8)

3. I takes 42mins for me to walk 4km in full battle order.

So, I came to a conclusion..

I'd take no more than 30mins to reach the next sentry point on foot, carrying nothing but a pack of biscuits. I'll go there, inform them that our sentry post is down because the signal set was down and charge them to halt all vehicles and request for authorization.

Then I'll backtrack, taking the remaining 30mins to return by 7 so I avoid trespassing the road closure rule.

Why did I do this? Was it not because signallers were supposed to prioritise "comms through" over everything else?

So I bid my partner farewell and started to trek towards to next sentry post.

I walked for what seemed like forever, only to realise that 30mins had passed without me even making out of the jungle (for the road opens to a plain and a ghost town which was supposed to be in close proximity to the sentry post)

I became anxious and started to run.

After a good 5mins or so, I saw the ghost town. According to the brief last night, the ghost town should be visible to the sentry post and hence I knew I was nearing.

However, a big complication stood before me, for the path diverged into 3 vastly different directions. (refer to the illustration above)

I reduced the possible paths to take from 3 to 2, cancelling the one to the left because I've been to the place and we've never taken the left path.

Taking the obvious (straight-on path) I walked into the ghost town.

I walked till I crossed the entire town and still there wasn't a sentry point in sight.

The naggy thought that the sentry post was only 3km from mine led me to believe that I took the wrong path. Its too far, I've walked way too far. I estimate that I had gone for at least 5km.

I went back to the junction this time, and I took the path to the right.

Sure enough, I saw SP3, sentry post 3. However, the guys were sitting in the shelter...

according to the briefing last night, they're now 1km away.

Yet the path HAD TO diverge again! I took the right turn again and followed it faithfully, that is, until I walked straight into a graveyard.

Spooked out I retraced my steps to SP3.

Just then, I looked across to the ghost town and saw a convoy rumbling through... Then they came to a halt.

Sensing this as an opportunity, I hurried myself to meet them.

But this crossed my mind.

if I followed the road back to the junction before re-taking the straight-on path, I'd take alot of time, so much so that the convoy might leave and I'd lose my chance..

There was an alternative however, and that was the direct path, a path right through a good possibly 500m dash through the field of long grass, so long they were taller than me.

I did not want to take that path because we were told that animals may be hiding within... but duty compelled me.

So I ran straight in, clawing away the grass which stood before me. The morning dew was starting to wet my uniform, but it was still bearable.

As I continued bashing my way through the grass, I became anxious, anxious to break out of the vision obscuring mess for imaginary animals were starting to appear amongst the bushes.

Then I came to a screeching halt.

about 400m into the field, there was a brook. A pretty small river running through.

I had to cross it, if I were to retrace my steps, I'd lose much time.

Surveying the river, I found its narrowest.

It was about 4m wide. I thought my record of 4.2 for long jump would be sufficient to clear it cleanly. Clearing an area big enough for me to break into a sprint, I ran..

But who was supposed to know that the bank was slippery as hell?!

I slipped and plunged straight into the river.

Fear seized me instantly for my legs could not fathom to depths of the deceptively little stream..

At once I recalled the existence of crocodiles (later found to be an unnecessary concern because they are estuarine...) and I paddled to the opposite bank.

I tried to push myself up but the clay was slippery. I clawed desperately for a hold and I managed to put a grip around this huge rocky edge that was sticking out of the ground.

I pulled and dragged myself up the bank (and in the process smearing the clay all over my uniform) and immediately broke into a run again for fear of the imaginary crocodiles.

I ran and ran until I finally emerged from the wall of tall grasses, stumbling into a fellow soldier who was taking a smoke.

You should've seen his face... pure bemusement slapped right on.

The rest of the story was unimportant, basically I managed to hitch a hike, sitting soaking wet beside a few high ranking officers who were impressed with the action I just went through.

So basically, I gave a thought about the situation I was in, and I found 2 ways I could've died.

1. By trespassing the live-firing area. It was 715 by the time I was at SP3. A stray bullet could've found its way to me if the live firing had started.

2. I could've hit my head against the rocks when I slipped and flew into the river. Then I'd faint of be too blur to prevent myself from drowning in the who-knows-how-freaking-deep little stream.

So, that was really a hell of an experience wasn't it?

its been 3 weeks, i can barely make out the details of home.

how have you, you and you been?

how's it all going on?

For a day on this trip i actually thought someone was waiting for me.

And afraid that it wasn't just someone but was more than one

but now I'm heading back with my head clear.

its been 3 weeks but nothing has changed

the people waiting.. is still the same.

its really hard being unpopular

really courageous staying single.