Yesterday was the most exhausting duty as my section - ssg woon, cpl jason, pte sharil, pte abdullah and myself went for the Asean Regional Disaster EXercise. We had to report at station to take over from the previous rota before 07 00 and reach MTV (Mandai Training Village) by 08 00.

The thought of carrying casualties seems daunting, even so when you see a stretch of endless casualties getting into the exercise area and position themselves. Fortunately, we just need to be positioned at the FAP (first-aid point) and need not be within the risk area itself.

We started to carry casualties from 09 00 till 17 00 before we stand down. There were hundreds of them; and most of them were even recycled!

What I hate most about drills was the acting part. I didn't like to act all that enthusiastic; being the oh-so-great section commander where his men respects him and will do whatever they're told, and getting hyped-up by the arrival of a casualty at the first-aid point when the higher authorities is lurking and spying on us, waiting for the right opportunity to pounce on us. All these summarises into act busy and you're okay.

The whole thing was like a ventriloquists-and-their-dummies show. And at the end of the show, the former gets the credit.