Though I absolutely hate military life, parades are pretty nice things to watch. They're actually pretty cool.

I'm not talking about small, internal parades within units like CO Parade, First Parade, and stuff (unless there's a civilian or new trainee/recruit watching me do it xD). I'm talking about public ones, like NDP, Istana Changing of Guards Ceremony, etc, or passing-out parades where a few selected/invited civilians get to see.

I take a lot of pride when I'm part of a contingent which execute drills together, in synchronisation. That's why every time when Bronco Platoon 2 performs a drill, I'm fucking enthu. Unless, of course, it's immediately after a route march (like, after 16km, every one was dying). I was even more enthu when we were executing the Clearing Arms drill which had so many bloody steps and so hard to execute properly. But after a lot of practice, no other platoon can do it like Platoon 2. Even the other platoon commanders were impressed ah. So despite everyone not liking the platoon sergeant, we gotta admit that he's the best drill instructor in the platoon. Before he came, our drills were like nonsense, lol.

One more cool thing about parades is the Colours Party and the GOH contingent. Awesome-looking Colours and awesome-looking No. 1 uniforms. Seriously, after watching NDP, I feel like being part of the GOH contingent. But sadly, I hear it won't be Participation Command's turn to chip in people for the airforce GOH contingent. Sian ): I want a no. 1 uniform and perhaps a sword of honour too haha. So much so that the thought of signing on as an officer has crossed my mind; but yeah, I gotta realise I'm just enthu because of the prestigious dressing. Still, you gotta admit that they make the parades even cooler haha.

And yes, the military band. When they play live, it's AWESOME. My favourite piece is Guard of Honour March, which is played when the Colours Party and the GOH contingents march in.


As for BMT POP, I went down to look at Jianda and Qayyum's just to see how my BMT POP looked like. It was pretty okay, being everyone's first parade in public and most importantly it's after an exhausting 24km march. But seeing civilians transformed into SAF personnel, a conscript, a soldier, doing contingent marching kinda makes me feel proud for the guy doing it down there. While he is dying for it to be over, he is constantly thinking about making his line straight, keeping in step, doing a good wheel, and making his drills sharp and precise. A lot of effort to make it look as good as possible, you see.

So yeah, parades are cool x) I'm gonna try to attend a Commissioning Parade. After seeing the videos below, I wanna see it live!