Bike Helmet reminiscent of the CVC (Communications Vehicle Commander) Helmet during my NS days
Now that I am confined to my house, and nearby environs, I would like to add more random posts to my blog and take up the hobbies which require some focus, which I will put up in my next blog. In the meantime, here is the writeup of my 6 months ago trip to Ho Chi Minh city which still brings back many good memories.
The helmet below and above is pretty cool. I paid something like S$ 40 for it. In Ho Chi Minh, the traffic conditions are awful and there are literally thousands of vehicles mainly Motorbikes (80%), cars (15%) , bicycles and scooters all making a mad dash to and fom their destinations.
Fits me to a 'T"
I was fortunate to arrive in the morning of the customer visit in District 1 and had a second full day free, before heading back for home on the third day. The places I visited were the Notre Dame Catholic Church (or a replica of the one in Paris), the Reunification Palace,the Imperial Palace and the War Museum.
I last visited Ho Chi Minh in 2011 and had the opportunity to visit the Cu Chi tunnels. That in itself is another fascinating story.
At the Imperial Palace, I chanced upon the vendor selling this bike helmet and I bought it on a whim. No regrets whatsoever as I enjoy putting it on just to remind me of the days when I was a mortar detachment (or section) commander in charge of a team of 4 soldiers and riding atop the M113 Armoured Personnel Carrier.
Now that I am past my peak, I can safely say that those days were the 'salad' days of my youth and I served my country with pride. I was attached to the 46 SAR or Singapore Armoured Regiment at Sungei Gedong Camp in Lim Chu Kang from late 1981 till 1983.
My training was very tough, and I was trained as an Artillery Non Commisisoned Officer (NCO). Boy that was one of the most mentally and physically challenging times of my life. When you have trainees throwing up blood, fainting and having major stitches to their limbs, and continue on the next day, I can say that we had to be very mentally tough, for the training was very very brutal back in the early 1980s.
Mentally, we had to cope with the risk serious injury from falling from the vehicle, the vehicle overturning or the possibility of the mortar bombs (we were involved in live firing sessions I recall twice) not ejecting out of the barrel during a live firing session. We had one incident when my good friend's mortar did not eject out from the barrel and it was a tremendous stressful procedure to eject out the unexploded bomb from the barrel.
Luckily we followed proper protocol and the unexploded bomb was kept safely.
I finished serving my 2 and a half year's Naitonal Service in 1983 and thereon followed on to University undergraduate studies at the National University of Singapore from 1983 - 87, majoring in Mechanical Engineering.
When you have been through such tough times, your will to survive and press on gets even stronger.
I am very very sure that given time and with the social distancing in place we will lower the numbers and life slowly will return back to normal. Its not a quick fix, it will be as early as end of this year but we will overcome this once in a lifetime worldwide crisis of uninmanageable porportions.
I will take the down time as 1 - 3 months of finding and understanding myself.
T 59 Tank inside the Imperial Palace Grounds
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