D10 - Second Gathering

Well, because the first reunion generated so much interest, we decided to hold a second one. It was also for those who genuinely couldn't make it the first time round. And for this Second Reunion, we did indeed have a bro flying in especially for the night. Teo Choon Seng - the reputed shortest guy in the platoon - who is based in Shanghai, who sportingly decided to drop by en-route to somewhere else afterwards. It was a big thing as evidenced by this pre-event hype poster (see below). He and Karam have a thing since CS decided to jump ship from Section 2 to Section 4... which unfortunately, did not happen. It's like Cyrano pining for Roxane. That sort of thing, LOL.

The Main Event. Bayi Vs Chinaman

For the Second Reunion - codenamed Ex Chengs Gourmet (the previous being Ex Don Quijote) - we had a bit more of prep time. The First Reunion was kind of a "spur of the moment" thing after we realised a majority of our comrades have been 'found' or reconnected with. We could hardly contain ourselves to meet again after all those 34 years since OCS!

Ex Chengs Gourmet

The cozy place we selected was Cheng's Gourmet, which is along that stretch of food joints along Clementi Road after NUS Architecture faculty and Kent Ridge bus terminal (familiar to any NUS student). It was cozy and we could 'book' the whole place to ourselves. We could make as much noise as we wanted!

Again we have roughly the same number of folks who turned up: 23+ (or more), not a bad number by any standard. And new faces joined us first time. I was glad to see them after all these years.

Once more, the camaraderie we had before returned. And we were soon chatting away recalling old times. Seemed there is never enough time to share old OCS stories, and there are plenty.

Without the Army News folks bothering me, I really had time to chat up my bros, to verify some of the tales I've heard, and more. These were stories that not just concerned D10 but also OCS and the other companies in general. The incident of POW torture for one. Cadet deaths and misadventures, another. The kind of Tactics Team training we went through. The instructors at OCS during our time were still organised in Tactics Teams. It was during my time as OCS instructor that we switched to the Mentor system. Quite a few of us from D10 ended up as instructors in OCS and we were the first instructor -guinea pigs for the new Mentor system. I didn't want to end up as a nanny Mentor officer to a bunch of cadets for nine months and so opted to join the Demo and Weapons team in OCS together with Fong Haw Tien. The D&W team was the only team left in OCS after the disbandment of the Tactics Team system. Fong and I had the same idea. We valued our autonomy and free time away from the cadet companies when training was over. Besides, we also wanted to learn something new. Bomb disposal was on our minds, but we ended up doing a Pioneer course at Gillman Camp instead (where we met up with Barry Lee Yoke Wai and his designated SIR PNR platoon). That course turned us into combat engineering capable infantry officers with knowledge on explosive placement, minefield warfare and booby traps. Knowledge that can be shared with OCS cadets once we returned to the school to teach.

Below are some photos from Ex Chengs Gourmet. Again the food was good the spirits high (including the whiskies, LOL). The only setback I felt was that instead of freewheeling conversation, we could have manged the narrative of the night better through some kind of staging and emceeing. More audience engagement. I will definitely do that the next time.

No D10 event is complete without whiskey of some sort and vintage. 

Amount of food was just nice and delicious.

The Chinaman and Bayi sizing each other up. 

Before making up (all a farce actually!)

Teo Choon Seng - the main man from Shanghai! He doesn't look it, but he has three daughters of
marriageable age!

Kheng Hua, Danny, Roger Liew and Tong

Nope, these guys were not watching a striptease show. Some ass, maybe.

"Yes, yes...let's see if we can get our sons and daughters married off..." Matchmaking, anyone?

A lot of laughs that evening!!!

Hopefully all who came are in this photo! D10 - Brothers-in-arms, always!"

After the costly first outing, I felt it was necessary to make an apology as I noticed some of the folks were taken aback by the cost. Granted the food was top-class, but the cost also included whiskey (an expensive one) which was not fair on the non-drinkers. So.... Thanks to Dennis for his generosity in making the food free for this Second Reunion. We hoped it ameliorated any wallet pain from the first one.