15th of March came and went, yet it was a day of many memories, and more importantly, closing off a chapter in my life. Been working (or at least I thought I had been) quite hard for this event and now just feeling bittersweet that it’s over. The 1 hour 20 min on the parade square went by like a blur, as compared to the many rehearsals we had. We were also quite lucky in the sense that the new SSM that took over believed in more practical training methods as opposed to stern punishment and hey, I went through the 3 weeks without having to run round the parade square =). Happiest moment! - “Re-entry for fixing on of epaulettes”

The cheers and celebration spirit were high as we slowed march into the tunnel, from there, dumping down all the weapons and a sort of mini celebration ensued as we started congratulating one another. The re-entry portion singing the OCS song wasn’t tear-jerking as I thought it would be, haha… but just felt very elated that its coming to a close and finally can see my friends and loved ones. Tears welled up moment! - “Marching into the parade square”

Surprisingly, the initial entrance into the parade square was the most difficult, in terms of nerves, and in terms of emotions. Just kinda touched by the whole atmosphere, and being able to finally start the parade, with the crowd applause, with the throes of “We are one” in the background, I just felt like crying then and there. That would have been quite a sight, haha… Most boring moment! - “Speech.. yawn”

The things about parade, you spend so much time standing there, that the mind often wanders and during rehearsals I have accidentally drifted off and missed out commands. Luckily that didn’t happen on the actual day though :). So during the 10 min speech, I was just stoning there, dreaming about food, humming “apologise by one republic” to myself, basically trying to will the 10 minutes away. Most regretted moment! - “Marchpast”

Ah.. screwed up.

Haha.. the thing about being Contingent Commander was to make sure that the commands given must be good so that everything will proceed smoothly, yet on the actual day, I was a bundle of nerves during the marchpast (the most important bit actually) and kinda messed things up by giving the command somewhat offbeat. Shucks. The good thing was that it seemed that most people didn’t catch it and well, we did somehow manage to rectify it quickly, so hmmm…