The "E" Word.

The tekan sessions by our sergeants were incredible, in hindsight.

Tired, running around in the scorching sun in our bunker gears...

Carrying hoses, coupling them, shouting commands...

And then waiting for your buddies to finish up their turns...

Man, just standing still is hard.

But somehow we just did.

We moaned, we bent down-hands on knees...

Our throats screamed for water.

And then when were about to rest, we were pumped for being too slow.

Really lost counts of how many and what style we did..

Then the fucking jumping jacks...

After that pumped again.

When sergeant asked us to recover and get into the training shed...

Wah.

I have never been that dizzy and tired in my life, seriously.

I was so tired, I could barely lift up my boots.

My body was slouched, my arms were just hanging there and my mouth was open coz I didn't have enough energy to keep it closed.

Yes, that tired.

My eyes were fluttering,

My vision was blurred,

My head was throbbing,

My body was swaying all over the place as I sat there.

Inside my head, I was telling myself to at least stay conscious.

Then the Encik asked us to shower.

Felt better from then on as my body temperature stabilized.

KNN, 2nd day of Basic Task Manual training nia. Hahahaha!

Thinking back, I was quite surprised by how much punishment I could take.

They always say it's mind over matter.

How true.

While suffering under the sun, I kinda thought of my loved ones.

It's not life and death but still, it gave me that boost.

You know?

I was thinking of how much I wanna make my parents proud,

How much I wanna be an awesome brother for my siblings.

How much I wanna be a stronger and better man for you, darling.

So that if I needed to protect them, I could at least do some part.

So that even if I died protecting them, my attempt had some effect to the situation.

Then the rest I'll leave to Allah's intervention.

It helps.

It helps to do the thing I have to do a lot nowadays.

In the day, the pain from training will hurt me.

Then at night when I'm on my bed, the pain of missing you threatens to finish me off.

But I keep doing what I always do nowadays.

Endure.

I will never let you fall.

I'll stand up with you forever.

I'll be there for you through it all.

Even if saving you sends me to Heaven.