Watch: 7 things about guns and girls in the Singapore Armed Forces #WomenBMT
Did you tune in to this week's episode of Into the Fray: The Making of a Female Soldier?
We did. Here's seven things we learnt about guns and girls in the Singapore Armed Forces from the CyberpioneerTV web series.
1. Girls name their guns.
We knew boys named their 'toys' (a.k.a cars and weapons) and referred to them as their wives or significant other.
But we didn't know girls did too... until we met Anithra.
She not only gave her gun a name (he's called Gerard), she also called "him" her husband. Guess the sexes aren't that different after all.
Here's a clip of Gerard saying hello to the camera (courtesy of Anithra bobbing "him" up and down). Okay, so maybe we aren't that similar...
2. There's no girl gun or boy gun.
There's no slimmer, lighter model that girls use. There's just the SAR21 rifle, a 4kg hunk of metal.
Guess that's why the girls must have attained at least a silver in the National Physical Fitness Award (Napfa) test.
3. You have to shoot while squatting.
This is a pose you'll never see in any movie, simply because it looks way too unglamorous.
It also looks terribly uncomfortable.
Cool factor? Zilch.
4. Firing bullets is awesome.
We're not kidding. Just look how happy Nuraishah is.
What's more awesome than that? Firing bullets with tracers, of course.
Here's a clip of Vivian showing us how "cool" the first bullet is (her words, not ours).
5. Girls have to get down and dirty with the guns.
Female recruits aren't spared from the filth.
Trenches, ditches, muddy grounds? That's just some of the surfaces they have to get used to.
6. Girls make great marksmen.
Of the 41 girls, 22 scored marksmen.
And all of them passed the test, even Rebekah.
She did the worst in her platoon during the IMT (Individual Marksmanship Trainer), scoring just 20 out of 32. But she scored "close to marksman" during the actual test.
7. They don't look all that different from the boys.
It's hard to spot the girl recruits when they are in their battle suits.
Girl or boy, we can't quite tell until he/she takes off the helmet. (Girls have hair. Boys don't.)
So, they didn't cover the big biological question this week: What happens when the recruits get cramps or their period?
But it's only episode two, and there are five more to go.
We await with bated breath.
Related report:
Watch: Why do girls join the Singapore Armed Forces? Let them tell you #WomenBMT
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