NPAP 2019

The National Police Annual Parade (NPAP) is an annual parade marking the celebration of the NPCC Day and an event honouring the stellar achievements of NPCC Units. This year, NPAP was held on 13th April 2019 at the Home Team Academy. Our Unit’s cadets are proud to have participated in the GOH contingent, flag bearer contingent as well as the supporting contingents.

Below are the written reflections by our five participating cadets.

Guard-of-Honour Contingent (Lee Yi Xuan)

    “Who are we?”

    “G-O-H!”

    With this kept in mind, we headed to the form-up point, for the final time marching out and the final time holding the M416 rifle. After all the tireless trainings, the big day finally arrived. We gave one another words of encouragement, determined to give our best shot.

The drumbeats rolled. Donning our no.1 uniform, we marched out, with silent timings in our minds, “left-left-left-right, left-left left-right”. All the teachings, advice and scoldings from our sirs and ma’ams resonated in my mind, as constant reminders on how to belok, how to execute rifle drills and how to keep check of our dressing.

When the double beat sounded, we turned to face the grandstand. It felt surreal and yet stupefying to see such a big turnout. We executed the drills like how we did during dry runs, but before I realized it, it was time for the march past. The parade ended really quickly, much shorter than what I had expected.

We headed to the armory to return our rifles, and this marked our last time. The moment our trainers got us to fall out, everyone cheered stupendously, praised, and high-fived one another. We knew in our heart, that everyone has done their best, and so everyone deserved the “good job”. This shared moment of joy and pride was priceless.

For the last time, we marched as one whole GOH to the lecture theatre. For the last time, this cheer sounded: “4,3,2,1, G-O-H”. For the last time, we enjoyed the companionship of each and every contingent mate.

In the lecture theatre, it struck me that this may probably be the last time I will get to see this fun bunch of people. It made me realize how fast time flew by. I remember getting panicky at the start of NPAP, having my mind filled with wild thoughts: How will I survive 60 hours of training? Will I be able to make any friends? Are my drills up to standard?

All thanks to the 129 of them, as well as sirs and ma’ams, I managed to integrate into this “ big family”. GOH brought together people from different areas and different schools, and gave me the chance to meet amazing people. Despite being a noisy bunch, their friendly and fun nature made trainings more bearable and a lot more enjoyable. With the limited time, I did not manage to get to know all of them but I am glad to have forged precious friendships. We stepped in as individuals and now we are leaving as a whole, from strangers to contingent mates.

Initially, to think of marching, belok-ing or coordinating our drills as a 100 people contingent, it felt crazy and unthinkable. But looking back now, I feel that all the hard work was worth it, to make this possible. I feel extremely honoured to be part of them and am thankful to have been given this opportunity.

This chance really meant a lot to me. Indeed, it was tiring to juggle academics and NPAP trainings. But to have gotten to know so many people, to have had the opportunity to march out in front of so many people and to have experienced marching in such a large contingent, this experience was spectacular.

Supporting Contingent (Chen Qiao Leng, Wang Jia Xin)

NPAP was an eye opener for us as it was our first time participating in such a large-scale parade. As there was only five training before the actual day, practices were tiring at times, but seeing the whole parade take place made all the sweat and tanning worth it.

    In the beginning, we were afraid that we might face troubles interacting with cadets from other units, but our contingent mates were really friendly, which made striking and maintaining conversations seemingly effortless. We were also taken aback at how informal our contingent commander and trainer were. It wasn’t long before we started enjoying the company of everyone in supporting contingent 7 and all the encouragements after each dry run. From creating our own SC7 clap to playing with our fingers, we experienced moments we didn’t expect to when we volunteered for NPAP.

    Besides serving as a rare opportunity for us to partake in a parade and widening our social circle, NPAP also pushed us to improve our drills. For instance, the speed of hentaking in NPAP is faster than what we are used to, at such we had difficulty trying to maintain our drill standards after some time initially. We could also compare the drills we learnt within our unit with those of other units, and we indeed realised many mistakes that we didn’t know we doing executing wrongly and subsequently brought it back to our squad.

From the first training, where we were still sitting amongst our own schoolmates and only talking amongst ourselves, and listening to the FIs and CIs briefing us, to us comfortably sitting with people not only from different units, like the school across the road, but also from different areas. We have come a long way, making friends with people on the opposite side of Singapore.

We were in the support contingents, so we only needed to know that much drills. But along the way, we had to learn many different timings for the same drill and practice our coordination again and again under the hot glaring sun. First within the contingent, then between the whole of the supporting contingents.

    The day of the actual parade seemed to pass so quickly. In the blink of an eye, we were standing at our form up up points, waiting for the Emcees to go “ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the NPCC annual parade…”. Marching out as a contingent and looking up to see “Honour and Unity” above us, knowing that the unit and our family are watching from somewhere and cheering us along was a unique sensation. Acknowledging that the parade will be our last, we took extra efforts to remember the scene. All the supporters on the grandstand, the banners near the parade square, the sea of blue around us… these were the picture we hoped to carve into our memory.

           In the end, we all marched back to the holding rooms, thinking to ourselves :“We did our best”. Waiting for the areas to be dismissed one by one, we did our SC7 clap for the last time: S-C-SE-VEN!

     Both of us did not get to interact with everyone, and years down the road, will probably forget most of their names and faces, but the lively spirit in SC7 and the 60 anniversary shirt will be cherished and kept close to our hearts. NPAP was a journey that gave us takeaways in many aspects and we feel grateful to be give the chance to be part of the parade, and to be part of Supporting Contingent Seven 2019.

Supporting Contingent (Zhou Yu Yan)

NPAP 2019 was last Saturday, and to be honest, I didn’t expect to miss my SC, my CI trainers, or even the trainings that much. I expected to be happy that I could finally wake up late on Saturdays, stop having to worry about whether I would be selected as one of the final 40 cadets in my contingent marching in the actual parade, and finally being able to have an entire Saturday to do all my homework again.

But now NPAP is over, and the truth is that I find myself suffering from post-parade depression. I miss my contingent mates, I miss the fleeting moments where we trained together (indeed, we only trained for 10-15 minutes at a time, it felt like the moment we started hentaking, we were already been told to go back to the grandstand), I miss the weekly escapes from life in general, and I miss the quirky ma’ams and sir in charge of us.

I came to NPAP as a nervous cadet hoping that NPAP would be as amazing as it sounded, and I wasn’t disappointed. From the endless refillings of water bottles, to brief periods of trainings, to marching out on the unity square for the first time as part of a contingent during training, to bonding with my contingent mates and getting to know each other better, to mass polishing and photo-taking in the classrooms during the 2 hours before the parade, to pre-parade nervousness and fright at the side of the grandstand, to marching out in the actual parade, NPAP 2019 has been such a memorable experience, and I definitely do not regret signing up for the selection test!

When I first met my contingent mates, I was hit in the face by the fact that I was alone, with only ma’ams as familiar faces, since Nicole was in mf. Everyone seemed to have at least one or two friends amongst their own units, as some of them had a squadmate or two participating with them. I was really really really worried that I would not be able to make any friends, and would end up as a loner in the contingent. However, as the trainings progressed, I grew to realise that NPAP really bonds cadets from various units and schools all over Singapore. Even though we have varying interests and come from different backgrounds and races, everyone put their differences aside and worked together to form strong bonds and friendships in the weekly ten hours’ worth of trainings that threw us together.

This may sound cheesy but, standing in the midst of a sea of blue, I felt very proud of NPCC, and what we were presenting to the spectators. After all, NPAP is the product of all our hard work, and we are there, representing our schools and units, who have chosen us to represent them.

NPAP truly is #WORTHIT and #AMAZING. To all potential future participants, I highly urge you to try out for places in NPAP!

Flag Party (Ding Youzhu Nicole)

Personally, being part of the mass flag 2 contingent was one of my most memorable experiences.

From the times when we would show our competitive spirit by shouting louder than the other contingents, to the moments during break when we would talk about our own hectic lives, to the times that we were shouted at to ‘Endure! Endure!’ during Rusoks, to the times we helped each other adjust to markings, lending each other polish and refill water bottles.

I really did not expect to miss the 10 hour trainings, or waking up at 6am on a nice Saturday morning for days, or stressing about doing better at flag drills, but I do now. I miss my contingent mates, how we weren’t that different even though outside NPCC we might have completely contrasting personalities. I miss my humorous trainers, who never failed to hype us up and tell us how important each and every one of us was. I miss having the honour of carrying the school flag amongst hundreds of others carrying their flags alongside me. I miss standing in front of the grandstand, facing the hundreds of people watching us, knowing that every second of training had been worth it.

I came to NPAP expecting long, arduous trainings, and being without any acquaintances or friends in a contingent was nerve-wracking at first. However, I soon learnt how NPCC actually does bond cadets from all over Singapore, and although we were all from different schools and areas, without fail, we would put aside all differences for the 10 hours every time we trained together. From this experience, I really learnt the meaning of “台上一分钟，台下十年功”.

I urge all the future NPAP participants to treasure every second spent with their contingent mates, sirs, ma’ams, and everyone else they embark on the journey with, because no amount of time feels enough to be able to fully savour the feeling of training for and being on parade. Finally, I would like to thank ma’ams for the opportunity to attend this year’s NPAP.