I have always thought that navigation exercise was a no kick one, and has no dangers involved in it. But I was proven wrong on last Monday (21 July).

Last Monday, my company was conducting the Exercise Wanderer in Pulau Tekong, followed by Grandslam in the following 3 days to come. During our first day, we managed to find 3 out of 4 of our checkpoints and were going on to our gathering area together with another detail in our section. As we were left with half an hour to get to our destination before we were considered to have failed the navigation, we decided to cut short the 4km route and to take the short cut by bashing through the forest. This was when the problem started.

We trekked through the forest for around ten minutes before we reached a long stretch of wet grassland. Our leading navigator, whom we trusted much due to his past performances in other navigation exercises, decided to follow the grass patch and we followed him as well. At that point in time, it was already 5.30pm plus.

We continued to walk for another 10 minutes when we reached a place where the trees somehow no longer looked like the usual huge trees, but were those skinny ones, clustered together. The next strange thing we realized was the water level. As we continued to walk, the water level kept getting higher and higher until it went right above our boots. This was when we realized that we had walked into a swamp. The time was already 6pm.

Me and a few others had actually shouted for the rest not to continue, as we knew about the hidden dangers in a swamp. However, some of them insisted on carrying on as they were unsure that if they were to back track, they would be able to find the way out. It was at this time that we realized that we were actually lost inside the swamp. By that time it was 6.15pm.

Many of us were starting to panic, yet we could not rush through the swamp due to the dense vegetation and the presence of hornets' hives on top of the trees. If we were to rush and trip on to the trees most likely the hornets would be agitated. Secondly, time was also not on our side as the sun was about to set. We did not want to stay inside the swamp throughout the night as this may pose danger to us. This was in consideration that some of us saw huge holes beneath the treeroots, indicating the possible presence of crocodiles.

At this point in time, we decided to radio back to our control for help. We picked up the comms set and started speaking through, only to realize that the other comms set that our section possess and just 3metres away could not pick up any signals. Only then we realized that we had not only lost our way, but lost our communications as well. We were on our own.

We then tried to gain higher ground by walking towards the higher places (of course). But we were stopped eventually as the vegetation was too dense to even get through them. One of our guys decided to do something which I really condemn-using his parang to hack through the trees. In the end, while hacking he had accidentally dropped his parang into the waters and he could not find it for some reason. It was already 6.30pm, and the sky was getting darker.

However I think the dropping of the parang was a turning point for us. we decided to take the last choice for us, that is to back track. That was when we found the patch of grass at around 7pm (fortunately).

Now the word swamp is no longer a word to me, it's a phobia...