What to do when you (or your husband/ your boyfriend) is recalled and mobilised by MINDEF while in JB

February 21st, 2009 lawrence.gan

You have just reached Johor Bahru. After parking your car in a shopping center, you received a phone call from one of your army mates who exclaimed: ”Ooi! There is a RECALL!”. Your heart dropped a little. You have just braved a 1.5 hour jam to get across the causeway. XIAN-JI-BUAH !!

New SAF uniform, image from www.mindef.gov.sg

This incident has happened to many of us and here are a compilation of some pointers on what you/your gf/wife needs to be aware of when you received that unwelcome call/SMS.

All
1. Check back against your unit to ensure that you are indeed recalled. You can call this number (1800-3676767).

2. Have you filed for Overseas Notification (ON)? As a general rule, you should file for ON everytime you go to JB. If you did, you need not report back if your stay in Johor Bahru totals more than 24hours. Again, call your unit Ops room to confirm that you do not need to report back as you should be under the “Overseas Leave” exemption category. Do note that your unit will still call you to report back about 1 week after the recall exercise to verify your passport stamp and prove that you are indeed overseas.

3. If you did not file for ON or if you do not foresee your stay in JB to be more than 24 hours, check out the LIVE webcam by LTA (there is a link at our homepage) to make sure there are no serious traffic jams. If there is a serious traffic jam at Linkedua (2nd Link) for example, be prepared to use the Johor Bahru CIQ and vice versa. The rest of the points below will then apply to you.

If you are the Detachment IC/ 2IC/ 3IC
1. Every outgoing call from Johor Bahru to Singapore cost $0.60! Use Skype to notify your detachment if you have a laptop with internet connection. If not, kindly ask your other detachment ICs to help call the rest of the detachment. Hopefully, they are nice people and not as frustrated as you right now.

If you are the Advance Party (AP)
1. You only have 2 hours to get back to camp. Hurry hurry!! But drive safely..

If you are the Main Body (MB)
1. For Open Mob, the time to report back is usually 6 hours.

2. For Silent Mob, the time to report back is usually 8 hours.

3. There is still some time to makan and pump petrol.

If you are the wife/ girlfriend of the NS Personnel
1. Don’t sulk or be unhappy that you have to cancel your shopping trip. Your husband/ boyfriend is unhappy as well. It’s for a worthy cause anyway. As we are trained to call it, we are “Serving our nation”.

2. Give him a pat on the shoulders instead!

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