For those who had been through ASLC would surely be familiar with the 9 days 8 nites outfield in Taiwan. I still remembers the very 1st day, we had a platoon deliberate attack up a knoll and occupied it for 1 night. As usual, we had 1/3 alert and were holding on to NVG and stuff. My ASLC OC was a crazy guy who would check on trainees at 3a.m alone if we were really doing our 1/3 alert to see if anyone dozed off. If found sleeping, we would get hell from him. So all of us would do our 1/3 alert duty very diligently, challenging passwords with anyone who approach our platoon.

Then very unluckily my section was the point section and guarding the only entry point to the knoll where the whole platoon was harbouring, so we must be extra on the ball. The other sections were deployed at areas not accessible by foot, thus they could slack more.

Prior to our attack on this knoll, our pc briefed us a little on the knoll, told us not to go too near those few trees on our left as there’s dead chickens there. We tot “wtf… dead chickens only…” but heeded his orders nevertheless. In the end, the attack was concentrated more to the right flank instead.

Back to the main point of this story… as we were the point section guarding the only entry point to the knoll, our sentry point was situated at a strategic place where we could see the path that one had to walk in order to reach our knoll. This mean that anyone who wanted to come to our knoll, we would be able to see him abt 100 – 150m before he could actually reach us. Actually this was mainly targeted at our OC. And guess wat, the most strategic place where we could locate was beside the trees so bo bian, had to station our sentries there. I was on shift wif my buddy from 0000hrs to 0200hrs then we stood down while another 2 of my section mates took over the equipment. For those on sentry, we would always look into the NVG every now n then to check if our OC was coming. By the way, it was about March so weather was very cold especially at night in the jungle.

The 0200hrs shift took over and started chitchatting and at around 0215hrs suddenly they heard the leaves rustle in the trees beside them. The trees were abt 10metres away only. Immediately they looked thru the NVG, it appeared that 1 of the trees were shaking violently and it had a dead chicken tied to 1 of its branches. But the strange thing is it was a clear nite, no winds blowing n it’s only that 1 tree that is shaking, all other trees nearby were calm n peaceful and the trees were like clustered together, abt 1 – 2metres apart from each other. they oso did not se any animals or anything.

Being typical trainees, my 2 section mates immediately covered themselves with gortex jacket and didnt dare to look anymore, not even checking if OC was coming. They then reported the incident to my PC the next day who declined to tell us more abt the dead chickens.

When we were abt to leave taiwan, my section commander then told us what actually happened.
The dead chickens were actually offerings made to the spirits/supernatural in that area by farmers so that they would be blessed with good harvest. Prior to sispec training there, farmers would often discover their live stock being killed n they tot it’s wild animals at 1st until they consulted the local medium. Because the method the live stock was being killed was always the same, 1 thigh being tore out, heart being tore out, body totally drained of blood. so the farmers would tie live chickens upside down on the tree branches by tying the legs to the trees.

My PC’s instruction was to just stay clear of the area but curiosity got the better of us. The next day when we were leaving the harbour place, a few of us purposely went near the trees to check out that area and we found 2 dead chickens on 2 different trees, 1 was badly decayed while the other 1 still looked fresh wif 1 thigh being tore out, heart being tore out and totally drained of blood. But there’s no blood on the ground and bear in mind, at this point of time, we didnt know abt the story behind the dead chickens. So when my sect com told us about the dead chickens, it tallied with what we found.