Tio NDP

[Source: http://sporesays.blogspot.com/] 

How apt.

Training to Endure

One of the key lessons I learnt during my two and a half years of full-time national service in a signaller in an armour unit and as a signaller in the People's Defence Force (infantry) was endurance. Basically, to survive your conscript experience is to endure the hardships, physical training, field training and other miscellaneous duties heaped onto one's plate as a conscript in the Lion City.

To be fair, the NSF and NS experience is all hard. In general, units kept to office hours unless there was scheduled field training or night training or if you were on duty for the various tasks that soldiers were expected to carry out e.g. guard duties, COS/BOS (Company orderly sergeant, battalion orderly sergeant) depending on your rank.

But it is during those periods of hardship such as Standard Obstacle Course training or defence exercises in digging defence positions that endurance comes in. One needs to just endure and endure and endure to get through the task or exercise.

Singapore male citizens who have endured tough times and assignments during their NS makes them "tougher" in that you can take physical discomfort and hardship a bit better after NS compared to someone who has not. So far, this did help me when my daughter was born as I dealt with sleep deprivation for the first three to four months when 3-4 hourly feeds were common and having to help pacify the baby at all hours was the norm.

Endurance really did help me and now that my daughter is 3.5 years old, it's such a fun time to be with her as I can communicate to her and play with her. I think part of my ability to survive fatherhood comes from my NS experience because I know that it is about surviving that day, that hour, bit by bit by enduring that we get through the situation.

Now that I've completed my NS liabilities and am in Mindef reserve and still waiting for my official demobilisation letter since I'm already 40 and not an officer, I think back about how conscription did shape me to have better endurance in life. Although I still think 2.5 years and the reservist obligations take up too much of our precious time and resources given the competitive pressures we face in Singapore.

Majulah Singapura.

No Country for Young (Singaporean) Men

I am surprised that our mainstream media allowed this letter to be published. Many parents of male Singapore citizens and 2nd generation permanent residents must worry as they read about news of fatalities happening during national service to their precious children.

As a father myself, I too worry about my child but count my blessings that she was born a girl so she does not have to go through what I went through for duty, honour and country.

My parents had two of their sons serve national service in combat vocations for 2.5 years and 10 years reservist. They too worried when we were overseas for training as well as undergoing field exercises in ulu places in Singapore. Fortunately, both sons went through their NS stints safely but not without encountering news of unit mates passing away due to accidents or to IPPT.

Conscription as it stands cannot continue to go on like it is. I cannot fathom why we cannot even start the discourse to consider professionalising the military into an all volunteer force. Taiwan is going that direction. Germany has ended mandatory conscription in the military. Policy makers have to understand that we are living in a very different geopolitical world compared to when Singapore attained self-rule in 1959 and independence in 1965.

As it stands, the Republic of Singapore Air Force and Navy are already fairly professionalised. It is high time for the Army to consider gradually transiting away from reliance on a conscript force and move fully into a professional force. Detractors will accuse me of saying that I'm advocating throwing away our defence force.

Rubbish. If you read carefully, I am advocating that we consider re-thinking about our reliance on this model of mandatory conscription that is imposed only on the male citizen population. Given a defence budget of $15billion, I believe we can professionalise the army and reduce the number of soldiers we need without compromising our defence and security needs. We do not have to look far to see that the Police Force has many regulars who are PRs and not citizens and we also induct the Gurkha contingent made up of native Nepalese who serve in the SPF.

Our home team is already staffed with many paid professionals supplemented with full-time Police national servicemen. Similarly, full-time Civil Defence Force officers work alongside SCDF conscripts. Why can't the army start to professionalise itself and wean itself off conscripts? The US Army takes into many naturalised citizens from other countries into combat service. I say we should do the same. If you want Singapore citizenship, you can be prepared to shed your blood alongside locally born Singaporean men who continue to do so to defence our motherland Singapura.

Majulah Singapura.

==========

Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/STIStory_701212.html

National service: A mother's constant worry

Published on Aug 12, 2011

AS A mother of a full-time national serviceman (NSF) who is nine months into his national service and who has just graduated from the Specialist Cadet School, I feel the pain of the parents of Third Sergeant Ee Chun Sheng ('NSF on training exercise dies'; Aug 3).

Each day, since my son began fulfilling his NS obligations, I have lived in fear of the telephone ringing, or of a soldier in uniform calling at my house, to break some painful news.

We can live with the sores and cuts that he comes home with, but we fear the day we will never see him come home again.

Every year, thousands of our boys leave their homes, their studies or their jobs to fulfil their obligations to the nation. All they and we, their parents, ask for is their safe return two years later.

Why are there fatal accidents involving our NSFs almost every year? Why do they happen even after inquiries and investigations reveal that procedures were followed and safety measures were in place?

The Defence Ministry should correct this distressing record. Let us, the parents of current and future NSFs, live and sleep in peace.

Looi Pek Hong (Ms)

The Blood Price of Defence and Security in the Lion City

Another of our brethen has fallen in serving his duty to his country. Condolences to the family of the late SCT Ee Chun Sheng. All of us who serve and have served in the SAF, SCDF and SPF for our country as conscripts grieve for another brother lost for the defence of our nation.

The price of blood is the true price we conscripts of the Lion City pay. I wonder how it feels for people who have served in a non-combat vocation such as 'Defence Medical Scientist' in air-conditioned comfort day-to-day while others need to go for navigation (or topographical) exercises carrying SBO, helmet and rifle go walking around with map and compass in SAF training areas.

I have said it once and I'll continue to say it again. The price of conscription at times can be DEATH OR INJURY. If you talk to any of your brothers, spouses, fathers, cousins who have served especially in combat vocations in the SAF as conscripts in the Lion City, you would at times hear of fatalities they have encountered or heard about whilst doing their 2-2.5 years of full-time national service and 10-13 years of reservist training.

We who are liable to pay the ULTIMATE price for the defence of the Lion City are marginalised in our own country by the current administration's opaque policies that allow foreigners to flood our country and compete against citizens in public-funded educational institutions of higher learning, in jobs, in scholarships.

I am not against competition. I welcome it. But it has to be FAIR competition. What country creates a marketplace where its own male citizens are handicapped by the two years of NS? Increasingly, even Taiwan is looking to reduce its NS term and Germany (as part of NATO) has ended conscription.

We take up university studies 2 years later than foreigners and female citizens. We enter the workforce 2 years later. We start families 2 years (or more) later.

The 2 years of NS in combat vocations see NSFs being paid marginally better than foreign domestic workers but we risk life and limb to protect the country. We bear the social costs of the defence of the Lion city but get precious little (especially for those of us who MR or completed NS prior to the $9,000 award announcement) in terms of tangible benefits. The positive externalities generated from the defence umbrella held by us is enjoyed by all and sundry who do not serve a single day of NS.

The laughable tax relief (and not even tax rebate!) of a few thousand dollars annually is the price the country puts on our sacrifice to our nation. Of course, old reservists like myself who completed our reservist obligations get nothing from the additional $9,000 award from Mindef as we missed the boat for serving our country earlier. Even if you look at $9,000, it's not much if you are dead at age 21 since your potential lifetime earning for 30-40 years of economically productive life should be in the range of a couple of million SGD.

At the end of the day, such cases of fatalities only serve to reinforce the bitter pill that NSFs and NSmen continue to swallow, in that we are 2nd class citizens in our own country. We male citizens and 2nd generation PRs who have to serve NS undertake MORE responsibilities and liabilities without commensurate benefits.

It seems strange in the Lion City that in the highest echelon of "public" (political) office you can be paid world class salaries as a minister under the lightning banner. But a male citizen risking his life for the country is paid marginally more than your foreign domestic worker.

Go figure as National Day approaches.

Majulah Singapura.

===========

Source: Mindef Website

Death of Singapore Armed Forces Full-Time National Serviceman

Posted: 03 Aug 2011, 0001 hours (Time is GMT +8 hours)

A Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) full-time National Serviceman (NSF), Specialist Cadet (SCT) Ee Chun Sheng, 21, was found to be unconscious at about 5.11 pm on 2 Aug 2011 while participating in a navigation exercise at Ama Keng Training Area at Lim Chu Kang

An SAF medic went on site and tried to resuscitate SCT Ee at about 5.15pm. The serviceman was evacuated via a safety vehicle to the Tengah Air Base Medical Centre and arrived at about 5.39pm where an SAF doctor attended to him. SCT Ee was then sent via an ambulance to the National University Hospital (NUH) at 6.05pm and arrived at 6.32pm. The SAF doctor and medic continued to resuscitate him enroute to the hospital. SCT Ee was pronounced dead at 9.03pm at NUH.

The Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) and the SAF extend their deepest condolences to the family of the late SCT Ee. The SAF is assisting the family in their time of grief and is investigating the incident.