Live and Die Singapore Style (With NS)

Today, someone I know from my social circle passed away in hospital. He had suffered a heart attack, was resuscitated but unconscious and never regained consciousness. He was in his late 40s and leaves a wife and a 7 year-old son.

Death is something you do not usually think about (too much) until you are confronted by it through the passing of someone you know. He or she could be a relative, a friend, an acquaintance or a colleague.

Life and Death in SG
We know that death is inevitable. Most would want to live a long and fruitful life. But at times, life doesn't play out that way. And life plays out even more cruelly when you are a conscript in the Lion City because it can happen to you or someone you know well while you are serving your 2 years (previously was 2.5 years) full-time national service in the Singapore Armed Forces as well as your 10 years reservist cycle for duty, honour and country.

If you are a follower of my blog, you would know of the two cases I tend to quote. One was the death of a regular sergeant who was the vehicle commander of an SM-1 tank that overturned during skill-at-arms competition training. The other was a reservist from my people's defence force unit who collapsed during his 2.4km IPPT run and subsequently died.

This post doesn't talk about the injustice, the sadness and (maybe) the futility of their deaths. It talks about how Mr. DEATH is on the verge of our awareness every-day when we are in the SAF. One is probably as likely to can die in a car accident than to be killed during NS but it can occur.

You can DIE in NS
I was commenting in a forum that discusses NS issues and remarked that some of the young people (teens) there didn't seem to grasp that you can possibly lose your life if some stupid training accident occurs. Accidental discharge during live-firing. Faulty ammunition. Vehicle accidents, overturning. Drowning during river crossing. Very rare ill-treatment (Ranger dunking case that led to a death) or very unfortunate case of aircraft crashing into you (Taiwan aircrash case).

It can happen. It has happened. Unfortunately, it will happen again as that's the nature of accidents. I've seen the SAF improve its safety standards and methods but when you are in an environment where you are trained to kill people and shoot up or blow sh** up, death is always a possibility since you deal in weapons, ammunition and equipment that is meant to destroy and kill men and material.

Looking back at my own NS experience, I thank God that I made it in one piece. I remember being at live-firing exercises where the person next to be only barely knew how to operate his M16 as a reservist. I recall mortar bombs dropping on the objective and staying back before following the troops to assault the objective. If the mortars had not hit the objective and been miscued in terms of trajectory. I wouldn't be here.

I have been in M113 running across Australian terrain and the driver going for 3 hours without much rest. It's a blessing that the terrain was relatively flat but accidents of M113 knocking into trees with the trees crashing onto the vehicle commander have been floated around before.

When you are young, you don't think about death. When you become older and complete your NS cycle, you shudder to think of the risks you took for the country, only to see the country change beyond your wildest imagination.

Singapura is not what it was when I was cheonging up pengkang hill.

Majullah Singapura.