Duty, honour and country at 39 and three quarters

Reservist sucks. But most Singaporean men suck it up and take it in their stride with bouts of rants in the blogosphere and between fellow brethen who have served their 2-2.5 years of national service and 10 years of annual in-camp training (ICT) cycle.

The story of 39 and 3/4
One of my friends and ex-colleague is now at the receiving end of reservist. The Singapore Armed Forces has asked him to discharge his duty, honour and country just a few months shy of his 40th birthday which is the age by which he is legally no longer bound to serve under the Enlistment Act for enlisted ranks.

It's not my friend's fault for Mindef to be slow in calling him back to reservist so he has only served 1 other ICT prior to this second ICT. I've encountered such cases before, where a fellow platoon mate was recalled back at the age of 38 for his first ICT as he had been working in the US for many years prior to coming back to Singapore.

He is PES C2, the type that is excused from IPPT and strenuous activities. So his role in reservist is really very much support related and not a core front-line combat vocation.

What is the rationale for calling him back?
By the time he serves his ICT, he will be 1 month shy of 40th birthday as his ICT is in November but his birthday is in December. Mindef already missed calling him up in his 20s and early 30s and now that he is in 39 and 3/4 they want to squeeze one more ICT out of him even though he will still be 8 ICTs away from the the required 10 (or more accurately 5 short of the 7 high-key ICTs).

While his PES C2 status will not see him needing to handle assault courses and BCTC type of field training, it doesn't seem very useful IMHO to make him serve out the last one. By all measures of "fairness" to the rest of us who have served 10 years of reservist, making him do this one more doesn't make up for the 8 he didn't do through no fault of his.

And so we have the situation my friend finds himself in.

In a strange way, I'm glad to have completed by 10 years of ICT by the age of 36 as my first ICT after my run-out-date (ROD) or the more politically correct operationally-ready date (ORD) was at the age of 25+. Thus, I was able to clear most of the tougher battalion assessments and field exercises and get some incentive money for passing the individual physical proficiency test (IPPT) whilst in my younger days.

I'm now 38 and am in Mindef Reserve, i.e. have fully discharged my reservist liabilities and waiting for official demobilisation by age 40. I no longer worry that at age 39 and 3/4, Mindef will shoot me an SAF100 to ask me to do my duty, honour and country one more time prior to the age of 40.

Death of patrotism by a thousand cuts
My friend's story is not unique. There are hundreds if not thousands of NSmen whose patriotic spirit is slowly eroded and leeched by the small metaphorical cut by the bureaucratic machinery that is Mindef and the Singapore Armed Forces. For all our vaunted force-multiplier 3G technology army with Leopards, Primus Self-Propelled, F15, Chinooks and Bionix AFVs, it is the NSmen that forms the bulk of the business end of the SAF during real operations.

What happens to the spirit and morale of your NSmen when you slowly cut a piece of patriotism out of him bit by bit through SAF100s that change within a few weeks of receiving the first one and you make him feel that the whole reservist experience just sucks?

How do NSmen like my friend feel when they are asked to do their reservist one month shy of their 40 years? In form, Mindef is well within its rights to ask him to serve one more ICT. In substance, they are just making him another disgruntled male citizen who feels victimised by the system that he is laying down his life to defend.

Most NSmen are not against the idea of serving your country. But the experience of NS/reservist adminstration and overall disruption to your economic and personal life is that it sucks, it sucks and it sucks.

As my own memories of my reservist experience start to acquire the sepia tinge of nostalgia, I cannot help but feel sad that one of the critical links that bind Singaporean male citizens to this country is allowed to fray because the State wants to make sure that when you are 39 and 3/4, you jolly well do your duty, honour and country.

Majullah Singapura.