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.