There has been a lot of debates on going about National Service and especially the Army. This article is non-political, I will be writing about NS and it’s flawed policies in another article. I am not really supportive of the idea of NS, but currently there is nothing much we can do about the NS system. In this article, I’ll guide you through my army experience and lessons that I’ve learned. Hopefully this will help my Singaporean friends who are enlisting into army or currently in the army to make the best of their time.
 

Where I went in Army:

I enlisted into BMT in 2011 months after I graduated from Republic Polytechnic. I’ve scored fairly decent in IPPT which resulted in a 1 year 10 months of service. I did my BMT in Tekong during which I apparently injured the nerves in my calves(not sure how it happened till today). After my 2 months of BMT I was posted to 41 Sar as an Amour Infantry Trooper, throughout the months I down pes to E9L9, the lowest pes grade you could get in the army. I spent most of my army life as an armskote man, my job scope is similar to a store man just that I handled weapons day in and day out.

The stressful life of an armskote man:

Contrary to popular belief, the role of an armskote man and a non-combatant isn’t as relaxing as most combatants think. Of course, being a non-combatant means I didn’t need to do any physical activities which I actually loved. I wasn’t required to go outfield and I was exempted from going exercise Wallaby(military training in Australia). However, the amount of stress I faced was unbearable at times. Being a armskote man in a combat unit requires me to constantly open up the armskote. My job scope includes handing and taking care of weapons; accounting the weapons and accessories and ceaseless amount of arbitrary demands for paperwork which I had to comply. In any given day, I would have swap my time in the armskote for physical training. There are many days which after the troopers returned all the weapons and accessories, our numbers didn’t tally. We would be short of a magazine or other accessories etc. We can spend up till 4 hours searching for the missing items. This includes searching the whole armskote and gathering all the combatants again to check if they forgot to return any items. The armskote team was under constant scrutiny by combatants as every time we fail to tally the numbers, we had to trouble all of them. They were often tired after a demanding day of training and they just wanted to hit the sacks after returning their weapons. So whose fault is it for the accounting issues? Is it the lack of attention from the armskote team, or is it the combatants that simply forgot to return all the items? Well, it takes two hands to clap.

What the army taught me:

• You are forced to handle stress and overcome both physical and mental obstacles. This may help you in life with coping stress effectively in the work force and overcome challenges to come out with a solution.
• You learn to put on a facade. There are many superfluous activities in army which you are required to do under the demands of your superior. And sad to say, you don’t have much authority or rights to voice out your unwillingness to do it. And if you do not comply, you will be reprimanded. When you do enter the work force, you will find this “skill” very handy. Some times putting on a mask will save you a lot of trouble. In life, is best if we stay true to ourselves and stand our ground. But there are situations where is better to just put on a fake smile.
• For people who are hot-tempered and easily susceptible to having a outburst, army is the best time for you to change your ways. I was a hot-headed man with a very short fuse, I had a low tolerance for bullocks. Being in army you have to deal with many incompetent people especially your superiors. A good amount of them have a ludicrous lack of efficiency which you have to make up for. You often find yourself so tempted to just snap at your superiors but you can’t as you will face the consequences. Ultimately, after encountering this scenario over and over again you learn to control your anger, let it go and achieve a peaceful state of mind.
• Just because they are your superiors, it doesn’t mean they are smarter than you. There are a  lot of idiots holding high positions, just like the parliament.

Make the best of your time in army:

• Life is unpredictable, you can plan your goals but you’ll never know what will happen due to circumstances. That having said, is always still good to plan your life. Have a goal in mind, work your way towards it. Spend these 2 years thinking of what do you want to do. You can also spend the time taking your driver’s license. Most importantly, prepare yourself for a school you want to go do, or a job that you would love to do. We are already wasting 2 years of our lives(excluding reservist), so make use of the time to plan get right to acting on it once you ORD. Do not procrastinate like I did, 2 years pass by pretty quickly. Make the best out of everything.

With that having said, I am not referring to all the superiors you’ll meet in camp. I was lucky enough to have a number of caring officers and sergeants who treated me well!

To all my army friends, try your best to enjoy your time in Army and soon you’ll be out. Take care and good luck!

My infamous placard

My name is Daryl Tan, I am a man with an insurrectional mentality.  I believe that majority of the youths in Singapore are apathetic towards politics. I am in the pursuit of influencing youths to be more informed about local politics and how it will affect their lives. I can also identify myself with the problems many average Singaporeans face as I grew up in a family with financial difficulties. I feel that the Country is being governed like a totalitarian regime at times. I have a mission in mind, to stand up for all Singaporeans who are unhappy with the current system and policies. To me, it is imperative that Singaporeans vote for the opposition parties in because that is the only way Singapore can progress.

The author blogs at http://www.theaveragesingaporean.com