National Service - Just How Could SAF Strike a Balance

Just as BMTC successfully passed out a new batch of Soldiers on 11th of October 2014, a NSF may have to be charged for misplacing his Matador. An incident that is reported all over the net, has helped made a mountain out of a mole hill.

All of the NSFs should know that SAF are the foundation of Singapore and and at the heart of the foundation are we Singaporeans. So everything that is handed to us are a stake of trust being given to us by the rest of Singaporeans and that of course include the responsibility of safe guarding our nation.

Each day as the sun sets and as the whisper blows it should be remembered at the heart of every Singaporeans that Dr Goh Keng Swee was the man with the foresight to implement NS. And it was NS that make all these possible. Our Nation, Our Home and Our Future.

NS at the point of time was the most efficient way to build up a Group of fighting fit soldiers at the shortest possible time. It must not be mistaken that this is an easy task especially at a time where people disregard being a soldier as something to be proud of. 好铁不打定，好汉不当兵' (meaning 'good iron isn't beaten into nails, and good men don't make soldiers')

Building up of SAF is not easy, having to source for weapons and expertise from different countries. Which previously we have nothing.  After absorbing these technologies and expertise into SAF, we have to pass down these technologies and expertise from one batch of soldiers to the next.  This is not so easy.

Failure to pass down the know-how to the next batches could also mean an end to Singapore. This can be showed that each NSF is equally important to the survival of this nation, and ONE mistake of NSF is the mistake of ALL NSFs and here comes the motto of ONE for ALL and ALL for ONE.

Sun Tze said before that
36. Too frequent rewards signify that the enemy is
    at the end of his resources; too many punishments betray
    a condition of dire distress.

But…. This incident where the NSFs has misplaced his Matador is already BIG on the news and probably being reported regionally already. Just how BIG the punishment that is going to be handed down has its way back to how SAF has been handing out rewards.

Because my generation has not suffered a day being dirty and hungry with no water, food and money, we just simply could not relate. There is no living impression of the desperate need to serve. 

So there is only two ways where we have been encouraging NS, monetary and publicity (Ego and Pride)

It has became increasing obvious at least to me, that the Government has been trying hard to pleased NSFs by handing out rewards in term of pride and ego. Small achievement which would not be considered as an achievement in the past generations of NSFs (at least 8 years ago), are now one hell of big achievement on Facebook pages and Cyberpioneer.

This is probably a mistake. Before SAF used to maintain a high sense of security, and do not usually leak out more than what the public should know. Ah Boys to Men is definitely a breakthrough, it is easy to know why it was being approved by SAF. Because it is a movie that Government need to use to repackage and reintroduce NS to Singaporeans. However it has been mistakenly relay to the youth that Army is somewhere where you can have pride and power.