The Government failed to stem the military training fatality

BillyBong SG

It's good points you've raised and it's comforting to realise people do dissect the problem of serious medical illnesses mistaken for maligaring.

Our MOs simply lack the experience needed to correctly diagnose a patient, or alternatively seek other forms of medical advice. It's much like being confused between knowing what you should do, and what you can do.

It is indirectly written that an MO must be able to weed out the 'chao keng' from the genuine cases. But with a line equivalent to people queueing up for 4D, time pressure becomes a problem. Coupled by the fact that the status of men are determined by them, and it ultimately impacts their units, it creates 2 kinds of MOs: The 'chao keng' catcher or the 'welfare MO'.

As the name inplies, one simply signs off 'Att A' for every soldier with minor injuries or illness and believes everyone reporting sick is out to con the SAF. The other prefers to err on the side of caution and cover his backside, prefering to reflect an 'ATT B' status.

As a result, our own system is helping neither correctly assess the true nature of the soldier inbetween.

Atobe SG

Originally posted by BillyBong:

It's good points you've raised and it's comforting to realise people do dissect the problem of serious medical illnesses mistaken for maligaring.

Our MOs simply lack the experience needed to correctly diagnose a patient, or alternatively seek other forms of medical advice. It's much like being confused between knowing what you should do, and what you can do.

It is indirectly written that an MO must be able to weed out the 'chao keng' from the genuine cases. But with a line equivalent to people queueing up for 4D, time pressure becomes a problem. Coupled by the fact that the status of men are determined by them, and it ultimately impacts their units, it creates 2 kinds of MOs: The 'chao keng' catcher or the 'welfare MO'.

As the name inplies, one simply signs off 'Att A' for every soldier with minor injuries or illness and believes everyone reporting sick is out to con the SAF. The other prefers to err on the side of caution and cover his backside, prefering to reflect an 'ATT B' status.

As a result, our own system is helping neither correctly assess the true nature of the soldier inbetween.

It was comforting to note from my discussion with the SAF Reservist Doctor - in Private Practice - that he was simply baffled at the attitude of the current SAF Doctors, who seemed to be more concerned with filtering out malingers, then discovering if the problem is due to real medical issues - physical or psychological.

It is unfortunate that despite spending many years as an under-graduate and in housemanship before graduating, our young SAF Doctors - graduating at an average age of 26 years - are still unable to be circumspect in discerning real medical situations from malingering.

This will beg the question often asked - why should a Medical graduate be given the commissioned rank of Captain, while an Engineering or Architectural or other Professional Degree holder do not enjoy such rank advancement ?

The professional medical reputation of the SAF seems to be advanced by those in the Reserve while in Private Practice, and also supported by the Public Medical Service.

This SAF Medical Reputation is sitting on fragile ground with young medical graduates acting as SAF Doctors, who wrongly believe too seriously of their own capability upon attaining the given rank of Captain.

qpicanto SG

The local print media is very quiet about it.

BillyBong SG

As for the issue of blaming the govt for SAF fatalities, i think it's unfair to lump the sole blame and lay it on their doorstep.

As with the dunking incident, the procedures and SAF doctrines were there. The oversealous trainers simply IGNORED them. Afterwards, they even tried to cover up their negligence. So really, it is the individuals on the ground who shoudl deservedly be punished for such gung-ho acts that contravene the safety directives.

As with Lt Lin who drowned, it was the trainers who failed to be observant, an almost carbon copy of the drowning incident involving the specialist going for SOF selection. Despite the numerous pairs of eyes deployed on the training site, not one noticed that the trainee had gone under and it was in fact the conducting officer, after perfoming a headcount, who realised one person was missing.

Were the necessary precautions taken during the training? Definitely. What was the real cause?

HUMAN FACTOR.

The fact is, anyone can flood the training doctrine with a myriad of directives to follow. It's really whether the trainers follow dilligently, or blatantly disregard them.

bila_prem SG

SAF has the most outdated technology and IT solutions. But they have the most updated death cases every year. Laughing

asdfzhao SG

O Please. this is not the only case... World Cup by 2010? If this is possible, pigs can fly...

Atobe SG

Originally posted by asdfzhao:

Original post by Atobe:

"there's no such thing as a thinking solider. soldier= no need for brains, only listen to orders" - I hope you are just simply "clowning around" and not being serious.

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he is serious.right?

He is seriously clowning around with his left views, and probably having serious second thoughts concerning the right view.

Could the SAF Commando training be benchmarked too closely to the US Army Special Forces training ?

A typical US Special Forces soldier will easily weigh at least 90kg, compared to the average Singaporean Asian weight of 55kg to 65kg.

Are the packs and cargo to be carried by our 65kg SAF Commando too ambitious - so as to make our SAF Commando performance equal to that of a 90kg US Special Force soldier ?

Benchmarking ourselves with the best, should be taken with some degree of realistic pragmatism.

The SAF Command should seriously review the entire design plan in the way that they expect our SAF Commandos to perform during war, and if our Commandoes should be expected to physically perform in the same manner as the US or other Caucasian soldiers.

If one 65kg SAF Commando alone cannot match a US 90kg, perhaps two SAF Commandoes should be tasked to do the job, or else redesign the approach that will allow the same task to be accomplished by one SAF Commando.[/color]

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O Please. this is not the only case... World Cup by 2010? If this is possible, pigs can fly...

If it serves to maintain the National Pride and Morale, the POWER OF ONE maybe willing to allow Temasek to spend a couple of MEGA-MILLION Dollars to purchase the World Class Football Stars, so as to make a National Singapore Team consisting the likes of Beckham, Ronaldinho, Zidane, Klose, Crespo,Torres, and similar equal stars.

This possibility boils down to the amount of NATIONAL MONEY that is available to buy such talents to represent Singapore.

When this becomes a reality, perhaps you will see flying elephants - and not merely flying pigs.

blueheeler SG

Aiyah! This is military training lah. Sometimes people die because realistic training is tough. I believe that it is not possible for zero-deaths in SAF training.

Atobe SG

Why should zero-deaths not be possible in the most realistic of training ?

If your opinion is correct, the parents of subsequent generations of NSF will have serious cause to worry.

During the early days of NS Training in the late 1960s when NS started, the first few batches of NSF enlistees had to crawl under barb wires with GPMG firing live bullets whizzing above the barb wires. Platoon and Company Live Firing Assaults were conducted in the grounds of SAFTI, with overhead live motar and GPMG support fire being placed at designated sites - to provide realism and condition the NSF enlistees to an actual war scenario - as they charge up the cursed hills of SAFTI.

Those were realistic training with zero deaths, and were a result of careful and meticulous planning from dedicated commanders - who took their job seriously, and not in some RAMBO Gung-ho fashion.

Accidents resulting in deaths are largely due to inattentiveness of those at the helm, much like automobile accidents the result of inattentiveness of those in control of the steering, accelerator and brakes.

Are the present young commanders less mature than the generations before them ?

Why is there a sudden surge of training accidents and deaths - if the frequency and tempo remained the same all through the years ?

Can the training frequency and tempo be the same with smaller intakes of NSF enlistees due to a shrinking population ?

Such accidents are most likely the result of training being executed without too much imagination and serious concern for accidents to happen; and more likely with the attitude of those in command probably believing themselves to be some kind of experienced War Veteran with the charisma of Rambo from Movieland.

LazerLordz SG

If you think that training at SAFINCOS in the 1960s were death-free... you'd most likely be wrong.

It's the degree of media open-ness that did not exist then.

Atobe SG

You maybe right insofar as media open-ness is concerned.

With NS being so difficult to be accepted in the early days of NS for National Defense, do you think that caution and care will not be the key word from the commanders who have no background experience to draw from ?

In the 1960s, when the rumour mill runs faster than the newspaper, can any death from NS training be hidden from Singaporeans ?

Undeniably, training accidents do happen, when limbs were lost - as had happened in quite a few cases when the old Bailey Bridges were constructed by the Combat Engineers; or the base plate of a 120mm Motar squashed some toes; or when the tracks and hatch of an AMX-13 clipped off a finger.

Death did occur during night exercises, when a tired soldier fell into deep sleep un-noticed under a 3-tonner and was squashed when the driver drove off without checking. Or when a 3-tonner slipped and toppled over the side of a hill.

Death did occur when a nervous trainee dropped a hand grenade inside his own foxhole, or sprung the spring and held on to the grenade, and in the process killed himself and his accompanying commander through critical injury.

Such deaths have become less an occurrence, with lessons learnt and new safety precautions taken.

However, such deaths did not occur at such high frequency of several deaths within a year - as is happening now, and with a higher rate seemingly occurring with the Commandos.

Rambo - the swaggering gung-ho figure - was not yet a movie in the 1960s, to give any commanders that idiotic idea of being a heroic war veteran.

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