I'm sure you know by now that the compulsory 2-year NS system
for men is important as Singapore needs a defence force to
sustain survival. This is due to its small size and its
surroundings.
But I just want to gather feedbacks about the nasty happenings
in your NS. Over these 4 decades, with many evil things happening
around, don't you think that it can be a very political issue?
You see. My dad told me that in the 70s, when NS was still
young, during BMT, some recruits would be given nicknames by their
sergeants. The nicks are even more severe than 'blur king'.
Suicides were committed as a result.
Not only this, many were rumored to have died during trainings
and this would go unpublicised and unpublished. It was only
recently that about 10 years ago, deaths from dunking incidents for
example started surfacing in the press.
Now, do you think that if Singapore were to be as democratic as
HK, Japan and South Korea, people would have gone to Hong Lim Park
to stage demonstrations and protests regarding the harsh and
sometimes unreasonable and abusive authority.
Sometimes, I really wonder if our troops are so soft as to
become depressed over what is essentially parade-ground
nicknaming.. something which every military in the world has.
Our boot camp is tough? Wait till you check out the USMC's boot
camp at Parris Island
Politically speaking, there's really nothing much anyone can say
against this system, because liberal or conservative, we've
realised that NS is still a neccessary evil..
