Capable is the last word that I'd choose to describe
Cleopatra.
On to the matter at hand. Military service is definitely useful
for the country (less so to the individual), but many people seem
to go out of their way to avoid it. There's many possible reasons
for this, chief among which is the time spent. 2 years is not
insignificant, and it puts the male citizens of the country at
a considerable disadvantage. To offset this, military service ought
to open up more opportunities. At present, only the armed forces
'scholars' get any benefits other than the pittance that
they pay you for lugging all that kit about. We do get a slight pay
increment (compared to a similar job for a woman) when we work in
Singapore, but it's not nearly enough to offset the time spent.
Another reason is patriotism, or rather, the lack thereof.
People in certain quarters have raised the point that the
newer generation doesn't show a great deal of love for their
country, and with good reason. They don't recognise that 'national
identity' and other words to that effect are simply a great deal of
crap. Patriotism is inherently irrational, since you're devoting
yourself to an arbitrary cause without any acutal reason to exist.
Anybody with a thimble of sense can see that it's a paper-thin
pretext to get young men to defend this place. Fuck that, I say.
There are many causes for which I'd be willing to lay my life
down, but defending a country is not it.
I have a different take on that.
Speaking as a quitter of 14 years, I still hold that my national
service was a fair trade-off for the stable environment provided in
the preceding 18 years of my life. There might have been
better places for a kid to grow up, but there certainly could have
been worse, and that is in part due to the contribution of NS men
during those years, so I don't see any inequity in the requirement
to serve. It's a matter of reciprocation rather than
patriotism. If anything, having completed my service made my
leaving Singapore with a clear conscience much easier.
Apart from the social angle, there's much to be personally
gained from performing national service IMHO. In many
countries, students take a gap year between leaving high school and
entering univeristy, to expand their horizons before starting
tertiary education. Admittedly, two years (or two and a half
in my case) is significantly longer, but speaking personally, being
out of school for that period gave me the space to gain
perspective, and the lessons and insights gained during that time
came in handy when I returned to my studies, and continue paying
benefits to this day. I can still easily outlast colleagues
12 years my junior, and having had to perform without sleep for 105
hours certainly provided great training for what they would term
long days at the office.
It's the same with NS as with anything else - you simply get out
what you put in.
