Personally, I have mixed feelings about this. As an instructor,
I need to simulate as close to reality as possible. As a trainee, I
am scared shitless if the same happens to me, even in a training
scenario.
My guess is no one made any effort in doing additional research in
measuring the average human reaction to dunking, from the
pre-dunking psyche and how it affects behaviors under water, what
are the various reactions during the time of submersion and from
there list out clearly what are the dos and donts in handling
trainees in this exercise.
The high-fives and pat-on-the-back can be perceived in 2 ways.
Firstly, it is want will likely happen if the enemy breaks you,
providing that extra psychological stress in the form of mockery
and shame on the trainee's psyche. If this is the case, the
instructors should not be penalised.
On the other hand, the exercise might have mutated and evolved into
an internal competition among the instructors to see who can break
the trainee faster OR whose "way" is the most effective. If it is
the latter, so much for professionalism. In this context, they
should be punished.
My suggestion to the SAF is to review the high risk lessons,
conduct more primary research on them (real scientific observations
and measurements rather than just gathering opinions from
instructors and trainees) and develop a better script for the
future. I am sure that if I am unsure of the what is described in
the lesson plan, going to my superior for clarity will still yield
me an ambiguous answer.
But the fundamental issue is, do we expect the same level of
standards between conscripts and regulars? Yes, ideally we always
say no compromise. But under this macro rule, some degree of
wastage (pardon my language and all due respect to those who are
hurt on both sides by this incident) will bound to happen. It is
just a matter of probability.
In any case, if it is related to ambiguity of the doctrine, then
SAF is to be blamed. If it has to come to this, lets face up to the
blame as an organization instead of putting the instructors in a
civil court and hope this will go away forever. It wont as long as
the fundamentals remain flawed.
To be fair, this story is becoming to sound like a murder case in a
civilian court, tried by civilians and reported by a civilian
media.