It is not a matter of SAF policy that things are like this. It
is just individual officers and WOSEs covering their asses.
Think for a moment if you were a batallion CO or SM. Your duty in
peace is to train your men to the highest standards so that they
will survive and prevail in war. However, if everytime you push
this particular subordinate who happens to be a "WH" you get hit by
shit, would you not be tempted to just ease off a little?
And so it begins. Slacking off is not confined to lower ranks. The
right thing to do would be to push on and damn the consequences,
knowing that your duty to your men is sacred and it is in that WH's
best long term interest. But war is so far away and the easy path
is there.
Again, the SAF has no official policy that things should be like
this, quite the opposite in fact. Individual commanders are simply
not doing their jobs. This ranges from unit commanders who do not
push the WH's, to personnel officers who assign them to easier
tasks. After all, you would not want a minister storming in asking
why his son just lost his toes in the Combat Engineers after
dropping a bridge section on them or was shot in a live fire
exercise. Just assign him to a staff position and keep your career
safe.
To fix this we need officers with backbone. It is not uncommon for
a person to be brave enough to assault a bunker, yet too cowardly
to open his mouth. Unfortunately, Singaporean culture encourages
this. So this shit just keeps rolling.
