Another long weekend ahead, thanks to labour day on Monday.
National Service (NS) is our country’s version of compulsory military service that was started in the 1960s as a means to provide us with a greater sense of security in a time where neighbours were hostile to the birth of a new country.
Back then, the founders had no choice by to enlist the help of Israel to kick-start the NS program. Urban legends still exist today that the Israeli trainers do throw their daggers at the recruits and punishment were sometimes inhuman. Henceforth, NS became a rite of passage to manhood for 18-year-old boys.
My NS journey started in 1987 and it was for 2.5 years. It was a real eye opener for me as I was forced to interact with different social classes of people I have never met with before and pushed me out of my little comfort zone many times. That immature spoilt brat became wiser to the bigger real world outside of his cocoon and started to realize how lucky he was, compared to his many other army mates who had not much of a future ahead of them. I had written about this in my previous blogs.
Anyway, this week was nostalgic for me again. NS has come full circle for me as my older son prepares to get ready for his NS journey that would start early next year. He had been recently called up for a routine NS medical checkup a few months ago. For the first time in the 50 years of NS, they are now allowed to select the vocations they prefer. As he was with his softball mates, they decided that being in Guards was cool. A few weeks later, most of them received a letter to attend a Commando interview instead, as the army decided that they may want to up the game and join a more elite force… hahaha So there I was, a proud old man, sending him to the Changi Commando camp on Thursday morning at 730 am for that interview.
Then this morning wifey and I attended an NS briefing organized by the school. It was a very enlightening session where I learned about the new NS versus what I have experienced more than 30 years ago. They even have a youtube series called “Every Singaporean son” as a good intro to NS life (link below). They even had a website for all relevant info : www.ns.sg
I am feeling as excited as my 2 boys, seeing them turning from boys to men within the 2 years in NS when they reach 18. The older one will start NS next year and mummy is naturally worried. I still have a funny knot in my stomach though, just like all those years ago when I gave part of my life to serve the nation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxmp8nwQ43Q
https://www.ns.sg/nsp/portal/site/mindef-pe
Leave a Reply