Some reflections on my first reservist ICT (Now playing What can I do by The Corrs)
Introduction
My first military in-camp training (henceforth ICT), ever since my ROD on the 6th June 1994, was from the 26th Dec to 30th Dec 1999 at 609 SIR. It was certainly an eye-opener. In my perspective, NS or reservist training may or may not be a waste of time; it all depends on how you look at it, similar to the half full or half empty glass perspective.
Now, being a graduate from NUS and about to embark on a Ph.D (Doctor in Philosophy) in economics, I promised myself and to God that this ICT will be a time of intellectual exercise. While the army may decide that I am to undergo tough physical exercises in the army, my personal mission is to think like a philosopher while I am in camp. This article lists some of my thoughts as I try to make the best use of the time to observe what is going on in the SAF and to contemplate upon them.
Sticking to the style of journal articles J, the objective of this article is to prove the following proposition:
Proposition 1: SAF is a mirror reflection of Singapore society
I will use several examples to illustrate the above proposition. Thus this is a proof by observation ("a posteriori") rather than a proof by logic ("a priori"). I am moving away from the formal nature of economic articles here.
Once my readers accept the above proposition, the following corollary immediately applies:
Corollary 1: You cannot really "serve and f-off" from the SAF
I hope you readers would forgive the crude nature of the above corollary but it really conveys the meaning in the best manner. This advice, that we should just "serve and f-off", meaning that we should just endure the harsh treatment during NS days without bothering about fairness or justice, is often given to full-time national servicemen, to endure NS until ROD.
However, after experiencing NUS days where I had the privilege of examining critically the way Singapore is run, as well as learning from this present ICT, I realize the above advice does not really apply. Once you realize the truth of proposition one, that the SAF is merely a mirror reflection of Singapore society as a whole, you could still jolly well f-off from the SAF, but it is clearly more difficult to do the same for Singapore J, I was lucky to be able to take a step towards this.
Different emphasis
To start off on a gentle note J, I am pleasantly surprised that we did not have to do area-cleaning and to wash our own plates. I noticed the camp now hired foreign workers to clean up the camp periodically. It was such a relief for us because those @#$% trees keep shedding leaves throughout the entire year. Thank goodness we no longer have to sweep up those leaves. The food coming from Singapore Food Industries have improved by so much since my NS days. They even hire people to wash our utensils for us. I guess the main reason behind this is to allow us NS men to focus on the training. In normal NSF camps, mundane tasks like area cleaning and washing of trays are to incorporate discipline but in reservist, mana wu eng (Translated from Hokkien as where got time) J?
SAF merely reflects Singapore (2 examples)
Example 1: The Hierarchical Structure
The real philosophizing begins J! I cannot help but see the SAF structure as being very much similar to our educational system, or to Singapore in general. When we do our Basic Military Training (Henceforth BMT) during our NSF days, at the end of 3 months, we are "streamed" to either officer school, specialist school or send for vocational training.
Now in ICT, or in SAF in general, those who are officers are given much more responsibilities as well as more information. Thus, only officers attend mission briefings and get to see the entire battle plan. The infantrymen's purpose is to just endure the walking and reach the objective, fire off their blanks and finish the exercise. I have use this reason to explain why games like Command and Conquer and Starcraft are so popular among males here.
Now it is quite obvious to me, that the men are suppose to follow orders once they are given. We are not suppose to 'be creative' and question orders. If we refuse to obey orders during wartime, officers have the right to execute us on the spot.
I was assigned to undergo vocation training as a signaler after my BMT. If you want to put it pessimistically, I failed to make it to Officer Cadet School (Henceforth OCS). Well, personally I did not really felt regret since during BMT, I actually answered back to my Platoon Commander during a particular incident and got "marked" because of that. Furthermore, I had a case of severe fever in BMT that made me unfit for quite some time. All these incidents already gave me an inkling that I will not go to OCS.
Life in the signaler school was very relaxed. Suddenly, I am glad that I did not even make it to OCS. My platoon had all kinds of people, from those fresh from BMT like myself, and a few others who are about to finish their NS service. The latter group was very influential on the rest of us, their relaxed attitude was infectious.
The lesson I have learned is that, often, the people that we mix with have an influence on our decisions to pursue certain goals. To be more economically precise, there are externalities from social grouping. Economists like George Akerlof, have came out with a model that I have reviewed elsewhere, showing the effects of such externalities.
Applying it in my situation in signal school, I was originally fairly disappointed of not getting into OCS, but after mixing with those people in my signal platoon, I became very happy with them. To view the implication here that Singapore and the SAF is the same, let us now examine the Singapore's educational system.
Our educational system is not much different. At various stages, whether is it Primary 4, 6, Secondary 4 and Pre-U 2, we are assessed on our capability before we move on. After going through army, I begin to understand better why people, who have "failed" those various assessments, finds it so difficult to get back into the mainstream track. Just like I was happy in signal school not to have qualified for OCS, I can understand why, if I happen to be assigned into the "normal" stream, or to the polytechnic, I might turn out to be just as happy to have "failed". Thus, we are influenced by our peers more significantly than we realized.
Furthermore, one cannot help but notice that, our government ministers and those who are the main people in government ministries and statutory boards, are mostly scholars. It has been said that there is a glass ceiling for those non-scholars in these organizations. Thus, a local NUS/NTU graduate will not have much hope in rising high in these organizations. There is an article written by an Australian lecturer in the NUS computer science faculty here that discusses the above issue in a very informative way. Others have expressed it more succinctly by stating that the directors who chose those scholars have incentive to promote these scholars to justify their selection.
Looking at Singapore, the Singaporeans who are in charge of running Singapore, whether you are a minister, or in charge of statutory boards, are mostly overseas scholars. For people like myself, who "failed" to qualify for overseas scholarships, I am destined to be someone who takes orders. There would always be a glass ceiling in the level that I will rise. Thus, my destiny, if I remain in Singapore, is to take orders and not question them. For the best example of this, we only need to recall the Catherine Lim incident that led to the PAP always telling us that politics are only for politicians, the rest should just shut up and do their best for Singapore.
This is so similar to my experience in ICT. Because I have failed to qualify for OCS, I can never rise up to be an officer, even assuming that I want to, which I don't of course J. Thus, I hope I have shown that SAF merely reflects Singapore in this instance. For a more in-depth study of how the Singapore educational system works in creating a class system, readers are encouraged to refer to Christopher Tremewan (1994), The Political Economy of Social Control in Singapore, Oxford: St. Martin's Press.
Example 2: The case of 'indecent haircut'
This incident again shows how similar Singapore is to the SAF. I was earlier told that I must report to ICT with a 'decent haircut', which I realize that 'decent' actually meant 'very short' only upon stepping into camp for the first time. Before I knew what was going on, I am told that I would be 'formally charged' for having long hair.
The process of being charged was truly an enlightening event. We were suppose to report to a senior officer who will read out the charge to us. Before that, the company sergeant-major (CSM) brief us about the various things that he would read. One particular statement brought a smile upon my face. The CSM told us that the senior officer would ask us whether or not we have any objections to the charge. However, the CSM finished off by telling us that we should not bother objecting, since most likely your fine will be increased.
Well, if I were to stick to my goal of being a philosopher, I could have argued with the senior officer that the word 'decent haircut' was vague at best. Secondly, I have never been charged for having 'indecent haircut' before during my national service. The most, I would be told to go to the camp barber for a haircut. Thus, it seems prudent for them to merely give us a warning instead of trying to charge us.
But after hearing the CSM's words, I have decided against appealing to the officer. After all, I have said earlier that there is this unique culture in the army, men are not suppose to think after all, just accept and follow orders ("How will the majority of Singaporeans, who are NSmen, be creative later in their jobs?" I wonder J). Actually I had half a mind at that time to either send feedback to Mindef after my ICT, or even writing to the Straits Times Forum, being inspired by my first 2 published letters J! I later change my mind due to reasons to be explained in the next paragraph.
It is not too difficult to realize later that this 'siao on-ness' (translated from Singlish as 'simple matter that was taken so seriously') by my unit on the issue of haircut was only an attempt to start the ICT cycle on a serious note. I realize that I, along with about a hundred others, were merely at the wrong place at the wrong time. The Chinese have these 2 sayings, "Kill one to scare a hundred," as well as "Rather kill the innocent then set the guilty free". Thus, we are merely used as an example to the rest of my campmates to take ICT seriously. When it comes to the subsequent ICTs, I would predict that they will not take haircut so seriously anymore. In my perspective, the 1987 Operation Spectrum conducted in Singapore, or better known as the 'Marxist conspiracy' had the same Chinese saying in mind as its objective, to scare Singaporeans against joining the opposition.
Back to the 'indecent haircut' case, similarly, that is what my officer wanted to achieve through this charge, even though our punishment was clearly disproportional to the offense. I could not help but smile in my mind when the senior officer kept on emphasizing, I have counted 4 times, that we now have 'a record' in the army. I was thinking, "C'mon, don't talk to us like we have just assaulted an officer, took drugs or stole ammunition. Those may be serious but having hair that is indecent? How are we suppose to know that we will get charged for that J?"
Thus, armed with the above perspective, I was enlightened when I read about two recent court cases. The first was about two Singaporean students being charged for consuming drugs while studying in Australia. I myself was amazed that the law was recently changed such that you can be charged as if you had consumed them in Singapore once they detect drugs still in your system, and the drug was just marijuana!
Furthermore, I was disappointed that there were Singaporeans who are perfectly fine with this situation, claming that they do not take drugs anyway. I feel that is so typically shortsighted of materialistic Singaporeans, economists would call it 'thinking in partial equilibrium instead of in general equilibrium' J. The more important implication is that our Singapore laws can be changed just like that without people questioning it and publicizing it, creating a kind of fearful environment, where you can go to jail for offences that you never thought were serious enough. I think Valentine Winslow sums it up best in the conclusion of the speech given at the Think Center Forum:
"It is a sad fact of life in Singapore, that most Singaporeans are barely remotely concerned about such issues as capital or corporal punishment or the rights of accused persons as they are not directly affected by them. "It won’t happen to me" is the attitude. Why not say, "There but for the grace of God go I"? Most of us are unwilling to stand up and be counted when the rights of others, who belong to a minority, are concerned. This is to be lamented, for one day you may yourself need someone to stand up for you when you are arrested, unfairly dismissed, or evicted from your home, but no one will be there, for no one will care, just as you never cared when you were needed to lend support to a fellow-citizen."
I certainly agree with Valentine on the above. It was this realization that made me very supportive of the holding of the gay forum in Singapore, notwithstanding the prejudice many people have against them. I see it more as a discrimination issue rather than a theological issue. Although God seems to say it is wrong, I know he wants me to stand up against any form of discrimination against them. More of that to come in a separate article later.
Back to the point on Singapore laws, the job of questioning and publicizing these changes in our laws falls to 2 important groups of our society, the Law society and the media. I think all of us can thus understand why these 2 groups cannot really do a very good job in those aspects J.
The second case provides the perfect warning on what might happen if changes in laws are not effectively debated and publicized. This case was where people, ranging from a church deacon and most notably, an NUS lecturer being charged for harboring illegal immigrants, the details of the case and the result of the appeal can be viewed in this website.
In both of these cases, ignorance was not acceptable as an excuse. In the second case, it was interesting that the report brought up the perspective that certain Singapore laws presume you are guilty until proven innocent. Again I realized that the SAF is merely a reflection of Singapore society. My charge for having an indecent haircut was seen in a better perspective now J.
Sociological Contemplations
I must first state that I never formally attend any sociological classes, but there is this reflection that I must take time to record down J. After spending so many years in NUS, I have learned that respect must be earned, which explains why I prefer my students to call me by name instead of Mr Tan or Sir.
I was brought back to 'reality' during ICT. Suddenly, the rank structure was smack right into my face. I was enlightened when I notice that, although I have a 'respectable job' as an NUS academic staff outside, it is obvious that I cannot talk to officers like equals during ICT.
It was brought up to me most clearly during the last company field exercise. When the exercise was being conducted, the commanding officer (CO) and several staff officers (S1, S2, S3, S4), together with the RSM, were having a fun conversation, talking about their jobs outside and life in general. As I was manning the communications equipment as a signaler for S2, I just cannot help but be amused by the sociological lesson that is being conducted right in front of me.
I was thinking in my head as I observe these officers, "What would happen if I were to grab a chair and join them in their conversations?" I smile knowing that they would immediately feel uncomfortable as they would worry about me 'climb over their head'. What was most significant was that the S4 was one of my economic students in NUS J!
Reflecting on Singapore, I remembered the Catherine Lim incident that brought about the phrase by the PAP, "Mai Bo Tua Bo Suay" (the literal translation of this Hokkien phrase is "Don't no big no small"; the context means "Know your place in society before you engage in political debate") Again this is another example about the hierarchical structure of the SAF and how it merely reflects Singapore. Just like I have no choice but to serve the army as a Singaporean, most Singaporeans have no choice on their country of birth and must remain Singaporeans.
Some lessons from God
Since we are on the above issue, let me sidetrack by telling you guys the context of the situation above. The above situation took place on the last day of exercise, while I was an S2 signaler. God had taught me some important lessons about being contented with what you have, throughout this entire ICT, cumulating with that last exercise.
Let me first explain some economic thinking on equity. I strongly agree with Paul Krugman that human beings' perception of equity depends crucially on their reference group, so much so that I used his model to explain why some Singaporeans choose to break their scholarship bonds here. I had sent it to the Straits Times Forum page which predictably did not publish it as I am telling Singaporeans about how life 'outside the well' looks like. Aside, those of you who have letters rejected by the Straits Times can send them to Sintercom, my letter can be found here.
Now, applying Krugman's equity model into my situation in ICT, that particular ICT saw me taking part in the most number of exercises, compared to the rest of my platoon. It was quite a struggle waking up most of the time at 4am or 5am to go for exercises while the majority of your platoon mates stay in camp the whole day. Furthermore, I was assigned to be the signaler attached to the Operations Officer, the term in the SAF is S3. That would mean that my ICT would tend to be more walking oriented throughout my 13 year cycle. The assignment of such jobs is quite a random process, some signalers would be assigned to relatively relaxing jobs, making it easy for anyone to feel inequitable.
On one particular occasion, near the end of my ICT, I was sitting in a military ambulance, assigned to S2, the Intelligence Officer, to a company exercise, because the current S2 signaler is overseas. To be frank, I was fairly worried that I will end up having to man-pack the signal set to follow S2 around. It is not the walking but the fact that I, together with about 4 to 6 signalers, were the only ones assigned to this exercise; the rest are idling in the barracks.
As I was sitting in the ambulance, I was praying to God for strength and faith not to grumble, for I know that grumbling displeases God. I have decided in my heart, that I am already richly blessed by God in so many things already, my education, my friends and my current job. If my reference group consists of only people who do not have to serve ICT, or even those of my platoon mates idling in the bunk, I will always be unhappy, but I do not need to include these people. Thus, you can control your feelings by controlling who to put in your reference group.
God often works in such ways with me: He tests me by letting the devil put all these thoughts in my head and waits to see how I will respond. Whenever I am struggling with whether to look up to him in faith or to keep my eyes on the ground and see all the reasons to grumble, I can just sense that he is waiting and thinking to himself, "You can do it, Kelvin (1 Corinthians 10:13)! You just need to say in your heart that you choose to trust in me before I will pour forth so much blessings that makes you glad that you made that decision!" It was the same test with respect to my parent's divorce, my decision to do an honor's thesis that I am passionate about but going against conventional wisdom, my post honor's fears in job search, and so many more trials.
Okay, what happen next was not really a "pouring of blessings" by normal standards but to me, its a sign that I have passed the test. Upon reaching the starting point, the S2 said that I am to set up the signal set and man the communications with branch soldiers from S2 branch. That means, there will be no walking at all. So all my worries in the ambulance were unfounded.
More significantly however, I saw the scout platoon having to carry out the scouting exercise, with full battle gear, rifle and all. As I was sitting down there manning the communications set, I realize how much I do not really deserve to be complaining to God. As Krugman's equity model shows, when I begin to include those scouts, that I previously did not, in my reference group, I suddenly felt very blessed. Here I am feeling inequitable over my platoon mates idling in the bunks, and I see those scouts having to slog over the exercise. If I am one of the scouts, I will look at this "S2 signaler" and feel that the world is grossly unfair too J. That is another thing about the army, you cannot quit your job in the army and join another one, unlike in civilian life. Again, I have learned that what is fair really depends on who is in my reference group.
Thus, I told God from then on that, no matter how unfair things are going to be in future ICTs when I become S3 signaler officially, I am never going to grumble again. After that, God has again "blessed" me with the perfect solution: As all of you should know by now, I will be leaving Singapore for a doctorate course in Iowa State University this Fall and will miss, at least, the next 5 years of ICT cycle. So, again God has shown me in this ICT the relevance of the following verses (Matthew 6)
25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life [2]? 28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat?' or `What shall we drink?' or `What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
The key sentences here are, "Do not worry", "Your Heavenly Father knows that you need them" and of course, verse 33. I praise God for teaching me one important lesson that I must always remember in the United States, to seek his Kingdom first.
Conclusion
I must thank the Lord for letting me have this gift of deep philosophizing, as well as passing those tests above, with flying colors, at least I hope I did J. Thus, I regard my first ICT as a very beneficial intellectual and spiritual lesson and I hope all you Singaporean males out there, whether officers, specialists, and men will enjoy all your ICTs!
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