My Thesis on National Service!

Since it is a rite of passage to write about your NS experience, I'll be doing this to keep the tradition going. So here it goes...

I would like to begin by stating that possibly ALL Singaporean males detest Army life except for the few who wake up in the dead of the night, put on their Full Battle Order and start marching around the bunk while they are still ASLEEP. So I'll start with the 3 reasons why the Army is a nightmare for NSFs (Full-Time National Servicemen).

First of all, for some reason, your direct superiors cannot communicate normally. Normal meaning how a person would talk to his friends/colleagues/people in general. They absolutely MUST talk to you as if you have murdered their parents and you owe them a living. Perhaps the best word to use here is not talk, I'll change that to SHOUT. Also, Army personnel don't use punctuation like commas and full-stops (although they use exclamations a lot), instead using vulgarities to replace them.

A simple statement like:
"Hey Recruit Lim, can you stop resting for a moment? Help me go fill up that Jerry Can with water."

Through the mouth of an experienced army personnel, it will become:
"Oi Recruit Lim cheebye you trying to chao geng right? Kanina faster go and fill that fucking Jerry Can with water!"

Secondly, they pretty much swing threats at you whenever the slightest mistakes are made. Trust me no sane person in this world likes to live in fear of extra duties, confinements or in the worse case scenario, DB (AKA Detention Barracks which is the army equivalent of the Changi Prison and probably the most feared acronym out of the gazillions used by the Army). Some examples include:

"How come your uniform color so faded! Wanna get extra?"

"Urinal how come got yellow stain! Wanna be confined?"

"You dare to talk back to me? Wanna go DB?"

Last but not least, there is a pretty famous mantra in the Army that goes by, "Rush to wait, wait to rush." Your superiors will typically rush you to get things done (E.G. change into PT attire, arrive at the next venue) and make it feel like the end of the world if it is not completed in an instant. But when you have finally completed the task assigned, something will crop up on their side and you will find yourself waiting for them instead. Thus, to prevent yourself from going mad just recite the above mantra in your mind like 26532 times (On average that's the amount of chants you have to do before they finally arrive).

Despite all that has been said above, I guess it is still possible to make the Army experience enjoyable, you just have to know where to look. For me, it was the people whom I got to know that made the experience so much more memorable. Like myself, the ones beside me were unwilling servants too. Although there were some tough times, it was always comforting to know that I was not alone. Somehow having your buddies go through the same shit as you, makes the process much less of a torture.

So you see, National Service isn't really so dreadful. You just have to learn to find the joy (OR you could just get an 8-5.30 posting... LIKE ME MUAHAHA!).