With that one single sentence (as stated in the title), a previously unknown and faceless girl suddenly became FOTM (Flamebait Of The Month).
A quick recap for those who may not know – a 21 year old male (Private Dominique Sarron Lee Rui Feng of 3 SIR), required by Singapore laws to serve in the 2 years in the army, passed away during training. The above, “Singaporeans too weak? LOL” was a comment posted by a girl (Zheng Huiting) to a Facebook link about the news of this tragedy.
What followed was a furore of irate netizens who started flaming her.
However, this blog post isn’t one of these. I’m not going to rehash what has already been said. If you want to know more, just google for it.
You can’t really blame this event as an isolated incident. In recent years, much ridicule has been laid on our serving NSFs (National Service, Full-time). Pictures of a maid carrying a soldier’s fullpack, of soldiers sitting down in MRT etc have been published to STOMP (I won’t grace that tabloid website with a link here), always with some condescending remarks about the soldier(s) in the pictures. This in turn took a toll on the image of Singaporean men who are serving their compulsory 2 years in the army.
I, myself, have been through it. Every male Singaporean has (unless you managed to geng your way out). As usual, “during my time, it was tougher than today”. This is a common saying among the older folks, but it was always said in jest, never in ridicule. In fact, “during my time”, there were less safety measures in place than it is today. For example, we rode in the back of 3-tonners (military trucks) all packed in like animals. Now, it is forbidden to do so for safety reasons. The point being – SAF has evolved and grown. Trainings are made as safe, but as realistic, as possible (flashback – machine guns firing REAL BULLETS over our heads while we crawled under barbed wires to get to the objective). There are always risks to military trainings, but SAF has many safety measures in place.
Nowadays we even have the “NS Portal“, a website dedicated solely to the activities of our citizen-soldiers, not just NSFs. Setting up this NS Portal proves that the SAF has indeed kept up with the times – our soldiers can book test dates, seek exit permits, register or request for deferment of service, or even go shopping online to purchase their necessities for use in the army. The point is, SAF didn’t stay stagnant. They grew, and updated themselves with new methods of training and safety measures.
Honestly, any kind of military training (assault, defense, whatever) is always tough. You think fighting in the jungle is easy? Like those FPS shooters? Just blam blam blam shoot at the enemy? Anyone can do it?
Unlike games such as Modern Warfare or Battlefield, we actually use TACTICS. Why? Because ONE BULLET can kill you. Amazing isn’t it? The hero never dies from just one bullet in the movies (or computer games). In fact in computer games you can easily get hit a few more times before you “die”. Even then, you can use a “healthpack” and refill your health bar back to full, and you can run and jump as if you were never injured in the first place.
In real life, we would need to throw grenades, dig holes to set traps or to take cover in, lay wires to give us warnings of approaching enemy, and of course, we can only carry so much bullets on us. In my day, we could only carry 210 bullets on us – there was simply no more space to put more. Our M16s can empty a magazine on full auto in 10 seconds. In 70 seconds, our full store of 210 bullets would be used up. Imagine that! 1 minute and 10 seconds of firing our guns before we run out of bullets!
No we didn’t drape bandoliers of bullets across our chests like Rambo, simply because the weapons we used did not use belts! Well, other than a machine gun. No, we can’t carry a machine gun in ONE HAND while shooting at the enemy for 2 simple reasons. 1 – The machine gun itself is heavy as hell, and you can’t fire one standing up…. and this leads to 2 – you can’t hit the target! Machine guns need a stand, a bipod or a tripod, to have any sort of accuracy. You would bloody sprain your shoulder or elbow if you were to fire a machine gun in one hand while standing up like in the movies. This is not about strength, or whether our soldiers are weak or strong – it’s about PHYSICS. Even if you are strong enough to carry a machine gun, fire it while standing, you will be unlikely to fire it in the hip position – the kickback will dislocate your elbow if you tried to be Rambo. Even if you are strong enough to put it up to your shoulder and fire it like a normal rifle, you will still end up with a dislocated shoulder, for the same reasons.
Why? Because of the bigger bullets they fire, hence bigger explosions (louder bang bang sound), hence, bigger kickback. Also, the speed of which machine guns can fire bullets off in succession contribute to the inaccuracy.
It’s not because we’re weak – it’s because the movies (and in some ways, computer games) exaggerated it so much so that people think that is possible, or easy, to do!
The difference was – back in the day, there was no “Internet”. If something did happen, it was investigated, corrective actions taken, and perhaps the accident reported to the press. People can’t comment on the newspaper with insensitive remarks simply because the newspaper editor would not even print it in the first place. All feedback and letters to the newspaper had to be written on paper and mailed (stick a stamp on the envelop) to them. Who would go through all that trouble?
Now, it’s so easy to just pass a comment of such nature on the Internet. Just type something, press ENTER, you’re done.
There will always be insensitive people around. Look around you in the office, I am sure you can find at least one (just like a “blur king” and a “geng king” in your platoon) if not more. We can’t stop you from posting stupid and insensitive comments online, of course, but at least know why your comment was stupid and insensitive. Training is always going to be tough, but it doesn’t mean we’re too weak for it. It’s just your perception that the trainings have become so easy or “soft” that Singaporean men are now “too weak” for it.
My advice – watch less movies, more documentaries, and think before you write the next comment online, or post a picture of a soldier to STOMP.
ps: writing this post reminded me of The SIA Hijacking and the Cable Car Accident. These are what our men in uniform do to serve and protect us! Instead of snide remarks and ridicule, we should be thanking our men in uniform for their service to the country!
