Singaporeans and National Service

No matter where you go, as long as you are Singaporean by passport, you have some story to say about National Service. And if someone were to ask for one, you'd often find yourself telling a story lasting hours and hours, with one story refreshing your memory on another one... and another one... and another one. Oftentimes we find NSFs talking about how hard their National Service life was, not to scare young children (as I only found out recently), but as a form of bragging to show that no matter how cowardly or fat you are now, there was a time in your life that you stood against all odds and pushed through. It is perhaps in this way that you are justifying your lifestyle now: that you learn to appreciate the things that you have... a little too much now.

However, you'd find that people who have gone through little hardship have not reaped many rewards; they don't have much stories to talk about, and nothing interesting to share for these two years. As much as I still feel National Service to be a inefficient use of my time, I do realise that my actions are selfless (as little as they seem to be) and that the only things worth getting out of these two years are the interesting stories you get from being in the army, and that seems to be the growing trend out of many of the youngsters who have been influenced by these stories today. As the saying goes:

"There are many ways you can live your life in National Service, so why not take the one that provides you with the most interesting experience and with the most interesting stories?"

And sure enough, there are ways that you can vary your life in National Service, would you respond to a higher call and be a commander? What kind of attitude would you take towards National Service and what kind of stories do you want to tell? One that's from behind a desk or one where you are caught in a firefight with the enemy in the jungle? Although I do take the path of least resistance, the army has put me in a situation such that I do have enough stories to tell others (although they are easily outmatched by those in much tougher situations within the army) which I find are interesting enough to tell others and I look forward to finding many more experiences ahead. Nevertheless I do hope ultimately to get all of this done with, so that I can move on with my life of enrichment, which I can find only through education and discovery. In retrospect, this could have been another discovery, albeit in a different aspect. 

Cheers,

Matthew Tan