The relevance of National Service is often questioned especially in today's context when Singapore reside in a peaceful archipelago. When will Singapore be engaged in a military war? This is often a burning question raised by most recruits and yet unanswered by commanders. It seems that majority of the 18 years old male cohort are more often than not obliged to enter national service as instructed in the letter received since a law has been passed and the fate has been sealed for all. I am one of the many who feels there isn't any of an alternative choice after A'levels and hence have to submit to my destiny of entering BMTC. Despite understanding the need for national service in Singapore, to protect our little red dot, I still failed to fathom why some staunch regulations are still put in place since NS was rolled out in 1967.

First of all is no doubt the disputable issue of the length of service. Although some argued that the service time has been reduced from the previous 3 years back then to a luxurious 1year 10 months now, Singapore's compulsory national service length is still considered one of the longest in the region, or even in the world. In comparison to countries such as Taiwan and South Korea, which are considered more prone to military attacks especially from neighbouring countries like China and North Korea respectively considering their unsuccessful peace treaties and hostile attitudes towards each other even until today, I don't understand why Singapore has to enforce National Service so harshly on their men given that the likelihood of meeting a war, in stark comparison to the 2 countries mentioned, are so much lower. Furthermore, there was a point raised by one of the fellow recruits, which to a certain extent speak of my sentiments, is that such deployment of human resources into military service for a compulsory 2 years can be deemed as a form of 'gamble' since the returns in terms of national service is dubious and unquantifiable especially in the context of today's world.


In addition, military defence in my opinion is too excessively focused and a transition to other forms of defence such as psychological defence in terms of people deployed into the area of diplomacy, as well as economical and social defence should be our primary priority in this age as military defence phases out in terms of relevance. I believe that since Singapore advocates Total Defence, comprising of 5 key pillars, plans to deploy our people into other areas should be taken into account by the higher authorities.

Given the option to enter national service, I seriously doubt that a handful will be willing to serve with their heart and soul. Hence from the point of SAF, it becomes even more necessary to enforce National Service for all legally-binding Singaporeans, or Singapore's national defence will be at stake. However, it is also worth pondering whether forcing unwilling Singaporeans and 2nd-generation PRs to serve National Service will ultimately 'inculcate a sense of purpose for National Service' at the end of the day. It is even more important to convince recruits of the applications of military skills learn in BMT. After serving for 2 years, many will start pondering... what have I did to defend the country? Perhaps for myself, I still have yet to find answer, and the only motivation to finish pts after pts, is to carve a better me, rather than the novel goal to defend the country.