Ian On The Red Dot

I came across a variation of this quote today,

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

which triggered my memory of this scene:

and it reminded me of this bad-ass officer that probably saved my life in national service.

This OC was one legendary ‘fucker’. He was strict. He was abusive. He was tough. There was an exercise we were on when he dislocated his shoulder. He finished the whole exercise before going for any proper medical treatment. He made us do a lot of crazy shit during exercises.

And most importantly, he was a fucking tough disciplinarian. And that probably saved my life.

We were in Australia when the accident happened. Just before the accident, my armor vehicle had made a roadside stop for some administrative purposes. The ramp for the vehicle was down and my section mates and me had our helmets off. We were eating our combat rations and were slacking off.

As we were about to move off, with the ramp being brought up, the officer’s vehicle pulled up behind us and he got off the vehicle. We saw him before he could see us without our helmets. My section mate said something to this effect, “FUCK…OC is here. Better wear helmet before he fuck us.”

We were that scared of him.

Anyway, here’s the thing. While against safety protocol, soldiers sometimes get complacent and take off their helmets in the vehicle, even when it is moving, for a little physical comfort. We would have done the same thing that day if we hadn’t seen the OC and weren’t so afraid of him as a strict disciplinarian.

Not too long after we put on our helmets, we collided with another armored vehicle. Everything inside the vehicle flew. A lot of shit hit our heads. A lot of heavy sharp shit.

But we were safe. We were protected because we had worn our helmets.

Reading up on Patton and some of his quotes, I am reminded of what it means to be tough on people you are supposed to care for. Sometimes, you do others a disservice by being soft on them.

Some quotes about the importance of discipline:

It is absurd to believe that soldiers who cannot be made to wear the proper uniform can be induced to move forward in battle. Officers who fail to perform their duty by correcting small violations and in enforcing proper conduct are incapable of leading.

You cannot be disciplined in great things and indiscipline in small things. Brave undisciplined men have no chance against the discipline and valour of other men. Have you ever seen a few policemen handle a crowd?

All men are timid on entering any fight. Whether it is the first or the last fight, all of us are timid. Cowards are those who let their timidity get the better of their manhood.

If you can’t get them to salute when they should salute and wear the clothes you tell them to wear, how are you going to get them to die for their country?

My comment to this post was flagged as spam so I’m putting it here for me to remember. I have more to write about his post.

If the medical screening is done properly, we can intensify training because we know these dudes can handle it. I agree with you. Too much time is wasted only because there is two years to waste it. I think schedule can be cut to 1 to 1.5 years. I think training also can be harder. One thing I have lost after NS but at times can retrieve is the ability to dig down, suck it up and push past what I think are my limits. This was something that I got from a period of tough training. Sadly, that officer who was in-charge at that time is the kind that doesn’t get promoted to high up.

Anyway, a lot of time, screening is about money. More money, higher chance of downgrading. Or if you play sports, you confirm can get an easier life. Sad that the priorities of National Service can get muddled up so easily.

1. There really isn’t a need to twist and mangle words and phrases to use the word ‘co-spaces’ or some variation of it to make it seem like your company or product or service is relevant to the vision of Michael Yap and MDA. ‘Co-Spaces’ is about an idea - not word play.

2. This is SingHealth’s vision statement:

To be a renowned organisation at the leading edge of Medicine, providing quality healthcare to meet our nation’s aspirations.

Notice there is no mention about affordable prices. The speaker was smug. Maybe because he realize he can offer health-care and the most of us can’t.

To be fair, a sub-point under the ‘Mission’ header talks about cost-effective healthcare although cost-effective is different from affordable.

3. There seems to be a lot (too much?) focus on representing the physical (is it really real?) world 3 dimensionally online. Is that the only or best way to represent the physical world online? I think there are many ways to visualize data and 3d is only one of them.

I understand why it may seem attractive to represent the world 3 dimensionally online but with software like Microsoft’s Photosynth, I wonder if such efforts will eventually be a waste of time, money and resources.

However, it does seem from research done that avatars do affect how online interaction occurs so maybe trying to work on 3d representations of the world might have its uses although none of it was mentioned beyond the ‘hey-look-its-the-same-as-the-real-world-and-have-i-said-it’s-interactive’ fawnings. Read more about such research over at The Daedalus Project.

Most of the presentations from companies didn’t seem to touch on one of the core ideas (at least as I understand it) about Co-Spaces. No mention of how to pull data in from the physical world and represent it in a way that helps us aggregate, interpret, analyze and contextualize data with online tools. Little mention of how we can pull data from the virtual and make it accessible in the physical world.

I’m trying to leave room that there might have been more companies or demand drivers that talked about the two ideas mentioned above because I could have missed something but I can’t seem to recall any speaker actually saying anything relevant to those two ideas besides the one from DSTA.

4. I’m not sure if I’m getting what the speaker said correctly but here goes.

DSTA’s speaker talked about soldiers on the ground feeding back data to some commander which will aid the commander making decisions that can be relayed back to the users. Yup. I think that works - leave an officer in a comfortable room AWAY from the battlefield and I’m pretty sure he will make the right tactical decisions when his own life isn’t on the line.

The speaker also talked about how the soldier can be outfitted with devices that relay information about the environment and other data. Yup. Carrying more weight and devices will definitely help the soldier’s mobility and on-the-ground situational awareness.

Actually, I’m not sure if he is talking about all these ideas to be used in an actual war or just for training and evaluation purposes.

I think if it is for a war, it will be a big mistake. Imagine if our enemy gains access to the data being relayed back. Now, they know everything about us and we know nothing about them. Good Game guys. We’ll all be so screwed, and not in a good way.

Now, some people will say we will prevent that data compromise from happening. Yup. The same way we will prevent detainees from escaping. Not pointing fingers. I’m just saying.

Side note: You know what we really need for National Service. Every NS man to be stabbed or shot once in a non-critical area which will not lead to permanent physical damage. It is a bit extreme, but I guarantee none of us will ever forget the 3 second rule if we go through that experience nor will we NOT take our unarmed combat seriously.

The thing is, technology could help make us a better army only if the training stops being pussified. You are already taking 2 years of my life, might as well make it worth it.

I wrote another post for the blog ‘Male By Birth, Man By Choice’. It has to do with National Service and how it played a part in the creation of the blog.

Why is it that in National Service, the ones who ‘eat snake’ (a Singaporean phrase for slacking) seems to be the ones who strut around camp with the biggest balls but the ones who do their best are made to feel dirty by their peers? Why is it that generally people ‘admire’ those who can get away with stuff in National Service instead of aspiring to be like those ‘on’ guys? There must be something wrong with this situation.

More importantly, there must be something wrong when guys do not have the courage to live by the principles and ideals they profess to value.

Update (26/1): After some people shared in the comments about their experiences, I realized I sound so much like my father in this post. To him, an obstacle was never as important as our attitude towards the obstacle. In the post below, I approached the topic of National Service from that POV - that NS will always be needed, and if it’s going to be there, then it will be our attitude and how we deal with National Service ourselves that determine our success and minimizes its impact. To me, our destiny is in our own hands, and only our attitude affects how well we compete with the foreign talents. I still maintain that is the case. But based on the experiences shared, I have come to appreciate even more how NS handicaps us to compete, even with the right attitude. We really do need a way to ensure that the men who serve do not put a pause on their lives as the rest of the world zooms by. We may have the will to run harder and faster to catch up with the foreign talents and rest of the world, but sometimes it may be a bridge too far.

Thanks to dermapthera and signaller_private for sharing. 

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I wrote most of this during my reservist which was about a month ago. I have added some stuff which are in bold:

I am reminded that while we may not enjoy doing national service and would prefer to be spending our time elsewhere, not everyone who dislikes National Service and reservist does it based on the argument that NS disadvantages us against foreigners.

We view it as both an irritant that eats our personal time as well as a duty. Our feelings about it are mixed. But what I do see is people doing what they must and doing it with a kind of resolve that can only be described as professionalism.

It is arguable if the blogosphere generally makes National Service a scapegoat for problems pertaining to foreigners in Singapore when discussing competitiveness, privileges of citizenship and fairness but personally I think the blogosphere tends to have that slant.

The question then is should the general public be made aware of such arguments. Sometimes people need to be made aware of issues they should be unhappy about and the reasons why. Sometimes though, people can be made to be unhappy about issues based on flawed reasons when there is no cause to be so.

The arguments I have seen against NS on the blogosphere seems to fall dangerously into the kind that would politicize what is a personal issue about the duty imposed on us as citizens to one that fuels nationalistic, racial and protectionistic sentiments.

I am not saying we should stop discussing the need, implementation and impact of National Service. What I am saying is National Service might not be as important to the discussion about foreigners taking out jobs as some of us might think.

While National Service might cause us to enter university at a later age, what happens during university is more a result of what we do in university than what preceded before it. It was what we did or did not do during that time that determined our grades and affected how we measured up to foreigners in the local universities and hence later in the job market.

Of course, some have pointed out that companies discriminate against Singaporean males while hiring because of reservist but that discrimination needs to be understood as the impact of National Service in influencing the market and not the result of time spent in National Service.

One of the questions then is how do we do National Service and use that two years to increase our value to the labour market. Are we working harder to maximize whatever other time we have before and after National Service to increase our own value. Yes, National Service has a cost. And it is a high one. Forgetting the argument if it is a necessary one for the moment, what are we doing to ensure we can pay it? Sure, we can wait for the government to give a handout (which they are in terms of taxes) but are we doing anything on our own to take charge of our own destiny?

I think people might actually waste more time doing leisurely activities like playing DOTA, clubbing, watching TV … Is leisure time a right for all of us? Sure, I think the option to have leisure time is a right. But we make the choices. If time is so precious based on the arguments that National Service waste our time, are those who make it being judicious with their time outside of it?

There is the argument made that the two years spent dulls the brain and breaks the education flow. I agree there might be some merit in this argument. But here is the thing - when I was waiting for my ORD so that I could go and study, I was like a boxer jumping about enthusiastically at the corner waiting for the bell to ring. However, once the bell was rung, and the fight I had impatiently been waiting for started, I realised I didn’t prepare myself for the fight.

Truthfully, the two years in National Service does have time in which we can prepare ourselves for the civilian life after ORD but how many of us have the wisdom not to squander it?