This is for Transmission’s international audience: ORD stands for Operationally Ready Date. ORD is, without a doubt, one of the most momentous and liberating events in the life of every male Singaporean. It marks the date the countdown ends, and we are finally discharged from 2 years of military service. In the words of the English hymn-writer Charles Wesley, ‘My chains fell off, and I was free’.
National Service is not a bad idea, but it is way too long.
Here are my Top 10 memories from my NS days.
1. Serving in the same company with the guys from my Bridging Pioneer Commanders Course (BPCC). From them, I learnt what RI and VJC can never teach me. It opened my eyes to the segments of Singapore beyond the society that I had been used to, and taught me to appreciate their humility, leadership, optimism and maturity.
2. My buddy during the BPCC, Eugene. I accidentally slammed a 550kg ramp on to the road while he was holding one end of it. The ram was pivoted when it fell, so he wasn’t hurt. However, he was stunned, shocked, petrified, terror-stricken and panic-stricken. Since then, we have had a rather comedic history of accidents that involved, among other things, rolling barbed wires and a bed that collapsed.
3. Speeding my boat through the waters off Northeast Singapore during sea navigation. Lights from the HDB flats that overlooked the sea, from the ports, the vessels and from all across the shore painted the night sky with a glow. Much have been said about how banal our landscape seems, each HDB flat being the crude carbon copy of another, but the view from my boat that night was amazing.
4. The night my rig’s drain plug came loose and my pontoon’s pumps were churning out a lot of water.
I had gotten someone to tighten the drain-plugs, but I did not do a check to ensure that they were in place and tight. This came just after Te Zhong’s 14-day SOL (Stoppages of Leave) for forgetting to put on his rig’s drain-plugs.
I was super worried. I was worried about sinking the rig, worried about not being able to de-launch the rig, and worried about being sent to DB (detention barracks). There was nothing I could have done, other than jumping into the water and snorkeling under the pontoon to tighten the drain-plugs. I prayed really hard throughout that night and thankfully the rig got back to the reservoir safely the next morning.
5. A group of us from 35SCE were sent to Pulau Tekong to work with a company of Construction Engineers to help them with the construction of a new campsite. A team of us took an entire morning to lay two bricks; we made more progress in the afternoon, but only to find that the measurements had been taken wrongly. Consequently, the wall was knocked down with a kick.
The Tekong Project was fun. A typical day went like this: 0800hrs, Company roll-call. – 0900hrs, arrive at worksite. – 0945hrs, after taking 45 minutes to put on our helmets and select our tools, we proceed to the worksite. Work involved plenty of observing. – 1100hrs, self-declared break. – 1200hrs, lunch. – 1245hrs, nap. – 1345hrs, work. – 1630hrs, self-declared break. – 1700hrs, work day ends. We board the lorry back to our air-conditioned bunks for dinner and a night of R&R.
6. Doing traffic marshalling at the late minister, S Rajaratnam’s funeral. A hush fell over the entire city when his cortège passed by. As I saluted the flag-draped coffin, something that struck me was how small his coffin looked. The smallness had nothing to do with size; it jarred against my impression of him as a member of the Old Guard, someone who had defined his times, shaped lives and made a huge positive difference.
7. Ops Bassinet. I was shifted to be stationed on Jurong Island every other two days. Protecting one of our country’s most vital installations involved sleeping in the bunk for 12 hours, followed by more sleep at the sentry posts. Someone told me that he could see a sleeping SAF soldier when he Google-earthed Jurong Island.
8. Not bathing for a week during Field Camp.
9. Was running a slight fever after Field Camp but was still made to leopard-crawl across the field because my rifle was not clean enough for the sergeant. His name is Sergeant Daryl, and I was from Hawk Company Platoon 1 (March 2004).
10. Mambo nights with platoon mates at a veritable Singapore institution. Navigating through the mass of bodies, executing fire movements and honing in on strategic objectives.
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