Categorized | Features

Singaporean Armed Forces

By Nick Wong, Mount’Kiara International School 

Nsf-spheHormat kekanan, Hormat! Skuad Sedia! Ke kanan lurus! Pandang kehadapan, Pandang! Kekanan, Pusing! (Halt, salute, right! Squad ready! Face the right, look right! March right, March!) The squad leader yells these drill commands with an assertive air. Synchronized, the recruits march face-forward and about-turn only when the drill instructor yells, “Kebela-kang!” (turn around).

A day in the life of a Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) recruit can be tough, especially when wearing a thick uniform under the burning hot Singaporean sun. Interestingly, the squad leader is very strict with his “boys,” as he refers to them. He makes sure that all recruits act uniformly; rest together, march together, face left together, stop together (and are dismissed together). As the squad leader says: “You are not individuals during training, you are a squad. You look out for each other and act as one.”

With strict guidelines, it is clear that there would possibly be one or two recruits that march out of sync with the squad. Because of this, the whole squad is punished in cases where discipline falters. The squad leader immediately yells, “Recruits! Stop, drop and give me 20!” The recruits stop in their tracks, uniformly drop to the hot concrete floors and begin to do push-ups. After a good 20 minutes of marching and push-ups, the recruits’ faces are dripping with sweat and they are panting for air. However, the recruits aren’t even halfway through. How are they to face the real deal when they turn 18?

Singapore is one of the thirty-two countries in the world that have a mandatory national service of longer than 18 months: 22-24 months in this case. Each recruit is first grouped into a platoon, a unit of 26-64 soldiers; platoons in turn form companies, or units of 80-250 soldiers. But not all platoons are created equal. Stronger recruits get placed into the fitter platoons while weaker recruits get placed into the weaker platoons. Every recruit goes through a tough Basic Military Training (BMT) that consists of Physical Employment Status (PES) Tests, Physical Training Phase (PTP), and finally, a Basic Military Training (BMT) before moving to a separate branch of the military (often Officer, Navy or Air Force).

As portrayed in the movie Ah Boys to Men, commanding officers have many restrictions on what they are allowed to do to their recruits. Nevertheless, in the movie, officers find loopholes to better train their recruits. Officers conduct their training in this manner for the simple reason that they want their ‘boys’ to turn into ‘men’ and be able to do more than the average recruit. Suffer now, relax later – “If your hands are in pain, then they make you run. If your legs are in pain, then they make you do push-ups, lah!”

*The language in the first paragraph is in Malay.

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