I know it is a bit late to say this now, but I’ll say it anyway. I’m proud to be an NSF! Yes, I know, I have three more months before I ORD, before I revert back to the daily mundanes of civilian life. Unthinkable, some may think, for me to talk like that. "Blasphemy!" goes the priests of the anti-NS, army-life-is-dreadful religion.

Who can endure the endless saikang (shit work in hokkien) and the endless outfields where we’d often end up with smelly feet that’ll stink up our bunks? Some may think themselves as fish out of water, where military life is as far away as they can get from the life they want to live. I find myself agreeing with the things my CO said during his motivational speeches (where he’s famous for his "are you a ‘hero’ or a ‘loser’" rhetoric). He said: "who you are in the army is who you gonna be outside." So make no mistake about it, this is life.

How refreshing it is, to think that the tiniest thing you do here is going to have an impact in your civilian life? Everything is a test of character; every painful experience in uniform stretching your capacity for hardship in the outside world. I hear you saying now: Oh he’s becoming an agent of propaganda for the Singapore government. I see you writhing now, covering you ears, shouting: Blasphemy! Blasphemy! Whatever your reaction may be, my conviction remains the same. This is the way I think.

I read in The Straits Times about our counterparts in Israel. Lt Cohen, 21, shouted in the morning, waking his parents up. He’s happy that, finally, he’s about to go into combat. And like us, he’s a conscript. The difference, however, is their attitude. For them, enlistment is a matter of survival as a nation and as a people. For us, however, it’s a distraction. I certainly don’t see myself shouting for joy when I’m being called up for war. I complained when I was called up for mock activation one fine Saturday morning. But hey, when the situation calls for it, I will stay and fight for my country.

Lest we forget, let us remember that serving NS is a duty, not a choice. One day our skills may come to usage, one day our country may really enter into conflict. Yes, maybe for some of us, our NS obligation is coming to an end, but our responsibility for the nation’s defense goes way beyond the day we ORD. Let us never forget that.