Citizen NSmen to get $9k award

		Sun, Aug 29, 2010 my paper
Citizen NSmen to get $9k award
By Gwendolyn Ng SINGAPORE citizens who have served their national service will each receive $9,000 through a new award to be given by the Ministry of Defence (Mindef). The National Service Recognition Award (NSRA) will help to fund the cost of operationally ready national servicemen's (NSmen's) education and also help them buy a home. Commanders will receive a larger sum. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who announced the implementation of the award at the National Day Rally yesterday, said: "It is a significant tangible recognition of the sacrifices, efforts and contributions of our national servicemen. It's for Singapore citizens only." This will be a token of appreciation for the time and effort citizens give to serve national service, he added. Mr Lee said: "National service makes a heavy demand on male residents and, I should say, on their spouses and families, too." He elaborated that male Singapore residents not only have to serve two years of full-time national service and many more years as an NSman, but also try to build their careers and raise their families. The sum will be paid in tranches at significant milestones of an NSman's service. It will be deposited into their Post-Secondary Education Accounts and Central Provident Fund accounts. Mindef will announce details of the award soon. The award is one of the measures Mr Lee highlighted in a bid to assure Singaporeans that citizens come first. He added that permanent residents who have completed their national service will receive the award when they take up citizenship. He was addressing the issue of competition from foreign talent, where he pointed out that it was "not practical to make foreign workers and adult immigrants do national service". However, Mr Lee pointed out that many PRs and first-generation citizens also do their part by serving national service. Other ways in which the Government recognises the contributions and sacrifices of NSmen is through providing them with Safra clubhouses, allowances, tax reliefs and top-ups in government bonuses. The award is good news to 20-year-old NSman Benjamin Huang, who said: "It's good to know that the Government is appreciative of our efforts. "This will definitely help me pay my school fees when I go to university next year." nggwen@sph.com.sg Read also: PM Lee's $9000 "Carrot" is an insult! $9000-compensation-for-ns MINDEF unveils details of NS recognition award Will $9000 make NSmen STFU and vote PAP? Welcome the new: frack the old nsmen! NSmen 'benefited from the peace and prosperity they've helped create'

National Service: View from a foreign mum

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

National Service: View from a foreign mum

http://kementah.blogspot.com/2010/08/national-service-view-from-foreign-mum.html

If you cut through the platitudes, Ms Aarti Giri's letter (The Straits Times 20 August 2010) emphasizes several issues that defence information managers should not lose sight of even after 43 years of National Service.

The first concerns the gulf in attitudes towards NS among Singaporeans. Another red flag is the perception that NS is a sacrifice capped at the duration of a full-time National Serviceman's service to Singapore.

As increasing numbers of foreign-born citizens approach conscription age, the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) and the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) - which account for the bulk of defence manpower - have little time to lose in calibrating their messages properly.

Every family that sinks its roots in the Lion City brings essentially the same mindset, outlook, fears and prejudices towards NS that Singaporeans harboured when conscription began in 1967. This gulf in attitudes between New Citizens and long-time citizens (Old Singaporeans?) is not easy to bridge.

Dumb down defence information messages for New Citizens and the tone of the messaging could be seen as smug and patronising by older folk.

Calibrate it for Singaporeans who have embraced full-time NS and you risk losing the New Citizens who have yet to buy into the lofty ideals of nation-building and national security.

More worrying is the fallout MINDEF/SAF will be saddled with should a New Citizen NSF end up as a training fatality. Going by probability and the rules of chance, it is only a matter of time before a training accident/incident/glitch that involves a New Citizen NSF triggers the proverbial wake-up call.

When the clarion call is sounded, will New Citizens be rattled?

And how will New Citizens who hail from caste-based societies react when their sons are commanded by someone from outside their social circle? Will centuries-old prejudices undermine their commitment to defence?

Chinese parents in the 1960s knew of the old saying that good sons do not become soldiers, just as good iron is not used as nails. After years of public education more or less erased that point of view, in comes the influx of foreign talent. The wheel has turned full circle and defence information managers may find themselves back at the start line, educating and engaging New Citizens with zero exposure to the military.

This is why MINDEF needs a Public Affairs Directorate (PAFF) at the top of its game. In my opinion, the time for rebuilding will have to begin in earnest after the Director Public Affairs (Designate), Colonel Desmond Tan Kok Ming, formally assumes command of PAFF next month.

Ms Giri's letter is useful because it exposes how expatriates feel towards NS.

She wrote: "I have often come across expatriates discussing how they can help their children avoid NS. To me, it is only fair that if one wants to become a permanent resident or call Singapore home, one should willingly serve because that is what every Singapore male does."

For Singapore's sake, one hopes her point of view is not in the minority.

If Ms Giri keeps it up, her attitude and pro-NS letters may, someday, win her a Total Defence Award.

Be that as it may, even converts such as Ms Giri seem to cling on to fallacies about NS.

She noted that "sacrificing two years of a man's career is a small price to pay for Singapore's safety and security".

This statement ignores the sacrifices that Operationally-Ready NSmen make every time they are called up for NS. It is an obligation that stretches till 40 for other ranks and the age of 50 for officers and key appointment holders.

So New Citizens will need to know, appreciate and accept the stark reality that NS is really a life-long commitment.

NS in Singapore is not a limited tenure, 24-months stint in which citizen soldiers serve and forget.

Free museum admission for NSmen: What good is that?

Free museum admission for NSmen: What good is that?

The government announced today that all NSmen will be granted free admission to NHB museums from August 1.

Minister Lui Tuck Yew said 'These visits will broaden your knowledge and enable you to share with friends and relatives why this country is special.'

Is this all the government can do to recognise our NSmen? Increasing an existing 50% discount to 100% free?

Yes, the announcement was concerning museum attendance and not NS benefits. But it shows what the government considers acceptable as benefits for NSmen/NSFs.

Back in August 2009, the RECORD committee set up to look into ways to recognise the effort of NSmen came up with lame suggestions like fitness corners, vouchers for the Singapore Discovery Centre (full of NE propaganda), clubhouses (with payable membership) and mementos (like the infamous NS watch).

Is that how we recognise the years of sacrifices, injuries and lost youth; with vouchers, free museum admission and fitness corners?

This is a government of the cheapest order.

Just look at how President Obama speaks to the wounded veterans of the various American-led wars (watch video below). Note that the US military is comprised entirely of those volunteering on their own free will. Yet, they are so well taken care of and highly recognised (personally and monetarily) and respected for their bravery and service to the nation.

The SAF is a forced-conscription military. Singaporean males cannot choose whether they want to give up two years of their prime youth and weeks of reservist duty. To add insult to injury, the government misuses the NSFs as free labour during NDP parades and shows.

With the influx of PRs and new citizens exempted from NS, the government will continue to face increasing anger and outrage from disaffected citizens used so callously in the name of national security.

Problems in deferment for NSMen

Problems in deferment for NSMen

May 26th, 2010 | Author: Contributions

Readers of TR,

I believe I am not the only person doing his best to balance between reservist, work, family and study life. The government encourages us to study and so I did a part-time degree in UniSim with government grant.

However I am experiencing such difficult and unreasonable situations with my reservist deferment unit. Ever since I started studying last year, I found out that I’m not eligible for deferment because it is not a local university like NTU/NUS/SMU. However, in order to be eligible for grant, it has to be a local university in which UniSim is recognised by the Government. But its not a university recognised by Mindef. I wonder why is there a difference in view between Mindef and the Government?

Mindef officers later called me to work out with my commander(CO), I believe them at first. On the first day, I was told by CO that I should planned out my study without affecting my NS work. He does not understand that studying part-time(night class) in Unisim also have to do the assignments and submit them. If I’m not able to leave for class, how am I able to study effectively and submit assignments which will affect my grades? He does not have an answer and was bent on NOT working with me.

On Mindef’s website, they mentioned that if you have ROMs/local wedding, you can get deferred. This year is a good year for me to get married. Therefore I applied for deferment. However, I get a different opinion once again from my Unit and Mindef views. The same commander and other officers rejected my marraige deferment this year. They said I have to work out with my commander again. I doubt that is going to happen.

For 2 straight years, I get caught in these kind of situations. I have not been following much on army news but I recall Mindef is transforming. However, all I see is that it is transforming into a more harsh, critical and less understanding organization and that the peoples’ best interests are not served.

So much of the talk about growing Singapore’s population.

Yours,

Discourage Singaporean

Editor’s note: Letter was published verbatim.

Issue of NS for Singaporean Men Part II

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Issue of NS for Singaporean Men Part II

http://singapore-lighthouse.blogspot.com/2010/06/issue-of-ns-for-singapore-male-part-ii.html
Well, I have to said that NS is good for Singapore, but there are many ways for PRs to "Siam" or dodge NS using many methods. I quote an Anonymous who commented:

" It's been like that for 40 years already. Just that the problem is much more acute now due to much harsher competition in the real world. 30 yrs ago, you can still fully pay your HDB flat within 10 years and raise a family of 2 kids even though you don't even have full 'O'-Level qualification. Today even if you have degree, you still need to stay with your parents until 33, 35 yr old in order to save up enough to pay the deposit for the govt pigeon-hole in the sky. If you don't have degree, be prepared to live like foreign workers and S-Pass workers in your own country.

This thing about male PRs has been on-going for over 20 years already. I have a neighbour where whole family took up PR almost 20 years ago. Both parents hold high-paying jobs in the finance sector, so S'pore govt probably begged them to take up PR. My neighbour also quietly told me that PR allowed him practically all the benefits of citizenship e.g. subsidised school fees for his 3 children, subsidised fees in govt hospitals, ability to buy resale HDB for investment etc.

The real kicker came when this neighbour's son completed 'A'-levels. Immediately the son gave up his PR, and was sent to US university to study. This boy and his family enjoyed all the privileges similar to citizen, and yet when it came time to reciprocate responsibility, they packed the son off overseas without any punishment or repercussion. The rest of the family -- father, mother and 2 grown-up daughters -- still keep their PRs as they have no NS-liability. That son worked 2 years in US after graduation, and recently came back to a high-paying job in S'pore as a foreign talent, earning over $150K a year at age 25. At 25 yr old, most of our local guys have only just graduated and have to fight tooth & nail with China and India "FTs" for $2K-$2.5K jobs."

Really irony isn't it? So we used to said in Camp "Squeeze balls"! But this thing not camp issues or instructors or officers make us Squeeze balls, but our PR loop holes :(

And You Tell Me A Singapore Passport Is Priceless!

And You Tell Me A Singapore Passport Is Priceless!

http://blog.marcustan.com/index.php/2010/06/and-you-tell-me-a-singapore-passport-is-priceless/

So sorry to just jump up on all of you like that after close to a month of not posting and then diving deep into a chant-like rant. But really, the impetus for this post is this nagging frustration I have had over the past 10 years and a sudden desire to transcribe the abstract ideas into prose.

Well, it just happens that I am about to collect my new passport (it’s still a red one, unfortunately, if you happen to make some remote connection) tomorrow and have been flipping the pages of my old one. It is a respectable booklet which has served me well, in my honest opinion. It has identified me to numerous customs officers, gained me entry to many countries, and unbelievably survived 6 separate trips to the singapore immigrations and customs authority (aka passport office) for extensions to its validity.

“6 trips to the passport office in 10 years?!” you must be thinking now, “is this person a criminal or what?”

I’m sure that the common person’s experience with passports is a simple one: collect passport from passport office, use it till it expires in, perhaps, 10 years time, done deal. No, I apologise, not for me. My passport was issued in October 2000, and expired in July 2001. Yes, however impossible, that’s what’s written on its photo page.

Which is the reason why I always get one, if not two, stares from customs officers each time I travel. I do not blame them – just imagine if you were the officer at Washington Dulles who, in March 2010, was presented with this passport which has ‘expired’ for 9 years!

Continuing on with the customs officer role play, you would then be told by none other than myself to “flip down a couple pages”. What you will subsequently see confirms your suspicions of my ‘criminal past’.

~~~flips 2 pages~~~
- 9 month extension in March 2001
- 2 year extension in May 2001
~~~flips another 2 pages~~~
- 2 year extension in October 2002
- 2 year extension in June 2004
- 2 year extension in November 2005
~~~flips another 2 pages~~~
- 3+ year extension in May 2007

By the time you actually flip to the correct “passport extension” stamp, you would not only be irritated, but also puzzled all the same. “Why was this young man given a restricted passport? What crime did he commit?”

Truth be told, I have never committed any crime. This passport pain in the butt is also not an isolated case. In fact, every Singaporean male of my era (they scrapped passport restrictions on NS-liable Singaporean males in 2006) has experienced it before.

The incredibly long afternoon queues at the passport office (which really were incredibly long) just before an overseas trip to extend our passports; the odd stares from customs officers in foreign lands; the hassle of not being totally sure of our passport’s expiry date each time we fill those customs forms out on claustrophobic airplane seats. That was the price we paid since age 11 for the paranoid and autocratic policies of our government.

Yes, when I was only 11 years old, my government was so afraid of my leaving the country to escape military conscription that they issued me a passport which was only valid for 9 months. It signals paranoia when the government of a country which is not at war forces all males into 2 year conscriptions. A panic attack occurs when such a government pre-empts AWOL attempts and implements unnecessarily strict passport restrictions on all 11 year old males.

I’m not here to effect any changes – those passport controls have been abolished since 2006. I, however inappropriate this may sound, am just here to rant. You may be a Singaporean female or non-Singaporean, and do not know how being issued a passport which is valid for 9 months feels like. Let me tell you straight in the face now: it sucks.

Many people have ridiculed my every attempt at bringing up the topic of migration. They typically centre on one main argument: that the red little booklet gains you visa-free access to a buffet selection of countries. They then tell anecdotes of non-singaporean friends having to go through the troublesome motions of applying for visas, and expect me to conclude that a singapore passport is best. Well, haven’t I been experiencing that all this while? If we summed up the total amount of time I spent queuing at the passport office for passport extensions, I think it would be enough time to apply for all the visas I would have ever needed in the past 10 years. And how about my 2 year conscription? 2 years is definitely enough time to apply for all the visas the world can offer you ten times over.

And now you tell me a singapore passport is priceless? So sorry, I must be blind!

Risking Life and Limb as a Conscript in the Lion City

Monday, May 31, 2010

Risking Life and Limb as a Conscript in the Lion City

http://military-life.blogspot.com/2010/05/saf-commando-shot-by-thai-villager.html

The recent news of how not just one but two SAF servicemen (one a regular, the other a full-time NSF) were shot and injured by Thai farmer discharging his shotgun shows how one risks life and limb in mandatory conscription in the Singapore Armed Forces.

It was fortunate that no-one was killed but the regular serviceman now has a serious eye injury. The NSF is now living with pellets embedded in his skin possibly for life. How is he going to be compensated (if any) by the SAF for this accident?

Again it shows up how the scale of benefits and responsibilities is tilted against the Singaporean male citizen who has to serve full-time and reservist national service in the Singapore Armed Forces, the Singapore Police Force and Singapore Civil Defence Forces.

Our young male citizens are risking life and limb; protecting us with their lives and in return, they are amply rewarded with Safra/Home Team Club memberships (which they have to pay their own subscriptions) and get the few thousand tax relief (and not rebate!). Do you think that human life is worth a few hundred dollars in tax savings and the additional $50 or $100 top-ups from the Government that occurs on the occasional year?

Do you think this is a fair exchange given that female citizens do not serve the same responsibilities and neither do first generation male Permanent Residents, female PRs and foreigners who enjoy the economic benefits of working and living in Singapore but none of the requisite responsibilities imposed by this archaic and wasteful system of conscription?

Is duty, honour and country the only thing male citizens can cling to in understanding why there is an uneven playing field for competing for jobs in Singapore Inc?

Why are we still clinging on to an out-dated system of mandatory conscription when many developed countries have either shortened their NS liabilities (e.g. Taiwan, South Korea etc) and even our neighbours Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand depend mostly on regulars and supplemented with a small group of conscripts (Thailand by lottery) or volunteers (Malaysia)?

Don't give me the old propaganda/national education spiel about Singapore being too small to deploy a fully professional force type of argument. When your defence budget of about $13 billion annually is 2-3x your neighbour's, you can afford to plough some of that budget into funding a fully professional army. It should be noted that our Navy and Air Force is staffed mostly by regulars or professional soldiers.

Conscription is an anarchronism in today's world. It is less about mobilising the citizenry to military defence than a mechanism to enslave the young male citizens to a system of compliance, obedience and fear of authority.

Why else do we have a system when clearly there is sufficient money to fund a fully professional army that is more suited to fight the low intensity conflict that is characterised by the war on terrorism?

Majullah Singapura.