Bring back memories of my national service days again...
Spring 1992
i remember it was a Saturday afternoon, the company personnel of mono-intake recruits and fellow trainers were getting ready to book-out for the weekend. But not for me though, for i was on COS (Company Orderly Sergeant) weekend duty. Those days, the civil service were still on a five-and-a-half day work week. Unlike present, i can imagine permanent staff and NSF are all ready looking forward to book-out come Friday evening ;-)
Recruit P came into the company line office, dress in his smart-4 (Combat fatigue with sleeves smartly folded above the elbow line), standard dress code for booking-out of camp for recruits. He had been unwell the past week or so. Had reported sick with the camp medical centre and i belief was given MC (Medical Certificate) for rest or light duties. He was asking for permission for a slightly early release from camp, reason being he was offered a ride from a fellow recruit, whose father had arrived in his car. If i remember correctly, the friend's father was a medical doctor. Permission granted.
Came Sunday night, recruit P did not book-in to camp. Later we learnt that he was admitted to Toa Payoh Hospital, if my memory serves me right. Throughout the week, we learnt that his condition was not improving and was moved to the ICU ! I remember the NCOs paid him a visit. He was already in a comatose state in the ICU, breathing with the aid of the ventilator...
i remember the NCOs paid our respect at his wake. His family were Buddhist. We collected Pek Kim (白金 : Hokkien for condolence offering) from fellow recruits and among us trainers, each gave voluntarily from our NS allowance. i believed the SAF gave a certain amount of money to the family of servicemen who passed away during active service as part of their policy, but i am unsure of the amount.
i remember arriving at the wake, running through my mind, how will we react if the family members don't take kindly to our presence? We went in our personal capacity, in our civilian clothes, not representing the SAF. But to the family members they will still see us as from the Army. Will they blame us for not taking good care of their son and brother? Aunty, Uncle, we are very sorry for your lost. We are also doing national service just like recruit P. The training regime were not out of the ordinary. We also dun noe what happen, how he got so sick. In my heart i wanted to tell them. Nothing untoward happened.
NS is not a job for us full-time national servicemen. We were conscripted to do a duty.
i don't remember we were given off-in-lieu when we perform week ends 24 hour duties, and there was no over-time pay for that as well. Off-in-lieu was only granted company or battalion wide when we went on exercises over weekends or on public holidays. But no OT pay.
Years later when i was working with a company stationed at the Changi International Airport terminals as an engineer, sometimes, we got to stay back for over-time work. For engineers and management and above, there was no OT payment, you do what you need to do to get the work done even after office hours. But for Technical Officers and Technicians they were allowed to claim for OT pay if they need to work after office hours.
i remember on the 31 December 1999, all of the company staff came back to the airport on stand-by, all for the Y2K bug ! The company has been preparing the site, with the custodian, with vendors and sub-contractors, etc. ensuring bug fixes and all systems go on the fateful night. Was this national service too ? At the time, we must have felt... as the clock strikes twelfth mid-night, we were anticipating, and then nothing happened, relieved! all systems go, as far as our area of responsibility was concerned. The technicians reporting back one by one from their talkies, status: 'OK' and as the world celebrated the dawn of a new millennium, ...we were performing "national service", for a very important institution no less. It felt like this at the time.
But then again we were professionals, workers employed by a certain company to do certain jobs at certain work site the company deem to deploy us. We were paid a "real" salary, with bonuses and CPF (social security) contributions to boot, not an allowance. You do what you have to do to accomplish a task. Be it staying behind after office hours or like this once in a thousand year event, staying into the wee hours at work site as part of our job, being paid a salary. But i must admit it does felt that way. Feeling and reality is different. Don't forget you are paid to do a job, plus you have an agenda to look out for your self interest in your career prospects in your field of speciality. And if it so happen that your self-interest of your career or maybe a genuine passion for your work align with the greater good of mankind, lagi best for you. So was this NS? No, i have to say.
Someone mentioned he got this information from some person that the cause of recruit P's demise was an "unknown viral infection". Not sure how true. Probably he got it while training out-field, in the muddy fields? Dun noe. If this is the case, then let us all hope the A*STAR researchers quickly find a cure for such condition, sincerely. We have boys whom will, like their old man, one day, when the time comes, will answer the call of duty, do we have a choice?
19 June 2014
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