This reservist was rather overshadowed by the emphasis on safety. To those who don't know what happened, a full time national serviceman passed away after being involved in a training accident. In response to that, the army called for (another) safety time out.

I thought it hilarious that the commander of MTI, a SLTC, said "safety over mission". And apparently the army has gone from "mission success, safety always" to "safety always, mission success". Basically safety is prioritised over mission. For an army, that essentially means that safety is prioritised over everything else. Obviously the safest army would be no army. Or a stay-in-bunk army.

I enlisted when the army had 7 core values, when care for soldier was the last core value (army added the 8th core value of safety a year or so after I finished with my active service). Through my BMT and OCS infantry training, I saw quite a few cases of heat exhaustion/ heat stroke happen to people in my company. In fact, it seems to me that these cases contributed directly to the increased emphasis on safety. Even while doing safety I had someone faint on me alone in the middle of the night in the Brunei jungle, made me seriously scared that he would die.

I believe, and this is based on anecdotal evidence, that the army has actually become safer over the years. During the earlier years of the army there were many severe incidents, but these were accepted by the SAF (Singapore armed forces, for foreign readers) and the public at large as a cost that had to be borne.

The narrative that every life lost while training is a life too many is cool. Has a nice ring to it. Is popular too. Lemme quote "It is my KPI that this reservist everyone is sent home safely to your families, girlfriends .etc .etc.". Why not let us all out pro immediately. You'll hit your KPI. But I guess he did hit his KPI in other ways, the intensity of training was decreased, the entire unit didn't stay outfield at all, whenever there was any chance of being unsafe, we erred on the side of safety.

Why is safety in the forefront now? Presumably there are political and social pressures now. As I mentioned, the army is getting safer, yet presumably the demands that the army be safe outstrips army's increasing safety. Perhaps it is kinda like how our MRT is actually getting more efficient and having less breakdowns but the demand for efficiency and no breakdowns outstrips this "real" statistical improvement. Such that every safety incident or every train breakdown causes a massive hoo-ha. People are less accepting of their children dying for the state. Less accepting of other people's children dying for the state.

If you have read my previous posts, you will know that I am no fan of the state. Not just Singapore, I'm no fan of the concept of "states". But this over emphasis on safety is just ridiculous. Too safe training is no training. And instead of having this too safe training, we might as well go home and sleep and be safe, and not waste everyone's time.

Let me tell you a sick story titled "safety breach" (which will only make sense to you if you are infantry trained). So my guys somehow became stormando team 1 and team 2. Stormando team 2 was defending a building, was an urban ops mission. I had 5 guys inside. And I was outside because I was "umpiring" (basically I call that people are dead or alive). There was a fence outside the house with a gate. That wasn't even padlocked but tied together with some metal wire and secured with a huge stone. Usually during breaching, the infantry platoon will have to put a bangalore torpedo (essentially a shaped charge) to blow away obstacles like the gate. Presumably untying some metal wire would be easier than that, but would probably still cause a few casualties (cos my guys would shoot at them when they were not under cover). Instead, this attacking commander took out a smoke grenade. Then he asked the trainers whether he could throw it. The trainers said throw, but not within 20m of the building (cos apparently it is the safety regulation now). Just FYI: Prior to a case (I think 1 or 2 years back) where an asthmatic NSF died when 8-9 smoke grenades were thrown in to the same room and he wasn't treated quickly enough, apparently people used to practice flushing the enemy out with smoke by throwing about 5 of them into the building. Anyway back to the story, this commander threw the smoke grenade accidentally just beside the building. So the trainers muttered a few curse words and rushed to remove the smoke grenade. In doing so, they untied the wire and opened the gate. Of course, then the attacking troops rushed forward and said gap gap gap. LMAO. Would be great for war.

I think the army is overprioritising safety. Instead of saying stuff like zero safety incidents or whatnot, I suggest that instead of trying to work in absolutes, the army should allow work together to allow an acceptable level of risk, and with that, an acceptable number of safety incidents. Because army training (or any activity for that matter) is inherently risk, especially if it involves physical exertion and, yknow, stuff designed for killing people. Rather than chasing after this pipe dream and calling a safety timeout (shouldn't these be decreasing in frequency or meant to end all other safety timeouts?) each time, surprise, it fails and disrupting training/making life difficult for everyone down the line, it should aim at a more realistic target. I guess it sounds callous to treat a life as not the ultimate value (e.g defence of nation is more important), but one should realise that in the short 2 weeks of reservist that we did, my unit as a whole already spent 23 man years collectively given up for the army. Lives are ALREADY being given up for the army. We should make the best use of the lives that are already given up for army rather than making this training a waste of time.

Of course higher hq would say that this is exactly what they are trying to do, to ensure that incidents that result from negligence .etc. are not condoned and that mission success and safety can work together. Idk what the average general's perception of the ground is. It seems to me that this push towards safety is making life hard for all the commanders closest to the ground since they have to execute it. And since the commanders on top are the ones that have to answer for it, they just put more and more requirements and then blame the ground commanders when these requirements are not followed. LOL. Who want to be ground commanders like this? Everything also our fault.

Army loves to use the word ensure. Ensure that your men are properly hydrated, ensure that your men are well rested, ensure ensure ensure. Why does the ensuring only happen from the junior commanders to the ground. When a junior commander fails to ensure, why does the buck stop there? Why does it not go further and further up the command chain since they all failed to ensure that he ensures? I'll tell you why. Because ensuring is a freaking tedious process and not foolproof. People have free will (ok not a philosophical debate here, just the natural use of the term free will), they can choose not to do what you tell them to do. Maybe the top honchos should try ensuring something not surrounded by people that owe their living to the army. (So you can't threaten to fire them, cos we all want to be fired from the army).

Lastly, this safety thing is a windfall for the chaokeng people. And if chaokeng people can chaokeng so easily, why would the rest want to stupidly do what is asked of them? Breeding chaokeng culture is stupid for Singapore society as a whole. Simplistically, it erodes erodes trust in the system and a few more steps and viola, nobody gives a shit anymore.

It seems to me that if the govt wants to play at national defence is essential for Singaporean society, and make people believe it, that is fine, just pay the cost, make a bunch of unwilling men join the army. If the govt wants to say a life lost is a life too many (for people who didn't choose it) that is fine too, abolish conscription and hire more professional soldiers. The problem with the current narrative is that it is not really coherent. And not coherent narratives die. Because people can smell that it is weak and attack it e.g chaokeng. Safety and mission success naturally contradict, like saving the environment and economic growth. Unless you have a new technology or something that enables everything to be super realistically high-tech simulated, maybe that would be fine. But till then, I think the most army can do is to put safety as a core value, but definitely not over mission success. An army with safety first is just incoherent. Think of police with safety first. Or fire dept with safety first.

OHHH? Or maybe they are just acknowledging, in a roundabout way, what everyone already knows - that the Singapore army is just wayang, unlike police and scdf. Ok if thats the case. SAFETY OVER MISSION EVERYONE!