Today was a very silly day. I had planned to come down to my station to return back my issued items (a process known as "de-kit"), signed some clearance forms and get back my IC. All of this was to be done in the morning and be done quickly. What ensued was a long wait that took the entire day to complete the whole process.
Anyway, the de-kit process is a simple affair: return back all of my No. 3 working uniform plus badges, my issued items (required for chemical accident turnouts — thankfully I didn’t have to —), and other miscellaneous. After completing that process, they told me, in a rather apt manner, that personnels ORD-ing on that particular day (today was my ORD date — WOO HOO! —) can only be issued back their pink IC after 5 p.m.
So I returned back home to take a rest, and returned back around 4:30 p.m. to collect back, only to find out that my platoon mates who worked in another place got back theirs earlier. Ah, such is the <censored>-up National Service.
Looking back, I finally realized that 2 years of my life had gone.
For the past 2 years of my life, I served the nation’s call for service in the uniformed organization. I had attended the basic training, made friends with lots of my platoon mates, my fire station colleagues and trainees. I had also suffered under the hands of the strict discipline; made to complete various endless punishments; standing by for emergency activation; phoning back during all those automated recall & mobilization calls; endure the various behaviours and attitudes, both from my colleagues and superiors; enjoyed the various calls I attended to; and not more importantly, enjoyed my time serving NS. I’ve seen all kinds of human condition as a medic following the ambulance: road traffic accidents, suicides, fall from heights, cardiac arrests, and all other conditions that will gross out normal people. I don’t fancy the retarded calls: prank calls, drunkards, keng (feigned sickness) and others. Life as a medic is an experience that can only happen once in a Singaporean man’s lifetime, and it’d be something I’ll hold dear to. I guess National Service isn’t really a waste of time: for guys like me, it’s a growing up process, something that they need to go through, because for a country like Singapore, its people will be the sole defender of their country. It sounds like a propaganda, but otherwise, my other retort would be: the government is giving you 2 years, with allowances and something to work for. You can also spend the time in NS to contemplate on your future — if you had not done so —, to think of what you’re gonna do in life. Using this time was something I had used, to retrospect, introspect and contemplate about my future. In the end, the O.R.D. date has come. My time in NS is over. Now, the big future awaits those who dare to dream, and opportunity, along with time, waits for no man. Now listening to: Ai Otsuka ~ Tears
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