This article "Are servicemen up to the job?" appeared in Straits Times forum last saturday dated 18th Oct 2003 by a certain Mr Koh Y M. To sum up, he said officers and specialists conducting the combat survival course were not to be blamed, as proper guidelines and procedures have been put in place regarding training safety regulations. He said the public should instead question the quality of servicemen... I can't take it lying down... i mean, what the f*** is wrong with this Mr Koh? He comes across to me as a very naive person with a highly elitist atitude... I feel i have to rebutt every single point he made regarding the incident which culminated in the death of the NSF from the simulated PoW training...

Firstly, with all due respect, Mr Koh(he himself declared ex-commando who went through similar training) should take into account the fact that SAF is made up of many individuals with varying levels of fitness and threshold for torture and like activities... what he could endure doesn't mean others could too... that is the reason why people like him go into commandos and others, like the most of his counterparts got into various less demanding combat vocations or support units... NS, for your info, was not meant to be a one size fits all system... and so who is he to question the abilities of fellow NS men?

Secondly, contrary to what he proclaimed in the article, officers and specialists conducting the exercise flouted the safety regulations... no one said it was necessary to dunk someone's head into the water excessively... if it was just meant to simulate, why push the act and punish the trainee even more? Now, i'm not saying this would translate the whole exercise into a mere whimper of its entirety... Yes, training SHOULD be tough, BUT it should also follow safety guidelines... Mr Koh, in his article quite obviously implied that it is not to be the case, given his training as a commando. However, i believe these 2 aspects can and will complement each other... SAF officers and specialists owe the people an explanation and therefore it is appropriate their heads should roll first... since it is their duty to return people's sons to parents at the end of the NS stint...

This above article was written by me from an objective perspective on the particular issue and should not be viewed as a personal attack on anybody, Mr Koh included. I hope to submit a proper write up to ST forum in the coming days... whether they publish my article... is for them to decide... i just want to give my two cents' worth...