Whenever we’re asked: Do you believe in defending Singapore? We all say yes.

Whenever we’re asked: Are you wasting your time in NS? We all agree.

Like it or not, even the most ‘xiao on’ (zealous) soldier thinks that he is wasting his time and thinks there must be another way to defend this country – one that does not involve him running around in the humid jungle with his rifle (One NSF even suggested, though insensitively comical, to hire foreign workers to defend our land). We question the relevance of certain trainings and some even dare say we will never go to war, let alone survive one.

So what are we doing then?

No scholarship-hungry officer cadet nor committed regular can answer this question and calm the hearts of hundreds and thousands of men – because he is a soldier.

Gentlemen, we, the rest of us, from the ‘storeman’ to the Company Quartermaster Sergeant, from the transport operator to the vehicle commander, the signaller, the medics, the riflemen, we are free men.

Free men who are not in this because we want to be soldiers.

Free men who are not in this because we want to fight.

Gentlemen, we are free men who book in every Sunday night (and for some lucky ones, every weekday morning), free men who surrender themselves to the inevitability of ‘signing extra’, free men who commit to sign within an impossibly small box, free men who always agree, nod and exclaim ‘YES SIR’ because…

Free men have lives to live…

and for 2 years we ‘suck thumb and die’ so that the remaining years of our lives, if ever a foreign dumb ass dares to create a filthy mess on our land, we force our pressurised thumbs far up his behind… because if not us, then who? If not now, then when? if not this, than what?

To all free men who are responsible for the efficiency of the army but are never and will never be appreciated for their contribution to the defence of our nation, keep sucking those thumbs!

Happy Birthday Singapore.