Reservist Duty Yet Again
1152 days agoYup, I just completed yet another one of those very tedious and tiring reservist duties that the Singapore government loves to dish out to it’s male citizens. Apparently it is not enough for you after you have completed the 2 and a half years of national service ( where they pay you very little money), they still require you to come back year after year to do pointless reservist duties. I wonder why can’t the Singapore Armed Forces do with just the 2 and a half years of national service but still need to call back reservist (they call it NSmen) to “defend” the country. If they cannot effectively make use of the national servicemen, then they should find ways and means to solve it instead of using the easier but less effective solution of calling back reservists who are working outside and are usually much older than the national servicemen. What I mean is that if you are given a certain manpower to defend the country, they should make use of them efficiently and not yet again ask the reservist to do the dirty work for the government’s incompetence.
What is the purpose of calling up people who are 30 to 40 years old to defend the country when you have 18 year olds to do it more effectively. Furthermore, these younger national servicemen are doing it full time and are better able to be trained faster. The reservists are working outside and it is very possible that they have forgotten everything that was taught to them during their national service period. Tell me that you can remember what was taught several years back? No way and since they are called back like once per year, you can’t expect them to remember much as well. And since they are not full time national servicemen, they have their own work and their families to worry about. I doubt anyone can expect them to concentrate on their national duties as well.
One thing I really hate about the Singapore government is that they failed to understand what they have done. In Singapore, the job market is very tight. We have a lot competition from foreigners (yet another of the Singapore’s government easy but ineffective solution) and businesses and employers are now looking to hire foreigners instead of Singaporeans. And which employer would be willing to allow their employees to go off for 2 to 4 weeks for reservists every year? Smaller companies with less manpower would be even less willing to hire Singaporean males because of this. Even large MNCs don’t want the hassle of dealing with their Singaporean staff and will choose to hire foreigners. Singapore’s open door policy allows that to happen easily even with the foreigner quota.
