A heavy burden

NSF’s Punishment Too Soft (Today Online, 6 April 2011)

I’m one of the many readers who has been following the story of the full-time National Serviceman photographed with his maid carrying his bag. As an NSman myself, the story holds particular interest for me. But I only realised the full scale of the interest in the incident, when I noticed the news of the boy having owned up and being offered counselling appearing on the BBC World news ticker during Tuesday night’s broadcast.

A quick online search shows the news has been picked up in several other countries. I do not want to come across as advocating harsh punishment but, given the intense interest in the case, I strongly feel the decision to only offer counselling to the young man is one that is much too lax.

I completely understand the difficulties in serving NS but the poor attitude demonstrated by the boy has been a source of shame for not just all military personnel but for Singapore itself. His being only in the physical training phase is not much of an excuse, since he is still considered a conscripted soldier liable to military rules and regulations. There may be no specific rule that explicitly prohibits his actions, but I believe it could still be found chargeable as a general violation of good conduct.

I have seen and heard of NS boys handed far more serious punishments for seemingly lesser offences. I think it would be in the interest of fairness and equality for Mindef to be more forthcoming with the details of its handling of the case.

 

In case you have been living under an immovable boulder for the past half a month or so, the case being referred to concerns the now-infamous photograph of an NSF being followed by a maid carrying his backpack for him. I agree that this is a source of shame for all Singaporeans – it demonstrates primarily the tendency of many among us to make mountains of molehills.

Let us review the facts of the case. Our NSF here has done wrong – that much is undeniable. He should carry his own backpack. In allowing or maybe ordering his maid to do it for him, he has behaved like a spoilt brat. But is that such an enormous crime? Is that worth pages upon pages of newsprint and the vast amounts of teeth-gnashing that has been going on about how soft our soldiers and younger generation has become? It isn’t.

We need some perspective here. First of all this is one soldier. How can we extrapolate so much from the behaviour of one person? Adrian Lim, infamous as Singapore’s only serial killer, is one man. Should his deeds be used as evidence towards a trend that Singaporeans are becoming increasingly murderous? Surely this will strike most people as being utterly ridiculous. Yet so many are applying the exact same principle – one soldier gets his maid to carry his backpack for him; it means all our soldiers are getting soft. That’s ridiculous and completely illogical.

Second – why should he be punished more harshly? Behaving like a spoilt brat is undesirable but last I checked it isn’t actually a crime. Some might argue that he has brought low the SAF’s image but come on – half the population, the half that served, at least already has a low opinion of the SAF anyway. More seriously, it is merely one soldier. Anybody who thinks less of an enormous organization composed of thousands of people in a variety of diverse vocations due to a single photograph involving a single, low-ranking member of said organization needs to have a modicum of logic slapped vigorously into him or her.

Third – what punishment does our writer think is sufficient? Extras? DB? Confinement? String him up and whip his back bloody in public? What is the point of punishment anyway? It is primarily to teach somebody that something he or she has done is wrong, and not to do it again. Punishment can also have a deterrent effect on others. From the media firestorm and counselling, I think it is safe to say our soldier knows his mistake by now and that future soldiers will not make the same mistake, as presumably nobody wants the media and Singaporeans baying for their blood. What purpose, then, would further punishment serve? The personal gratification of people like our writer is not a valid reason.

Let’s become a more forgiving society. When something goes wrong, let us focus on putting it right rather than hunting for culprits to punish. It is ridiculous to behold how far this single photograph has taken us. The media seems the only beneficiary from the increased, rage-fuelled sales of their newspapers.

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