Before more people misunderstood "KVETCH" as a person name, perhaps I should explain the meaning a little.
Kvetch actaully meant to complain and whine. This blog named "Kvetch Haven" so that I can complain a little, whine a little about life. Of course, this blog will not be solely on constant whinning and complain.
So, Should Women in Singapore Serve NS
whispered @ Tuesday, August 02, 2005 by stardusz
This topic on women in Singapore serving NS (National Service) has been discussed over and over again. My stance on this has also changed over the period.
Initially, I really think that women should serve the nation and stop acting like some spoilt girl on the street crying for a candy bar. I felt that by going through the tough NS phase that the guys went through might make them grew up a little, if not more and handle some matters in life maturely.
However, as I grew older, my stance changed a little, yes, I still felt that, girls should still serve NS. In stead od bashing through together with their male counterpart (my initial stance), the female consignment should play a role in the military's logistic and support wings. The change in my stance is due to an article I have read some time back then. In this article, a group scientists and psychologists did a test to find out how a unisex platoon will perform in time of war. In the mock war, Army A has unisex soldiers while Army B has only male soldiers. And when the mock war ended, Army A was defeated. A survey was done on the male soldiers in Army A after the test and many stated that they felt the need to protect both the country and their female counterpart hence getting themselves 'kill' in the war.
Recently, this topic was brought up (yet again) and my stance changed once more. A chat with a friend over a cup of tea made me realised that in order to defend Singapore, we cannot solely foucs on military build-up. Singapore is a land of barren soil; we have no natural resources and different races living on the same island causes some diversity. We are rather weak in a way. Chatting with him got me to understand why government is so focus on Total Defence and not just on Military Defence.
Total Defence meant to protect the country in five major area:- Military Defence
- Economic Defence
- Civil Defence
- Psychologocal Defence
- Social Defence
As we are touching on whether female citizens should be involved in NS now, let's focus on Military and Economic Defence. Personally, I felt that these are the two defences bring me to understand and support the government decision, at least for now:
Citizens in Singapore are involved in all these defences and we failed to see, as many of us might have taken things for granted, taken security for granted. All along, I believed a number of us think that why Singapore is so safe because we have a strong army to prevent offshore attack, however, this mentality is wrong. Singapore army is not that strong and powerful as one would think it is, though I would agree on their technology; it is pretty advance as compare to their neighbouring and R&D for defence technology is also pretty focused on. What the army is short of is manpower, regular service personal to give a truly a 24hour protection around the island. Military Defence hence call up male Singaporeans when they have reach the age of 16 and a half to serve for 2 years (current new requirement), to train them up during this two years so that they can be operationally ready at any time. This commitment will be in a span of 13 years, where the national servicemen will need to go back for 2 weeks every year to re-learn new things, new technology, new tactics that were implement in their units.
As and when male guys are being recalled back to their units (for Military Defence), this is the time when the female counterpart play an important role in the Economic Defence. With the ladies being in the workfield for a longer period of time, they will cover up the holes (the 2 weeks of absence by their male counterpart when doing reservist). This is a picture where we need to view it through a bird's eyeview.
So, just imagine, if there is NS for the female counterpart as well, the holes that need to be covered during their absence will be even more. Besides that, imagine (again) when the nation so happened to called up both the husband and the wife for reservist, who is there to look after their family, their kids? Have we ever thought about that? If the women are involved, scenarios as such is possible. Time to put on the thinking cap.
----------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------
