one thing we lack in total defence

Earlier this month, a full time national serviceman from the army died during training. Subsequently on facebook I caught a post about a girl making a comment that Singaporeans are too weak. While I do not know both the deceased serviceman and the girl who made the comment, but I have some sort of a related encounter myself.

Some time back I attended a call-up. It was short but physically exhausting nonetheless. Many people would apply leave after reservist, but I went straight back to work the next day. Nothing heroic, I'm just stingy over my annual leave balance. So back in office I just remarked that the training was tiring. It wasn't a bid for sympathy, just sharing how I felt. Then a female colleague commented that I was weak, cos she hadn't heard other males complaining about feeling tired after going for reservist.

You see, I'm sorry but I really can't help having some naive shallow people in my social circle. Here we are training hard and disrupting from our daily routine to do our part to protect our nation, and then some people just have to be so cynical. We are not playing boy scouts. We aren't asking for appreciation, we aren't asking for bed of roses or kisses for the heroes. But understanding and validation would be nice. Some members of the other gender find it unfair that males who have served national service get higher starting salary. Turn the table around, are there males who complain that females have too many maternity leave? *shrug*

I'm sure most of us have heard about Total Defence umpteenth times. It won't be total if not everyone is doing his/her part.