Home > Speaker's Corner

The Government failed to stem the military training fatality

asdfzhao
27 Jun 06, 02:20

Originally posted by Atobe:
"there's no such thing as a thinking solider. soldier= no need for brains, only listen to orders" - I hope you are just simply "clowning around" and not being serious.[/quote]
he is serious.right?
[quote]
Could the SAF Commando training be benchmarked too closely to the US Army Special Forces training ?

A typical US Special Forces soldier will easily weigh at least 90kg, compared to the average Singaporean Asian weight of 55kg to 65kg.

Are the packs and cargo to be carried by our 65kg SAF Commando too ambitious - so as to make our SAF Commando performance equal to that of a 90kg US Special Force soldier ?

Benchmarking ourselves with the best, should be taken with some degree of realistic pragmatism.

The SAF Command should seriously review the entire design plan in the way that they expect our SAF Commandos to perform during war, and if our Commandoes should be expected to physically perform in the same manner as the US or other Caucasian soldiers.

If one 65kg SAF Commando alone cannot match a US 90kg, perhaps two SAF Commandoes should be tasked to do the job, or else redesign the approach that will allow the same task to be accomplished by one SAF Commando.

O Please. this is not the only case... World Cup by 2010? If this is possible, pigs can fly...
Atobe
27 Jun 06, 03:19

Originally posted by asdfzhao:

Original post by Atobe:

"there's no such thing as a thinking solider. soldier= no need for brains, only listen to orders" - I hope you are just simply "clowning around" and not being serious.

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he is serious.right?

He is seriously clowning around with his left views, and probably having serious second thoughts concerning the right view.

Could the SAF Commando training be benchmarked too closely to the US Army Special Forces training ?

A typical US Special Forces soldier will easily weigh at least 90kg, compared to the average Singaporean Asian weight of 55kg to 65kg.

Are the packs and cargo to be carried by our 65kg SAF Commando too ambitious - so as to make our SAF Commando performance equal to that of a 90kg US Special Force soldier ?

Benchmarking ourselves with the best, should be taken with some degree of realistic pragmatism.

The SAF Command should seriously review the entire design plan in the way that they expect our SAF Commandos to perform during war, and if our Commandoes should be expected to physically perform in the same manner as the US or other Caucasian soldiers.

If one 65kg SAF Commando alone cannot match a US 90kg, perhaps two SAF Commandoes should be tasked to do the job, or else redesign the approach that will allow the same task to be accomplished by one SAF Commando.[/color]

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O Please. this is not the only case... World Cup by 2010? If this is possible, pigs can fly...

If it serves to maintain the National Pride and Morale, the POWER OF ONE maybe willing to allow Temasek to spend a couple of MEGA-MILLION Dollars to purchase the World Class Football Stars, so as to make a National Singapore Team consisting the likes of Beckham, Ronaldinho, Zidane, Klose, Crespo,Torres, and similar equal stars.

This possibility boils down to the amount of NATIONAL MONEY that is available to buy such talents to represent Singapore.

When this becomes a reality, perhaps you will see flying elephants - and not merely flying pigs.
blueheeler
28 Jun 06, 12:07

Aiyah! This is military training lah. Sometimes people die because realistic training is tough. I believe that it is not possible for zero-deaths in SAF training.
Atobe
28 Jun 06, 12:30

Originally posted by blueheeler:
Aiyah! This is military training lah. Sometimes people die because realistic training is tough. I believe that it is not possible for zero-deaths in SAF training.
Why should zero-deaths not be possible in the most realistic of training ?

If your opinion is correct, the parents of subsequent generations of NSF will have serious cause to worry.

During the early days of NS Training in the late 1960s when NS started, the first few batches of NSF enlistees had to crawl under barb wires with GPMG firing live bullets whizzing above the barb wires. Platoon and Company Live Firing Assaults were conducted in the grounds of SAFTI, with overhead live motar and GPMG support fire being placed at designated sites - to provide realism and condition the NSF enlistees to an actual war scenario - as they charge up the cursed hills of SAFTI.

Those were realistic training with zero deaths, and were a result of careful and meticulous planning from dedicated commanders - who took their job seriously, and not in some RAMBO Gung-ho fashion.

Accidents resulting in deaths are largely due to inattentiveness of those at the helm, much like automobile accidents the result of inattentiveness of those in control of the steering, accelerator and brakes.

Are the present young commanders less mature than the generations before them ?

Why is there a sudden surge of training accidents and deaths - if the frequency and tempo remained the same all through the years ?

Can the training frequency and tempo be the same with smaller intakes of NSF enlistees due to a shrinking population ?

Such accidents are most likely the result of training being executed without too much imagination and serious concern for accidents to happen; and more likely with the attitude of those in command probably believing themselves to be some kind of experienced War Veteran with the charisma of Rambo from Movieland.
LazerLordz
28 Jun 06, 13:24

If you think that training at SAFINCOS in the 1960s were death-free... you'd most likely be wrong.

It's the degree of media open-ness that did not exist then.
Atobe
28 Jun 06, 15:31

Originally posted by LazerLordz:
If you think that training at SAFINCOS in the 1960s were death-free... you'd most likely be wrong.

It's the degree of media open-ness that did not exist then.
You maybe right insofar as media open-ness is concerned.

With NS being so difficult to be accepted in the early days of NS for National Defense, do you think that caution and care will not be the key word from the commanders who have no background experience to draw from ?

In the 1960s, when the rumour mill runs faster than the newspaper, can any death from NS training be hidden from Singaporeans ?

Undeniably, training accidents do happen, when limbs were lost - as had happened in quite a few cases when the old Bailey Bridges were constructed by the Combat Engineers; or the base plate of a 120mm Motar squashed some toes; or when the tracks and hatch of an AMX-13 clipped off a finger.

Death did occur during night exercises, when a tired soldier fell into deep sleep un-noticed under a 3-tonner and was squashed when the driver drove off without checking. Or when a 3-tonner slipped and toppled over the side of a hill.

Death did occur when a nervous trainee dropped a hand grenade inside his own foxhole, or sprung the spring and held on to the grenade, and in the process killed himself and his accompanying commander through critical injury.

Such deaths have become less an occurrence, with lessons learnt and new safety precautions taken.

However, such deaths did not occur at such high frequency of several deaths within a year - as is happening now, and with a higher rate seemingly occurring with the Commandos.

Rambo - the swaggering gung-ho figure - was not yet a movie in the 1960s, to give any commanders that idiotic idea of being a heroic war veteran.