Every Singaporean male have to go through National Service, be it in the Singapore Armed Forces, Singapore Police Force or the Singapore Civil Defence Force when one reaches 18. Everyone is given a PES (Physical Employment Status), in which the status will help to factor in which vocation one is posted to.
Before enlisting, the medical officer talked to me and asked me if I wish to go to Tekong because of my sleepwalking condition. At that point of time, hearing how good PES C life is from 8 to 5 while only going through a 1 month BMT (Basic Military Training) course, I was very keen to get PES C. I told the doctor that I wanted to go into Tekong, because I thought I would get PES C and I did not want to get PES E.
In the end, it was one of the worst mistake that I made in my life. I got PES B2. PES B2 is the new PES C1. Most people who are PES B2 will get PES C vocations. The only two notable difference between a PES B2 and PES C recruit is that PES B2 have to go for IPPT and includes a 2-month BMT course instead of 1 month.
This might seem good, but the main bulk of people sees us as PES fit instead. They assume we can do PES fit stuff. However, PES fit are people that are PES B1 and above. We are excused from SOC and more than 10km route march in BMT. We also cannot go to command school after BMT and we have a lot of physical statuses and conditions. Some people see us as PES, some people see us as PES fit, but no one sees us as an individual unique PES B2.
We are the sandwiched PES, doing the chiong sua stuff in BMT but in the end don't have a single chance to go command school and most of us end up in PES C vocations. Being a PES B2 serves no motivation in BMT. You are deemed as PES fit and they make you do some xiong stuff and push you above your physical limits, but in the end some of us cannot get silver or gold for IPPT due to us having excused 1 or 2 stations. We don't even have a chance to go command school, so there is no point trying hard in BMT.
People in PES B2 all either want to up or down PES, no one wants to get stuck and stay in PES B2. Why bother staying in the middle where you can chiong or geng all the way? Don't forget that even though we are deemed as PES fit, even if we pass our IPPT beforehand, we still won't get 2 months off our National Service, unlike those PES B1 or A people which if they have passed their IPPT beforehand they will only have to serve 1 year 10 months.
Personally, I, like the other PES B2 people, also feel very discouraged by my PES and very demotivated in my BMT. However, this does not mean that my world ended. Even though till now I sometimes still feel very salty about my PES status, I still learn a lot of things being a PES B2 soldier.
In life, there are certain mistakes that you will truly regret and also there will be some unfair circumstances. However, this is what life is all about. I am just being exposed to a small part of the world by being in the army. I have learnt how to deal with certain unfair circumstances and learnt how to accept certain things like my PES status in my life. I have also learn to be grateful, because imagine if I got PES B1, I might be dying right now in some combat unit. Also, I managed to learn a lot of useful skills in army which i can apply in the future in my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment