short story
In the army, there were many kinds of standby. Standby bed. Standby area. Standby for instructions. Each one had its own unique way of wasting time. But the one every recruit remembers most is Standby Bed. Standby Bed is an inspection of your bunk, locker, and personal belongings. It usually
short story
Probably for the first time, officers and NCOs were thrown into the same batch and trained to become SAF Boys’ instructors. No rank buffer. We were trained by the commandos on top of a small hill in Changi, living in an two-storey colonial bungalow. Before every meal, we did pull-ups.
short story
Drills never made sense to me back then. Under the blazing sun, I learned Malay words I still remember today. Kanan pusing. Kiri pusing. Left turn, right turn, repeat until your brain melts before your body does. At night, we polished our boots until we could see our teeth in
short story
Life Lessons from the Armed Forces – Punctuality In the army, punctuality is not a suggestion. It is a survival skill. Be late by one minute and you don’t get a warning. You get punished. Your weekend disappears. While your buddies are shopping, eating good food, or dating their girlfriends,
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Life lessons from the Armed Forces. In the armed forces, we work with a simple assumption. Anything can go wrong. And failure is not an option. That is why every mission comes with a contingency plan. Before we move, we already ask the uncomfortable question: If this fails, then what?
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Life Lessons from the Army Discipline Comes Before Everything Else In the army, work does not begin with work. Before anything else, the order of the day is fixed. Exercise. Cleaning. Breakfast. You exercise even when you are tired. You clean your rifle, make your bed, clean the toilet and
short story
Life Lessons from the Army (That You Didn’t Know You’d Keep Using) I spent most of my working life in the armed forces as a regular. I lived through the era before computers and the internet. When work was done on heavy, noisy typewriters. When information was kept
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My retirement dream is to be a street busker. Stand somewhere near a Singapore MRT station with a portable electric piano, playing all my favourite songs. Big problem. I don’t know how to play. And please don’t ask me to memorise the notes. If the government ever opens
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I stopped making resolutions. Last year’s resolution is still unfinished. I am not unintelligent. I know that. And yet I barely earn more than fresh graduates. Some of the students I once tutored now earn more than me. They are living the kind of life I once assumed would
short story
Three months after she died, I finally opened the cabinet under the bathroom sink. I had been avoiding it because I knew what was inside. Forty-seven bottles of lotion, lined up in uneven rows. Each one bought with hope. Each one tried once or twice and abandoned when it didn’
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You do not grow up silent. You are trained into it. Before anyone labels you as quiet, withdrawn, or lacking confidence, they should ask a better question: what kind of environment teaches a person that speaking is a liability? School is usually where it starts. You are told participation matters,
short story
The chair was one of those plastic stackable ones, grey, slightly curved, with a crack near the backrest that pinched if you leaned too far. It sat outside the meeting room on the eighth floor, next to a potted plant that had not been watered in a long time. I