National Service

A series of rhetorical questions leading to the inevitable...
Did i request to be born in Singapore?
No.
Did i request to be a Singapore Citizen?
No.
My parents filled in the documents of my would-be enslavement upon my birth.
Then did i even request to be born?
Once again.
I can't even remember asking for anything close.
Then WHY is my predicament as such?
WHY?

The next set of rhetorical questions... 
Is Singapore a democratic country?
Yes, as stated in the pledge("to build a democratic society").
If that was true, how is conscription related to building a democratic society?
Where is the liberty promised by democracy?
Where?

Alas, this is reality.
No matter how much one struggles, no matter how much resistance, no matter how unjust something seem to be, we mortals can't help it.
Thus, comes the phrase "resigning to fate".

On a brighter note, being born a singporean is not that bad after all.
Reason being, my primary needs and even my wants(to a considerable extent) in life are met since birth.
For the past 19years of my life, not once did i have to worry about not have a meal on my table.
Things that we usually take for granted, food, education, shelter, clean water, transportation, clothes, safety...(the list goes on) are actually a luxury for many people in the third world countries.
In fact, these "underprivileged" people makes up the majority of the human population.
Just look at Africa, an entire starving continent while we in sg get to choose and waste our food.
Somewhere closer to our heart, domestic maids who many sg-rians have, either indonesians or filipinos.
These pitiful women have to uproot themselves from their families, travel alone to richer countries and offer themselves to the command of their "sire or mom" who is just another fellow human being.
So i must have been quite lucky to be chosen by the probability mechanism to be brought to this little red dot where the population is only near 5 million or so.

At the end of the day, if i consider how fortunate my life have been, offering 2 years of my youth for my country in exchange for the rights of a first world country citizen might not seem so blight after all.
Yet nonetheless, despite this facade of seemingly convincing self-made reason i still HATE the prospect of Enlistment!
No matter how many sweet flowery stories and what-so-ever, who the hell like to lose their freedom, get drowned in wanton vulgarity, idiocrasy and misery and get uprooted from home and family for 1year 10months?
Not me! although some "mavericks" may think otherwise.
But NOT ME!

However, no matter how much avoiding, escaping, self-deceiving, what-so-ever, and even retaining for a year, the green monster still got me in his clutches.
And tmr, on the 5th of feb 2010, green-o-orc is going to throw me behind the impregnable island prison in his lair where he could slowing devour me for 1yr 10mths.
The irony is, i have to "送上门", willingly offer myself to my doom.
I even have to take an oath and swear that, WOW i supposedly love doing all the rubbish nonsense they require me to perform for the next.....countless dreadful days to come.
And the "with my life!" which marks the end of the oath is supposed to make me appear that i am wholehearted to the cause.
Please, i dont like to tell lies, why make me a liar?

Okie, enough of bullshitting.
This is it, i am enlisting tmr, no more running, no more deferring.
Army will be army, the life of a soldier will be so, so like they say "suck thumb!" and face it.
I am sorry for going back on my word and not writing anything for the taiwan trip.
My bad as i was too busy reading some great books called eragon, eldest and brisingr and also enjoying myself while i still can.
Anyway, the photos are up on facebook and if the saying "a picture speaks a thousand words" is true then by all means go view them.

Cw/scott will have to see ya....for a long long time.
For the botak soldier cw!
Scott signs off.