Word Vomit is when I write without editing. Don’t bother reading.
I have an idea for a marketing campaign for the SAF. I was thinking about writing up a proposal and pitching it to them and hopefully making some money from it, but I figured- screw it, I have so many things on my mind, I might as well just write it out. (Actually, on second thought, now that I’m writing it out, I might as well share it with some people who might be able to help me.)
Here’s the idea. The SAF wants to get high-quality young men and women to sign on to the Army, Navy and Air Force. (And maybe the Coast Guard… but who wants to join the Coast Guard? LOL. Eh, a friend just pointed out to me that the Coast Guard is probably under the HOME team, under Home Affairs rather than Defence. But still, you get my point.)
How do you convince high-quality young men and women to sign on? Well, you have to put forward an intellectually and emotionally persuasive argument, obviously. How do you get that? You ask the most high-quality people you know, “Have you ever considered signing-on? What made you think about it?”
I never signed on to any uniformed group or large institution because I have a powerful inner voice that tells me that my most important Life’s Work will require me to operate as an independent agent- as Steve Jobs said, it’s better to be a pirate than to join the Navy.
THAT SAID, I have on a few occasions seriously contemplated signing on. I believe that what made me want to sign on would be instrumental in getting people to actually sign on- because if you could persuade someone as renegade and anti-authority as me to sign on, then you should reasonably be able to persuade a lot of other people, too.
What persuaded me to contemplate signing on? Simply put- high quality individuals. I witnessed a lot of incompetence and stupidity during my NS experience, but I also had the genuine pleasure of encountering a few individuals who amazed me with their qualities. There are two particular guys I really admired- Warrant Ee from BMTC, Major Simon from SOTSC. (And a third would have been my VS Principal, Maj. Low Eng Teong.) I would seriously considering signing on to understudy any of these men.
I was also blown away by the professionalism and camaraderie of the gentlemen at Parachute Wing. I remember being a fly on the wall while the Red Lions were
having a post-jump debrief session. I’m used to seeing meetings being annoying and wasteful- people sitting around twiddling their thumbs, nobody really wanting to be there. I remember this was the complete opposite of what I expected, which is why this still sticks with me to this day. There was a small group of them, and they were all thoroughly engaged. There was no bureaucracy, no real formalities- everybody quickly shared their perspectives and opinions, one of them was leading the meeting but it was clear that any of them could have done it. The whole thing was a lesson to me in succinct badassery. They were succinct and effective, chop chop, cover everything, anything to take note of, what we can do better next time, how we can save ourselves this, what we’re going to do, done. Clinical, like assassins. And they were all fit as hell.
I remember being thoroughly impressed by the parachutists’ attention to detail, their focus, their knowledge. Lots of them were older guys, but their thinking and their modus operandi was sharp and no-nonsense.
I remember Major Simon being incredibly thoughtful and considerate. He once came to my store to talk to me, a lowly recruit. I remember him asking me, “Is there anything I can do to make your job easier?” Everybody liked him. He was fit, intelligent, wise. I still think of him when I think about what it means to be a great leader. I remember actually being bummed out a little when I was posted out of that unit, because it meant that I would lose the opportunity to learn more from him.
I was always very impressed with how the commandos got stuff done when things needed to get done. I suppose putting together NDP every year is itself a pretty impressive logistical feat. If I wanted to promote the SAF, I imagine I’d talk about how we get our NSFs trained way quicker than most other militaries (I was told this story by some encik, not sure how true it is…)
Warrant Ee was what I’d call a ground-level philosopher. He was full of wisdom and insight. He was a reflective guy who’d clearly witnessed a lot. (I can totally imagine how he’d mock me for saying such nice things about him, lol) I know some of my peers found him a little bit annoying because he liked to talk so much, but I always enjoyed listening to anything he had to say. I remember him talking about how you should distrust anybody who claimed to be an expert on guns or anything else, because he himself had years of experience and was constantly learning. I remember him talking about the problem of accidental discharges happening despite any number of fail-safes, because of human error and our habit of assuming that someone else would have done their job, so we can be a little lax on our own.
Anyway the point is- it seems to me that there’s a gap between what people really love about being in the SAF, and what the SAF attempts to use to persuade people to sign on. The best SAF advertisement I’ve seen so far is the 40 years of NS one, where it shows the father and son going through their respective BMT experiences. There’s some real emotional weight in that one. I feel like it’s a little wasteful that this isn’t translated to their broader marketing campaigns. Does anybody remember the “My Boyfriend, Our Army” campaign? That one was just ripped to shreds by the public- mrbrown had a field day. This happened because nobody seriously is impressed by military personnel on the basis of them being personnel. The lighthearted fun approach is ironically the harder emotion to get right. If you really want to capture that, I think you have to show funny moments in the actual context of the military, where people actually laugh- hearing funny NS stories, etc.
Basically, it’s a stupid idea to try and create an artificial depiction of reality, when instead, you ought to use what already works- what already moves people, what already makes people laugh, what already makes people feel patriotic. I remember feeling patriotic when I walked into the army logistics base and I saw towering crates of emergency supplies. I remember my encik telling me about how quickly we execute our humanitarian rescue missions to other countries.
Are you the sort of person who’s easily influenced by others? You make frequent references to doing things with people or hanging out with them just because of who they are and what they’ve accomplished, and that in some way their intelligence will rub off on you.
That in itself is no bad thing, to be sure, but to join the armed forces because of the brilliant and wonderful people in it has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.
People join the armed forces to serve and protect, not to hang out with cool and interesting people. I think you are much mistaken if you believe that 99% of your time will be spent reflecting philosophically over a kopi in the cookhouse with the likes of Major Simon; I am not too sure what you did in National Service, but it definitely had nothing to do with traipsing around a goddamn jungle with a rifle and pack.
Hi, thanks for responding.
1: People affect other people. Fact. Surrounding yourself with the right people is one of the best investments you can make in yourself, period.
2. “Stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of”- I take it you haven’t watched “My Boyfriend, Our Army”.
3: I never said that 99% of my time would be spent reflecting or having conversations. (Straw Man.) It could be 5% of the time or less. That can still make all the difference. Traipsing around a goddamn jungle with a rifle and pack is a lot more meaningful when you’re doing it alongside brothers-in-arms you give a shit about, under the orders of a man or woman you respect.
1. Intentionally making your life revolve around cool and interesting people makes you come across as a douchebag who craves social validation of his existence and who wouldn’t give the time of the day to any lesser being.
Dude, you’re too smart and too brutally honest for this sort of showy pretentiousness. I expected more from you.
2. I did. The irony is that you pointed out the need for Super Cool True Encik Life Stories in lieu of glorifying people simply for the sake of them wearing a uniform.
I met a ton of people during my service who were whip-smart and brilliant in their own unique ways. They ran the gamut from government scholars to tattooed PSLE dropouts; they did not leave me with a better impression of the armed forces as a whole, unfortunately, and certainly did not inspire me towards committing my life to a grossly inefficient organisation that said more about what it intended to do than actually doing it.
3. I’m glad that you’ve managed to see what pretty much everyone else would consider unnecessary and onerous as meaningful. I do not mean that in a sarcastic way; it is rare that anyone would speak so highly of such an unpleasant experience. The people at your side and those leading you honestly do not in any way detract from the heat, sweat, leeches, and weight of the gear you lug through nigh impenetrable terrain. It sounds fun on paper, but that’s about as far as it goes.
Don’t let me pop your bubble – I would be the last to prevent you from seeing things in a positive light.
> 1. “Intentionally making your life revolve around cool and interesting people makes you come across as a douchebag who craves social validation of his existence and who wouldn’t give the time of the day to any lesser being.”
Aiyoh. Just because I choose to seek out people that I want to learn from doesn’t mean that I’m an elitist bastard. An analogy: just because I like pretty, intelligent girls doesn’t mean I have to be a douchebag to relatively unattractive girls.
Part of what I loved about both Maj. Simon and WO. Ee is that they treated people with dignity and respect regardless of who they were. I would be completely rubbishing everything I learnt from either of them if I turned into a pretentious snobby prick, because both of them were the furthest from it.
> “2. I did. The irony is that you pointed out the need for Super Cool True Encik Life Stories in lieu of glorifying people simply for the sake of them wearing a uniform.”
Here’s the difference- Super Cool True Encik Life Stories are actually true. You may or may not relate to this, but if you sign on, you DO actually get a shot at hearing some awesome stories, and creating your own. You DON’T get to be glorified for the sake of wearing a uniform. Isn’t it better to focus on something real that something non-existent?
> “they did not leave me with a better impression of the armed forces as a whole, unfortunately, and certainly did not inspire me towards committing my life to a grossly inefficient organisation that said more about what it intended to do than actually doing it.”
Sure. I’m not a fan of the SAF as a whole, either. I’m not signing on, either, and I wouldn’t really encourage anybody to do it unless they were really passionate about it. Do you realize that I’m playing Devil’s Advocate throughout this whole post? o_O
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Warrant Ee is an interesting guy.
Yeah he is! I want to interview him but I’m not sure how to reach him any more, or if he’d even care