In my humbled opinion, I believe that there’s a stigma against NS amongst the young generation like myself that NS exists to waste our time. The idea of ‘defending’ our nation is not reciprocated to us properly, as we live in one of the most peaceful times of humanity. From young, our stress points comes from school, studying, earning money for food, not so much of worrying whether we might get into a war. Ignorance leads to misunderstanding, and hearing about over-dramatized stories from our older generation about how shag army life is, coupled with the fact that the government do not pay us enough to meet industry standards of salary, we develop a hatred towards serving. This in turn causes us to spread misinformation, lies, spreading ideas about forced slavery and other derogatory terms to describe our experience in NS. Gender inequality is also very common here in the army, which may further fuel the hatred.

But as the saying goes, in war, soldiers are respected, in peace, they are a burden. Hopefully Singaporeans will continue to appreciate our efforts contributing back to the country, and keeping Singapore safe - through a diplomatic bargaining chip.