NSman arm's theft

I read the article, NSman’s arms theft due to human error and poor building design, with interest.

So far, i had refained from writing posts about this incident, but from forums, friends, a lot of ppl did scold CPL Teo stupid, but seeing some similiar cases in my camp during my NS days, i did try to understand why he did that.

Hell, during my NS days, there were missing rounds from the guard room, (i was doing guard duty at that time... worst), there were ppl who forge the Duty Officer's signature and went AWOL, there were some ppl who set fire to a store, to get even with the CSM, we got ppl who smuggle rounds from ranges, and where were even some men wacky enough to pick up a brick to try to wack a CSM up.

Hell. We even got a raid by the CNB and the Military Police, coz they received tip-off about drugs abusers in our camp at about 3am in the morning! We have to squat outside our bunks, hands over our heads like a goddamm criminal.

And we even had a suicide case, where a soldier shot himself in the head with a M-16 rifle.

And i believe others who had went through NS, had saw more than i did.

So, a guy smuggled a rifle and live rounds out of camp did not really surprise me at all.

I am more interested in the aftermath, the results of the investigations of this incident.

I don't know about now, but during my NS days, it's goddamm easy to smuggle rounds out. Not from guard duty, but from live firing trainings. (In case the SIB, MP, or the ISD read this blog, i did not smuggle any rounds out. I am not dumb to do it).

There's just too much rounds lying around. In ranges, in the live firing areas. Even in Tekong. There's a case in Tekong, whereby during the Clean and Green day, the recuits are supposed to go around Tekong to pick up rubbish, i came across buried live rounds there.

In my view, there's more the SAF can do to prevent such cases. But this also needs the co-operation of the soldiers who must have the social responsibilities not to smuggled any rounds out of camp or live firing areas. So what if you got live rounds in your procession? What are you going to do with it?

Talking about prompt reporting of missing arms and ammunition to Army's General Staff Operations Center within 30 minutes.

Imagine you are the DO. The guard room calls you up, telling you that's there's an missing ammunition. A single 5.56 round.

What would you do?

Report immediately up to the Army's General Staff Operations Center? Create a big hoo haa before doing anything?

Of course, the sensible thing is to do is order an search for the missing round. Check and double check the books, the guard room, the resting room for the guards. The prowler routes, the sentry post, the turnout area, in an attempt to find the missing round before reporting up, coz once you report up, you are "in deep shit".

That's my NS days.

But no matter what, prevention is still better than cure.