BUILDING THE HEART OF SINGAPORE'S DEFENCE

Chief of Army Major-General (MG) Neo Kian Hong shares his thoughts about the Army's ongoing transformation efforts and the 3rd Generation soldier of today.

As the Singapore Armed Forces moves towards becoming the 3rd Generation fighting force, it has been adding new technologies such as the Advanced Combat Man System and the Terrex Infantry Carrier Vehicle. But if a soldier's only weapon was a bamboo spear, would he still lay down his life to fight for his country?

To MG Neo, this "indomitable spirit" is the underlying strength upon which the Army's high-end capabilities are being built. The sophisticated machines and networking systems may provide greater mobility, firepower, protection and precision to soldiers in the field, but the true strength of any army is determined by the soldiers themselves.

Speaking to the local media during an interview on 31 Aug before the opening of Army Open House 2009, he emphasised that, at the core of Singapore's defence is not advanced hardware, but "the hearts and minds of our people".

Individual commitment

"As I reflect on these past two years, I think it's clear that our Army is a very capable one... The most important issue, however, boils down to the hearts and minds of our people. You can have a lot of solid equipment, but are you willing to fight for your country? Are you willing to serve your nation? That is the key idea.

That is the reason why I am never enamoured of the hi-tech stuff. I am rather hard-nosed, and I say in the end, we must make sure that all our people are committed."

Community support
"Besides individual commitment from soldiers, support from their families, organisations and society at large is very important. Whether you are a Regular, Full-time National Serviceman or Operationally Ready National Serviceman, you go home to a family. And if the family nags at you all the time by saying 'Why are you doing this, why are you volunteering for this and that?', it is very difficult to remain committed. So that's why I believe it's very important that we improve our engagement efforts.

For example, we make sure that we open our doors during Basic Military Training. Parents can come in and see what their sons' living conditions are like."

Smarter soldiers

"About 60 percent to 70 percent of the people coming into the Army now are A-level graduates or polytechnic diploma (holders). We are finding that the new generation is able to pick up skills and knowledge about technology quite quickly and intuitively. We used to train a signaller for a particular course to operate a radio set, our training programme was about two weeks. Now, it only takes about half a day."

Overcome and outwit

"I don't feel that the new generation is a weaker one. They are just different, and we need to understand them and be able to make them stronger than we were before.

In the past, we trained soldiers largely on set drills and routines. But increasingly, we are changing it to problem-based learning, where we give soldiers a certain problem or scenario, and get them to develop their own ideas on how to solve the problem, overcome the challenge and outwit the enemy.

It is this cunning and innovativeness that we are trying to train in our people."

Fighting spirit

"We're here for the defence and security (of Singapore). There's no question about it. That s our primary mission. But there is a side effect, because every male citizen comes through our door for National Service.

If we train them well, you will have cohesion in the society. If we train them well, the confidence in one another is there. If you train the leaders well, the confidence in the leaders is there. That's what helps us overcome challenges as a society.

So we're not just training for defence and security, but actually the whole fighting spirit of the nation, so that we can define our future and determine our way of life."