Are Gen Y soldiers soft?

Those who train them say they just need to be handled differently

By William Choong

The Straits Times - Oct 15, 2010

SINGAPOREAN men who have done national service should watch Every Singaporean Son. Produced by the Ministry of Defence, the reality TV series depicts recruits going through basic military training (BMT).

The most-watched episode in the YouTube series is Breaking Point, where recruits go through a three-day field camp. They were filmed digging shallow trenches, being punished for sub-par performance and going through casualty evacuation drills.

At the end, the recruits' platoon commander congratulates them for rising up to the challenge. Some recruits are seen tearing as he speaks. And when the recruits are handed letters of encouragement written by their loved ones to mark the finale of their camp, you can see many of them crying openly.

For older NSmen who have survived harsh instructors, strict bunk inspections and even verbal and psychological abuse, such 'emo' displays prove that Gen Y soldiers are soft.

An old army friend in his late 30s told me: 'Seeing them cry makes me wonder if good schooling and affluence have made Gen Y soldiers soft.'

Popular blogger Mr Brown takes a similar view. In a ditty lamenting how the Government was not paying the $9,000 National Service Recognition Award to lau peng (old soldiers) like him, Mr Brown sang: 'Our time no welfare/ Only can get tekan (punished)/ But now so take care.'

Perceptions that Gen Y soldiers are soft began to surface in 2008, when two servicemen died in training accidents. Asked then whether younger servicemen were less fit than their predecessors, Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean said: 'My own sense, not based on any statistical evidence, is that our soldiers are fitter, but may be less rugged.'

Of course, it is not surprising that older NSmen think poorly of today's NSmen. After all, each generation tends to despair over the foibles of succeeding generations.

But if Gen Y soldiers are indeed less rugged, one cannot lay the blame at the door of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) alone. Recruits' strengths and weaknesses, and values, are drawn from the larger society in which they live.

'A military goes to war with its standard of living. If Singaporean soldiers are seen to be soft, it is because physical toughness is not necessarily valued as much as it used to be,' says Mr Ho Shu Huang, a defence analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

Like Gen Y workers, recruits from this generation defined as those born between 1977 and 1999, respond to different motivations.

In an article in Pioneer, the journal of the SAF, Mr Hao Shuo, Major Andrew Wan and Lieutenant David Tang observed that Gen Y soldiers are more likely to seek explanations for instructions. 'When Gen Y ask Why, it is not a brazen challenge of authority, unless we choose to make it so,' they wrote.

Mr Mah Kah Hoe, who served NS in the early 1970s, agrees. He believes that a a good way to motivate this generation of recruits is to explain NS in a way they can relate to and help them understand why it is necessary. This way 'you can throw anything at him and he will deal with it', says the 57-year-old father of three sons, two of whom have finished their NS.

Lieutenant-Colonel Lim Lit Lam, who at 35 straddles the older Gen X and younger Gen Y, adds: 'It has to do with understanding their psyche, and helping them to understand the reason and logic behind things that we do.'

The Commanding Officer of the 46th Singapore Armoured Regiment observed that Gen X soldiers were subjected to hard physical punishments and expected to follow orders without question.

The training for Gen Y soldiers has been modified. These days, recruits are no longer subjected to gratuitous physical punishment, and superiors tolerate some level of questioning. But thorough physical training and strict discipline are maintained, and with the right training, Gen Y soldiers can be as resilient as their older colleagues, says Lt-Col Lim.

In the end, the debate about whether Gen Y soldiers are too 'soft' detracts from the real issue: how to instil resilience to carry soldiers through the hell of war. And resilience is not just about physical toughness.

Writing in Hero Or Coward: Pressures Facing The Soldier In Battle, Bundeswehr officer Elmar Dinter summarises the 'cloud of pressures' that affect a soldier in combat - fear of isolation, fear of the unknown, physical deprivation and the fear of mutilation.

American military historian S.L.A. Marshall wrote that only about 25 per cent of the country's Greatest Generation of soldiers actually fired their weapons in World War II.

The challenge for the SAF is to come up with training scenarios realistic enough to approximate the rigours of war. As Russian general Aleksandr Suvorov wrote: What is hard in training will become easy in war.

At the same time, training safety is paramount. But Singaporeans should understand that military training, by definition, entails some unavoidable risks.

According to Mr Eric Khoo, who served as Chief Commando Officer in the late 1990s, excessive safety regulations arising from previous training accidents could lead to less realistic training.

In a way, the debate about Gen Y soldiers is a symptom of a good problem. For decades, Singapore's defence policy rested on two pillars - deterrence and diplomacy. Deterrence appears to have worked. Together with the advent of technology, this might have created the perception among some Singaporeans that military training need not be so demanding physically, and can be made easier.

This cannot be. Deterrence is not merely about a military's sum total of hardware and fighting men. It also lies in the eye of the beholder, the potential aggressor who decides whether he will be deterred.

It is true, as some have argued, that the resilience of Gen Y Singaporeans is yet to be tested. As such, any allusions to them being 'strawberries' that are easily bruised are unfair.

Still no effort should be spared in stiffening the resolve and boosting the resilience of Gen Y soldiers. On their shoulders rests the security of the nation tomorrow.