Speech by Minister for Defence, Dr Ng Eng Hen, at the MINDEF Volunteers' Dinner

Colleagues,

President MCA,

Permanent Secretaries,

CDF,

CE DSTA,

Chief of Army,

Valued Volunteers of MINDEF,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As I said to some of you tonight, you are among friends, so you can afford to relax and just have a good dinner. At the outset, I should say that I would have preferred a dance or song item to warm you up. Since you are here, do you do impromptu acts? Tonight, through this appreciation dinner, we say a big thank you to all volunteers who have significantly helped MINDEF and the SAF build a strong defence for Singapore. I wanted very much to attend this dinner and was delighted to be able to do so. We just wanted a simple way to say a big "Thank You" to all of you who have helped us build a strong defence for Singapore. This is an event that I look forward to because of a lot of old friends here who are contributing year after year. I know that you do it every year and for some of you many decades. Sometimes people don't realise how significant the contribution is. I am not saying it because tonight is an "Appreciation Dinner". Let me share why I believe quite deeply in this. I think "volunteerism" is crucial to National Service. Intuitively and at face-value it seems contrasting. One is national conscription -- mandated by law you have to do it. On the other extreme, is "volunteerism". But I think volunteerism keeps our National Service alive. All of us know how important National Service is, because without it, as our founding generation recognised, Singapore (being) a small nation with limited manpower simply cannot mount a proper defence. Now, not quite the epiphany because other small countries have realised it. Because if you look around the world, when we started National Service, I was looking at the list. You have a fairly long list. As time goes by, that list gets shorter, shorter and shorter. Singapore today is one of the very few countries that have strong support for National Service. I believe that volunteers like you help maintain support for NS. Let me explain why.

Year after year, we take a poll, either us or others independently. "Do you support National Service?" In excess of 90%. Last year, the year before was a record high. 95% to 96%. I do not know of any question that has got 95% to 96% approval rating for National Service. If you look at other countries, small countries, it is not a given. I cite you just two examples. Lithuania. Some of you may have been there doing a Baltic cruise. Small country, a Baltic state. 50 years under the Soviet Union. The Berlin wall fell, they joined NATO, I think in 2004. The peace dividend. I remember going to Europe after I joined the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) in 2005, 2006. The commonest phrase I heard from almost all the European countries was "we're reaping the peace dividends". Countries were downsizing. The Bundeswehr, the German Army, was going to reduce by a-third. Slashed! Budget slash. Manpower slash. The Baltic state joined NATO. Lithuania stopped their NS (in) 2008. This year, the President of Lithuania made no bones about it. She said "we have to reinstate National Service". Why? Again she made it clear. Because of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. I am not sure she was very wise to say that, but she had to make no bones about it. Reinstate National Service? You did away with it (and then) you reinstate it? An example closer to home, Taiwan. They auction the National Service. Every successive election, somebody cuts it by a few months. Now it is down to four months. Can we do anything with four months? They were going to abolish it. Now they said wait. Existential threat right? I believe we are unique. It is volunteers like you that help us maintain support for National Service. Let me explain how you do it. Some of you started as ordinary NSmen each performing your duties. But now you are more mature and way past your ORD. For some of you, you are even beyond MINDEF's reserve list. You are now on MINDEF's "perpetual" list. You are still contributing year after year. The fact that you do this is an anomaly. Others look at you and say you are a strange creature. You are only supposed to serve last time for 12 or 13 ICTs, and then after 50 years old, you are dropped from the list. Why is it that you are still on this list and you are still doing all that? Others here play key roles in advising us.

Giving us the knowledge, the deep-seated expertise that you have. Whether you are in finance, science or technology, medical, strategic communications, human resources, law. It is your expertise and frank advice that help us improve and benchmark against the best of class organisations. I had a word with Justice Choo Han Teck. I told him that we were advising on Military justice aspects. But without their expertise we would have no confidence to do it. Also, strategic communications. I was just talking to you before we entered. How to explain difficult things through simple ways. You help us stay connected to Singaporeans, you keep us close to the ground, and at times, you are an advocate for policy. The fact that you are not part of the military, adds to the robustness, the objectivity and independence of our assessments. Together our volunteers provide confidence in National Service and the SAF. Because together we demonstrate the conviction that Singapore is worth defending and that without the efforts of all, we cannot be safe or strong.

Volunteers augment expertise and strengthen processes

Singapore will always need a strong defence. I think it is the "karma" of each generation to face its own battles. But as our country prospers, long periods of progress and peace, I think people can forget. The previous generation had to deal with Communism, Konfrontasi, and racial riots. Today, we have to deal with extremist terrorists. No country is immune, Singapore included. We are a target. We have used this phrase often, and we could not tell you why until the Indonesians discovered their Batam cell. So now I can tell you we are a target and you can know why. In the past months alone, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh were attacked. Three weeks ago, a Singaporean, Zulfikar Mohamad Sharif, was arrested. Detained for terrorism-related activities and for influencing others to do the same. In the following week, I think it was the week before National Day Parade, Indonesia arrested six terrorist suspects who were plotting to fire a rocket into Marina Bay from Batam. So it was a good thing we held it at the National Stadium this year, because Marina Bay is more accessible from the Marina. But we are going to the floating platform next year.

Now whether it was Al-Qaeda 15 years ago or ISIS now or some other extremist group in the future, it is clear that this terror threat is a long term one. And the SAF and the Home Team have a primary responsibility to protect Singapore and our families. We have to do our job well and over the past few months, I have explained to Parliament and to the public how the SAF is restructured, ramping up new capabilities to deal with this threat. And in our revamp and restructuring, we will need your expertise to grow new capabilities. Because it's just not hardware. Just as important is your software. How do you prevent people from being radicalised? Today, MHA announced four new detainees under ISD. The numbers have grown. Over the last few months, 20 detained, around Singapore. But even as security agencies do our work, the question we ask is, what happens after an attack? Will we crumble? Will we fall apart? And you as volunteers, you act as role models and the social glue, to hold people together after an attack. Many of you help serve on Boards on various institutions within MINDEF or the SAF. And, I'm happy to tell you that some of the work that you do here uplifts the rest of society. I give you just some examples. The work for example of Christopher Cheok , who's a doctor, who works with researchers from DMERI, Institute of Mental Health, and they wanted to improve the ability to objectively screen our SAF personnel for signs of clinical depression. They used questionnaires and blood biomarkers, and they found that it was better -- and that is applicable to civilians too. Because for two years, the SAF gets all the sons of Singapore. We are not a microcosm of society. We are half of society. And just because they come to National Service doesn't mean their challenges stop. That their relationships go on hold. In fact, often, they get amplified. And as society sees rising numbers of psychological problems, we see them too, when they come to NS. If the use of illegal drugs rises, it gets amplified, in the SAF.

So, for two years, we have to handle the Male society, and without you as volunteers to help us, I think it's a tough problem. I am happy to tell you that our volunteers are an enthusiastic and committed lot. Take the External Review Panel on SAF Safety for example, headed by Mr Alan Chan. I understand this is not on our request, but the panel wanted to have real experiences. They didn’t want the augmented reality experience, they didn’t want to see videos. They wanted to go down first hand, see what our boys go through, how they conduct training locally and overseas. I suspect some of them wanted to relive their NS experience. But each of them had experiences trudging through vegetation and mud together with our soldiers. They wanted to see what our SAF soldiers were exposed to, to better understand the safety concerns and then formulate policies that can help us. It was this positive experience with volunteers that motivated us to set up the SAF Volunteer Corps. I think we will not have confidence to do this, and I will tell you frankly, that when we discussed this in the Committee to Strengthen NS, one of the concerns obviously mooted was, you know, once you stand up this Volunteer Corp, you sure people will sign up? You know, we have the word Malu you know, if people don't sign up. In jist, that didn't happen. We have more requests than we have spaces. We have to turn very good people away, and in just 17 months 400 volunteers have signed up, completed Basic Training. They have now been deployed in operational roles, supporting our NSmen as Security Troopers -- Auxiliary Security Troopers, and Bridge Watchkeepers on our Navy ships. All these little acts have a leavening effect In the Navy's civil resource squadron, 67 NSmen voluntarily extended their service beyond their NS training cycles and they chose to continue to serve as Masters of ships, Chief Mates, Chefs and Engineering Officers. We have Associate Professor Ngiam Tee Liang, who's been a volunteer with the Board of Visitors to the SAF Detention Barracks since 1987. I told you, he has been with us nearly 30 years and together with 79 year-old MAJ (Ret) Abbas Bin Abu Amin, Professor Liang makes visits to the barracks and spends time listening and talking to detainees and they provide feedback on conditions of the barracks, whether the conditions are satisfactory, whether the welfare of detainees are looked after.

Volunteers help MINDEF/SAF reach out to more SingaporeansThe Advisory Council on Community Relations in Defence (ACCORD) that some of your sit on is indispensable to us to connect with the employers, family, Community Council and Educational Institutions. And we take your suggestions seriously, so when you suggested that we have a new system to recognise employers, we took that in, and that's the genesis of the "NS Mark", which we will launch later. You felt that it would help us improve fitness for post-secondary education institutions if we have certain programmes, we took that in. We also have Commitment to Defence Ambassadors who go to schools and the SAF camps. And they were very valuable. Let me give you this example. We had a kerfuffle with the TNI, but it is settled now, we are very good friends. But back then, they weren't very good. In fact, we medaled TNI chief Gatot and Gatot invited Perry to his daughter's wedding. It's not a secret right? We can tell people, we are very good friends. You know, close neighbours always have minor, sometimes, rough patches. But, we have this incident, and when we ask the younger generation whether they knew of what the Konfrontasi was. It was a minority. I'm sure they teach it in schools. Thankfully, among our Commitment to Defence Ambassadors, we have those who are from the first batch, the second batch, who actually were in the jungles during Konfrontasi. And there was nothing that could make History more alive than them sharing their experiences to our school children. They serve with distinction, and they could really tell their stories first hand to more than 12,000 students and young soldiers, help them internalise the values that keep our nation strong.

This year, I'm also presenting new Certificates of Appointment. We have an Strategic Communications Expert Panel headed by MAJ(NS) Nicholas Fang. It's a very contested environment but you have to learn to give out the right messages, teach our people to separate facts from sometimes what is inconclusive information, and we should be asking for the right information to make up our own minds. MINDEF/SAF has had committed, dedicated and dynamic volunteers over the past 51 yearsI've shared a handful of examples but I am sure that there are many more stories worth telling, that exemplify the selfless spirit that you as Volunteers, as Singaporeans, show when you commit yourselves to this, to show that you care for Singapore and you want to make a difference in keeping our defence strong. Let me thank each of you, for your sacrifices and your love for Singapore.

Thank you and have a pleasant evening.