The men in your life can be touched. The military fatigues issued for National Service you have seen them wear. The polished landmarks of your metropolitan existence are firmly concrete. Taken together, the fact that there are individuals you know and love who by mandate underwent two years of intensive moulding into human weapons, thereupon vulnerable to a bloody end in barbaric chaos, is a slippery piece of reality that mental hooks cannot gain purchase on.
Our nation’s too sterile to employ this form of diplomacy. War is something that happens where things are done differently—the past and foreign countries. It remains for us a glass-encased curio found inside history museums and television sets. Outside the cocoon of Singapore, war steps forward in your face: American career soldiers as neighbours; the 38th parallel an hour’s drive away; Yeonpyeong’s death-tolled attack by North Korea. We’re not in Tekong anymore.
[Video source: The Panda HD Channel]
