Army Open House to celebrate 50 years of NS

SINGAPORE — Older National Servicemen will remember this: Lining up in camp at night for payphones to call their loved ones.

One of these iconic red telephone booths will make a return at this weekend’s Army Open House, adding a dose of nostalgia to the ad-hoc affair last held in 2012. The event coincides with the 50th year of National Service (NS).

To top it off, familiar army tunes sung by generations of recruits, such as Training to be Soldiers and When the Cold Wind Blows, will be piped through the phone receiver.

While continuing the tradition of showcasing Singapore’s military hardware, this year’s Army Open House will also “honour our National Servicemen, both past and present, for the contributions and sacrifices they’ve made”, said the Army Open House’s executive committee chairman, Brigadier-General Chua Boon Keat, during a media preview on Tuesday.

To that end, visitors can expect an indoor showcase of how NS has evolved over the past half-century, including through the eyes of past servicemen, via letters they wrote to their families. They can also pen their own reflections, which could be enclosed in a reflection capsule to be opened in 50 years’ time.

An augmented reality tool will also be available to deck out visitors in army uniform. 

If they are up for it, visitors at the event can also expect to work up a sweat experiencing what soldiers here go through.

For the first time, there will be a seven-obstacle Soldier Strong Challenge, involving flipping tyres and scaling a 1.8m-high wall.

Other hands-on experiences include the chance to fire weapons like the SAR 21 rifle or the anti-armour system Matador, and riding six types of warfighting vehicles, such as the Peacekeeper Protected Response Vehicle (PRV), and the M3G military raft.

A terror drill, simulating a hostage situation, will also be held during the dynamic defence display, involving the Special Operations Task Force for the first time.

Other traditional crowd favourites will again be staged, including parachuting displays by the Red Lions.

The display, scheduled twice a day, will also show the Terrex infantry carrier vehicle and the Leopard 2 armoured engineer vehicle, among others, in action.

For the static display of hardware, the Peacekeeper and a prototype of the Next Generation Armoured Recovery Vehicle are making their debuts among 22 army platforms.

To make it a more pleasant experience for visitors, the organisers have tapped technology to provide live event updates through a smartphone app, and an electronic queue system so visitors can walk around while they await their turn on the vehicle rides.

Around 3,300 full-time national servicemen, operationally-ready NSmen and army regulars are participating in the event, and the organising committee expects a turnout of around 200,000 at the F1 Pit over the weekend.

For Captain Balachandran Krishnamurthi, 32, this will be the second time that he is participating in the event. 

This year, he manages a group of 450 NSmen, tasked with crowd control.

“When you have a huge crowd, the biggest problem we have is dealing with civilian emotions. You have the normal civil problems — a lost kid, someone that needs water (or) medical aid ... we can (also) spread out the crowd so there’s no unnecessary queuing, which is the chief cause of unhappiness in Singapore,” he added.

Corporal Mohammed Nur’Ilyas Mohd Jasman, a security trooper, will be driving visitors through an S-course and a hump on the Peacekeeper PRV. 

Honoured to take on this role, Corporal Ilyas, 21, said that he hopes passengers will learn more about the army through this experience.

After this weekend, the Army Open House will move to the heartlands — at the open field next to Punggol MRT Station from June 2 to 4, and at the open field beside Jurong East MRT Station from June 9 to 11.

Colonel Wilson Low, who is in charge of NS50 Showcase, said that this is the first time that the army is exhibiting at Punggol.

“Why we specifically chose Punggol (is) because we realised that there are a lot of young families and these are people we want to engage. The other place we’re going down (to) is Jurong East. We went there before and we want to go back there again because we want to, as far as possible, cover all parts of Singapore,” he said.