SINGAPORE — It’s a bright sunny day as a group of disparate young recruits enter a military camp and stand at the threshold. Their faces are a mix of excitement, trepidation and uncertainty. But under the wing of their instructors, those who make it in the end will wear the red beret that marks them as a member of Singapore’s toughest military unit, the commandos.

Sounds familiar? No, this is not the start of another instalment in Jack Neo’s popular Ah Boys To Men (ABTM) movie series. It’s the opening sequence of Commandos, a new 12-episode, 30-minute documentary series that will air on Channel NewsAsia (CNA) beginning today (June 2).

Commissioned by CNA and produced by IFA Media, Commandos traces the year-long journey of the recruits of Bravo Company to be called the military’s best of the best. The commandos, after all, are the elite unit to beat within the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). As a point of reference, the 1st Commando Battalion has won the Best Combat Unit award a staggering 28 times. Adept at operating deep within enemy territory, the SAF Commandos are capable of performing specialised operations such as reconnaissance, airborne and raids missions.

Of course, some might be asking, do we need yet another rah-rah show about how cool the military is? Well, considering the apparent public interest in all things to do with the SAF — not least the ABTM movies — in recent years, it does seem natural to do a military series.

Those old enough will remember a similar programme produced a few years ago. Called Every Singaporean Son, it was produced by the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) as weekly webisodes on YouTube, depicting what goes on in Basic Military Training (BMT) on Pulau Tekong. In a similar vein, Commandos communicates not just the facts about what the training is all about but also the range of emotions each of the recruits go through.

Like Ah Boys, there are some comedic moments, such as scenes where the instructors have to coax, cajole or just do what they have to do in order to get recruits to jump off a high dive platform. But there are also “home truth” moments, such as when the recruits realise what they’re really in for in the first episode, when their personal belongings are taken away — cigarettes, mobile phone chargers are kept by the trainers — and replaced by military gear all tucked into a large carry-all bag.

As one of them, Pirranesh, explained: “I was just thinking: Two years of my life is going to go into this bag. How can two years of my life fit into this bag? You really have to switch mindset … we were all complaining (about the uniform) but at the end of the day, we’re not here for some model show.”

Another poignant moment happens in the second episode, when the instructors share about the importance of family and one of them, who had just lost his father, finds it difficult to control his emotions.

But unlike Neo’s multi-million dollar box-office hit, Commandos is done reality TV style, intercutting narrative with vox pops from the participants. Call it Survivor: Commandos Edition, minus the tribal council meetings. Oh, and no one gets voted out at the end of each week and no one wins a million bucks at the end.

The participants do, however, get to go on rigorous training sessions and sweat buckets, jump out of helicopters and planes, and the reward is the privilege to wear that lovely red beret.

And let’s face it, as proven by Every Singaporean Son and ABTM, as well as older shows such as Army Series and even Army Daze, everybody loves stories that show how seemingly ordinary people overcome their fears and difficulties through extraordinary feats to achieve their goal.

In military terms, there are few units that can equal the commandos. For the guys of Bravo company, their journey is a baptism of fire. Given what they’ve had to do to earn their stripes (in a manner of speaking, because technically, you don’t earn actual stripes until you get promoted to a non-commissioned officer status), their learning experience, as another recruit commented, is something that no one can take away from them.

Commandos premieres today (June 2), 8pm on Channel NewsAsia.