Military Intimacy

On 3 weeks in BMT

I

We enlist into Basic Military Training (BMT) at Pulau Tekong, an island a ferry away from mainland Singapore, on 7 January, 2025. We do not know each other, but recognise one another through the same anxious look we have on our faces. We know we have signed contracts with the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) under various services. We sense that we have made a leap of faith separately, which has brought us here, on this day, together. Unlike the thousands of boys also enlisted into BMT as part of their compulsory national service, we are here voluntarily.

duffel bags packed with items of helmets and socks and insect repellents and foot powders. bags of standardisation. packages of a soldier. these girls in civilian clothing. lumps of clay. waiting to be moulded by military hands into warrior puppets. their sweat smells of fear and of faith.

On the first day, we say an oath, wave goodbye to our parents, and become recruits. We collect our uniforms. We arrive at our bunks, a series of 8 double-decker beds with metal locker cupboards beside them. We are allocated identities in the form of “Company”, “Platoon”, “Section”, “Bed number”. The word “recruit” is stitched in front of our names and our bodies and we are now dolls on the shelves. We will soon forget what our names sounded like before this. We drag our field packs and black duffel bags to level 5 and try to call this our new home.

they shed the civilian clothes. an uncomfortable metamorphosis. pixelised green smoothed onto pores. military boots too bulky or too small. jockey caps that symbolise the virgin soldier. these girls try to wriggle around in jungle green. uncomfortable in their new skin. they look at each other across the bunk. girls of different ages and races and backgrounds have suddenly become mirrors. mass produced clay figures. soldiers of the same platoon. these girls in army green.

We do not get sleep that first night. Outside the window, we see the beaches of Tekong and the ocean that separates us from our former lives. The person beside our beds may wear the same uniform but speaks a different language, comes from a different world. We are alone.

II

Over the week, donning the uniform becomes easier. We learn how to fold the sleeves better, look smarter in our helmets. They tell us to unpack our duffel bags and hiding anything that looks civilian. To bury the former and start anew.

they wear their uniform more. the army green is etched into their skin, fibres sewn deeply into their pores. boots that dig blisters and sores. black leather embedded into hardened feet.

We learn the basics of being in a uniformed service. How to form up in three rows and how to align our feet in unison. How to march in sync. How to respond to commands like “Sedia”, coming to attention, and “Senang diri”, being at ease. We learn as fast as we can. We learn to respond in unison with a “yes, sir”, or “no, sergeant”.

their voices used to sound of high and low pitches. of distinctive tones. these colours start to fade. they aren’t as fluorescent anymore. they begin to echo in the monotonous melody of a symphony with only one instrument. left, left, left right left, they march. a single entity is created by weaving differently sized bodies through the stitches of timing. minds strung together by commands. voices shaven down to monotony.

We slowly succumb to the military conditioning. We are creating a new subjective reality, one of social norms that exist only in this constructed world in this faraway island. Acronyms that only make sense to us — SOC, AVPU, CC, HR1. We nod and understand the semantics stuck in our cobweb of military syntax and vocabulary. We are babies out of the womb. We are not me or my or her or she but only this collective pronoun. We. Blended together in this military machine. Girls in jungle green start to become soldiers. Intimacy with the military grows as our selves are washed away.

III

We wake up everyday to different forms of physical training — endurance runs, strength building, combat circuits, obstacle courses. Our bodies change as our muscles firm up.

they have never seen their bodies in this light before. in the light of hardship, of trainings at 4am and drills at 10pm. where their hearts are tired but their feet carry them forward. a new sense of intimacy with themselves. limits turn out to be breakable, non-existent if they banish them with determination.

Our minds are whipped into resilience as we learn to just keep stepping forwards as the rain pours down during our runs. We press on because of commanders shouting in encouragement. We push forward because if the soldier beside us can soldier on then we can as well. It is an solidarity borne through suffering together, side by side.

they have never seen these smiles before. the bright grins after they’ve made it through training together and they can march to the cookhouse for lunch. the high-fives and nods of encouragement. the knowledge that they are in this together for 8 more weeks. these soldiers in jungle green who are learning to become an army.

Intimacy grows under the military blanket. The warmth of sweaty hugs and laughter after a long day. The understanding that we are doing this together as a platoon.

IV

We learn of the person beneath the uniform. We ask each other why we signed on. One wants to be a pilot because she likes sunsets. Another asks, if not us, then who? An infantry sign-on wants to turn off her brain and let her body do the work.

they exchange quiet conversations as they wait. rifles leaning on shoulders. chins against the muzzle. fatigue draws truth. lethargy charges confessions.

We marvel at the 18 year old that has just finished JC, to the 23 year old that can’t find a job amidst a saturated tech market, to the 28 year old who has two children already. We wear the same uniform.

the great equaliser. they have been cut and shaven down to their soldier cores. the difficulties of communicating across life stages has been trimmed away. intimacy through wearing the same clothes. breathing the same air of hardship by choice. soldiers merge and through this merger they understand each other.

We are less alone.

VI

We are not just connected to present platoons and current companies. We begin to sing songs written by men that enlisted thousands of batches before us, perhaps more uncertain and reckless and determined. We begin to realise that they too had their names stripped and the word recruit forced down their mouths, until these songs were the only words they could croak.

they sing a line that goes “why do we serve? because we love our land and we want it to be free, to be free.” the poignance drowns in how the melody has just become a background to their daily marches. they do not see how they echo an anthem sung with the setting sun of a Japanese occupation and failed Malaysian merger. they do not hear historical pain and injustices woven into these lines.

We march in the same way our forefathers did. We become, in that moment, a picture of every platoon that has marched for Singapore. If we take each individual soldier that existed since the 1960s and replace it with new ones, aren’t we just the same Singaporean Army? We become our ancestors, we embody our descendants. We are the past, the present, and the future.

they begin to carve their bodies in the light of excellence. they do not just adorn their uniform but the standards of a uniformed service. they remember that they are not he or she but carry the weight of the collective. they are a representation of more. in that way, each person carries the burden of another donning the uniform across the island. the strange knowledge of intimacy.

We feel the warmth and burden and responsibility and beauty of belonging to a military.