Training Safety in the SAF
The Straits Times editorial about training safety in the SAF was excellent; there is indeed a need to review the training safety system following the death of 2SG Hu Enhuai, which resulted after he had his head forced under water four times by his commando instructors.
Some would argue that it’s important to simulate real combat situations in training courses to nurture good soldiers, and accidents do happen sometimes when things go wrong. But the fact is parents are sending their sons, who are not even old enough to vote, to serve in the SAF and help defend the nation; the least the SAF can do is to ensure our soldiers get the best possible training and care, and that include training safety.
The HBOI found that 2SG Hu’s death from asphyxia and near drowning followed from non-compliance with the approved lesson plans during the conduct of the water treatment phase of the CST course. Those who have served NS would agree that safety regulations can be rigid, and instructors do sometimes bend the rules a little. After all, the more you sweat during training, the less you bleed in the battlefield.
However, instructors generally wouldn’t act in violation of safety regulations which might result in serious consequences; even mundane activities such as water parades are conducted religiously to minimise the risk of heat stroke and exhaustion. Instructors probably adhere to the regulations to avoid any liabilities if accidents were to happen, rather than for the well-being of their trainees; it’s not worth violating safety regulations and risk being charged, jeopardising one’s military career. Hence it’s important to have an effective training safety system which ensures courses are implemented in accordance to approved lesson plans and rogue instructors are duly punished.
This leads to several important questions raised in the editorial:
It is fair to ask two questions, as they go to the heart of systems review. The first is, how high up the commandos’ chain of command was the unsafe water treatment known? Even if it was kept to the level of instructors, as implied from remarks made at the media briefing, how could higher-ups not have known? This was a training plan, of which observation, audits and reporting to superior officers are part of the process. Apparently, a succession of course instructors had learnt the water technique from observing previous instructors - and none of them had referred to the manual. The practice got perpetuated. This was the fatal flaw. This dovetail into the second question: How did the 2001 review of the lesson plan fail to spot the wide divergence from the book? Were the safety violations even recognised as such? MINDEF will have to satisfy itself that the review had been conducted according to laid-down procedures.
It’s ironic that the CST instructors expect trainees not to leak military intelligence under torture as instructed, when they can’t follow simple safety regulations themselves. Furthermore, the idea behind torturing POWs is to extract important intelligence from them, rather than kill them; the instructors were supposed to teach trainees about combat survival, not cause their deaths during peacetime. They deserve to be suspended for their incompetence as CST instructors, if not for violating safety regulations.
It’s time to douse the macho culture in the SAF with some cold water.